Yellow Dog Linux 5 will become available in the middle of November for the PS3 and for the Apple PowerPC a bit after.
The catch? It is not free. You can download the installation files from the YDL.net service (at a fee) and burn them to a bootable disc to install on the PS3. Two weeks after this launch they will be making fully created discs available on their website. A month after that - it's free for all people to download. Early adopter penalty? Odd.
Both casual users and experienced users will be able to handle the new Linux installation. That might be a one-click installation or the detailed experienced user install. The operating system is based on Fedora Core 5.0 Linux and will contain:
- kernel 2.6.16 (core component)
- cell sdk 1.1
- gcc 3.4.4 and glibc 2.4 (compiler)
- FireFox (browser) 1.5.0 and Thunderbird (e-mail) 1.5.0
- Nautilus 2.1.4 (file manager)
- OpenOffice 2.0.2 (suite like Microsoft Office)
If the above list seems to be written in greek - you're not a Linux tech g33k. And you know? That's ok. For those of us Linux users, this means we can have a fairly powerful, fully usable, Linux OS.
You can, however, buy a fully tricked out Linux system online for less than the cost of a PS3 but you cannot game on it and have a fully functional bluray player.
What does this really mean? It means many lab rats are going to have their chance to try and hack through some BluRay devices using a free operating system on a new piece of hardware. They will be able to design their own software packages for the PS3 (and Yellow Dog in general) and better the experience of the PS3's secondary operating system.
Lastly, this dulls the need to hack the PS3 to install linux. Linux geeks love to hack linux into anything that contains a circuit board. The challange now? Install Fedora, Debian or some other Linux distribution just to say you can!
