OtherOS is a feature of early versions of the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

, allowing user installed software, such as

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

. The feature was removed since system firmware update 3.21, released on April 1, 2010. Software running in the OtherOS environment has access to 6 of the 7 Synergistic Processing Elements. Sony implemented a hypervisor restricting access to the RSX. IBM provided an introduction to programming parallel applications on the PlayStation 3. After OtherOS was removed, a

class action lawsuit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

was filed against Sony on behalf of users, but was dismissed with prejudice in 2011 by a federal judge. The judge stated: "As a legal matter, ... plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable." However, this decision was overturned in a 2014 appellate court decision finding that plaintiffs had indeed made clear and sufficiently substantial claims. Ultimately, in 2016, Sony settled with users who had installed Linux or had purchased a PlayStation 3 based upon the availability of OtherOS. The settlement was then rejected in February 2017 by judge Yvonne Gonzalez, citing two problems: the lawyers' high fee percentage, and the users' difficulty in collecting. Sony responded in September 2017, offering each member of a single proposed class up to $65. This is a change from $55 and $9 payouts for members of two separate classes in the prior proposal.

History

Since 2000, Sony has marketed

on the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on ...

. It promoted the release of the PS2 Linux Kit, which includes a Linux-based operating system, a USB keyboard and mouse, a

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now ...

adapter, a PlayStation 2

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

network adapter, and a 40 GB

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with mag ...

(HDD). The

does not have Linux pre-installed. However, Sony included an option in the XMB menu soon after the PlayStation 3 launched that allowed booting into Linux from the hard drive or from a

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading f ...

that the distributor's kernel would boot. The installation manual for the Yellow Dog Linux version for PS3 stated, "It was fully intended that you, a PS3 owner, could play games, watch movies, view photos, listen to music, and run a full-featured Linux operating system that transforms your PS3 into a home computer." Sony announcement of the upcoming release of the PS3 Slim in September 2009, stated that it would not support the OtherOS feature, without any explanation. In March 2010, Sony announced that OtherOS would be removed due to security concerns, as of PS3 Firmware 3.21 on April 1, 2010. Several methods of bypassing the updating and retaining the ability to sign into

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smar ...

have been discovered, most of which use third party DNS servers. George Hotz claimed to have created custom firmware for the PS3 called 3.21OO that re-enables OtherOS and published a video as proof. Some in the online community claim that this custom firmware was a hoax. On July 14, 2010, Hotz announced that he would not bring out his custom firmware to the PlayStation 3. On April 27, 2010, a class action lawsuit was filed in California. It claimed that the removal of the OtherOS feature was "unfair and deceptive" and a "breach of good faith". Most of the filing relates to violation of various

consumer protection Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent business ...

laws relating to the removal. Several other lawsuits were also filed and are somewhat similar in nature but are filed by other individuals. In January 2011, Sony sued Hotz and members of fail0verflow for their jailbreaking of the PS3. Charges included violating the DMCA, the CFAA, copyright law, and California's CCDAFA, and for

breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other part ...

trespass Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, woundi ...

. In February, 2011, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed most of the class claims with leave to amend, finding the plaintiffs failed to state a claim. Seeborg stated: "While it cannot be concluded as a matter of law at this juncture that Sony could, without legal consequence, force its customers to choose either to forego installing the software update or to lose access to the other OS feature, the present allegations of the complaint largely fail to state a claim. Accordingly, with the exception of one count, the motion to dismiss will be granted, with leave to amend." On May 4, 2011, Youness Alaoui from the PS3MFW team announced the release of a modified PS3 firmware that allows running OtherOS. On December 8, 2011, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed the last remaining count of the class action lawsuit, stating: "As a legal matter, ... plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable." In January 2014 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit partially reversed the dismissal and sent the case back to the district court. In 2016, Sony settled with American users who installed Linux or purchased a PlayStation 3 based upon the alternative OS functionality. This settlement provided a payment of $55 to those owners who used an alternative OS and/or $9 for purchasing a PlayStation based upon the option. The settlement was then rejected in February 2017 by judge Yvonne Gonzalez, citing two problems. The first was the percentage being charged by the lawyers and the second involved the hurdles faced by those eligible to collect. Sony responded in September 2017, offering members of a single proposed class up to $65. This is a change from $55 and $9 payouts for members of two separate classes in the prior proposal. In November 2018 final payouts for members of the class were sent in the amount of $10.07.

Linux kernel

supported

with version 2.6.21. No patches or modifications are required. A simple Linux add-on CD for the PS3 includes support for

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...

8 and other

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s that already claim to install natively on the PS3. However, there is currently an issue with the latest kboot boot loader provided by

kernel.org kernel.org is the main distribution point of source code for the Linux kernel, which is the base of the Linux operating system. Website The website and related infrastructure, which are operated by the Linux Kernel Organization, host the reposi ...

. Once the user selects the default action, the USB ports are de-registered on some systems. A work-around is available at PSUbuntu.

Distributions

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

8, Gentoo, OpenSUSE (10.3 to 11.1), and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

run on the PlayStation 3. Yellow Dog Linux for the PlayStation 3 was first released in late 2006.

Ubuntu

Some versions of

up to the release 10.10 have been ported to the PS3 platform. The installer cannot run in Live mode when running in

480i 480i is the video mode used for standard-definition digital television in the Caribbean, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Laos, Western Sahara, and most of the Americas (with the exception of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay). T ...

480p 480p is the shorthand name for a family of video display resolutions. The p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced. The ''480'' denotes a vertical resolution of 480 pixels, usually with a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels and 4:3 ...

video resolutions, but it offers a text-based installer that installs fully functional Ubuntu. It is possible to mount an external USB hard drive as the home folder during install. The LTS release 8.04 (Hardy Heron) of Ubuntu is incompatible with the PS3. However the 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) release was ported to the PS3 on the same release date as the official main Ubuntu release.

Yellow Dog Linux

Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 was one of the first Linux distributions to run on

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

platform. It is designed specifically for HDTV so users with SDTV will have to use the commands 'installtext' and 'ydl480i' to install and run. Yellow Dog Linux is based on the

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop ...

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

core and relies on the RPM package manager. Digital audio has been verified to function properly, however, the

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...

is not supported beyond

framebuffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

mode. In addition, some other hardware components will not function properly without modifications to the kernel.

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...

functionality via the Network Manager is also not fully supported and must be entered manually via the Network Configuration tool, or in some cases, through the command shell. A workaround is available to enable wireless to be configured via the Network Manager.

openSUSE

openSUSE 10.3 was the first version of openSUSE to run on the

platform. openSUSE is a free version of SUSE Linux, which was then owned by

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi- platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the le ...

. There are PlayStation 3 specific installation instructions available for openSUSE. Starting with openSUSE 11.2, support for the

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...

(and therefore the PlayStation 3) has been dropped.

Fedora

also ran on the

. Fedora 7 works on a USB external hard disk but fails to detect the internal disk, Fedora 9 detects the internal disk but not the USB disk, Fedora 8 will not work due to video "card" detection problems. Fedora 10 installs on the internal hard disk without any issues and works fine without having to change any settings. Fedora 12 only installs on the PlayStation 3 when running the 64 bit kernel.

RSX Homebrew

Linux on the PlayStation 3 allows for a range of homebrew programs to be developed. Although the Cell's performance is more than enough to handle most media requirements or render complex 3D graphics, it does lack the

teraflops In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate mea ...

performance of a contemporary GPU's texture fetching hardware. For this reason many complex games are not possible on the PlayStation 3 through Linux, as access to hardware acceleration in the RSX is restricted by a hypervisor. There have been developments in enabling access to the RSX through the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...

and the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

. It is possible to use the RSX memory as swap space. A trick to access some 3D functions was blocked with firmware 2.10.

AsbestOS

Reverse engineering advancements focused around a recently discovered USB descriptor parsing vulnerability in 3.41 firmware, which allowed running the Linux kernel on 3.41 firmware. The current state of the project is the ability to load the Linux kernel via TFTP and run it with access to all 7

SPEs In ancient Roman religion, Spes (pronounced ) was the goddess of hope. Multiple temples to Spes are known, and inscriptions indicate that she received private devotion as well as state cult. Republican Hope During the Republic, a temple to "anc ...

(requires applying a small patch to the kernel). The rest of the system can run on an NFS share - hard disk access is currently not implemented, as well as some other features. Also, since the exploit runs the kernel with game privileges, graphics acceleration is now available, although it requires reworking of the nouveau driver code.

FreeBSD

Support for PlayStation 3 was added to

9.0 in summer 2010. This support is limited to machines with OtherOS functionality still intact (firmware version 3.15 and earlier).

References

External links

Open Platform for Playstation 3 Overview

3.21 firmware update removing OtherOS capabilityHow to Bypass PS3 Firmware 3.21 and Connect to PSN using an internal DNS server
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linux On The Playstation 3 Linux PlayStation 3 PowerPC operating systems Game console operating systems Video game controversies