Sony drops Linux Support


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They won't remove BC because the older models had the chip in it that enabled it, and by doing so would be even stupider than removing the OtherOS option.

I'm not going to update for as long as I can to see if Geohot does find an exploit and, if he does, I'll use it.

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Waiting for an exploit just to keep Other OS funcionality?

Maybe we should shift this discussion to the real motivations beneath most of the protests from people who never even touched that option: the fact that this upgrade could prevent the use of an exploit to run pirated software on the PS3. :rolleyes:

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Thought I read somewhere that the hack also required some sort of modification to the console. It wasn't just that the exploit was there and that was it. It required a little bit of soddering as well.

...Well unless the custom firware this guy is working on will get around that issue. I don't really know enough about it since I don't have one.

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Lmao funny how 2 of te games mentioned aren't on PS3 and people get ****ed off about it and then blame valve for being crap AFTER just saying how amazing they are. These PEOPLE are half the customers that walk in evey week and the games in question are Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

So I think your confused when you put that on the list. It would rather come out on MAC natively then the PS3. Lmao that says a lot and I respect valve for it.

That bring said, all you saying " no one uses it or no one cares" OBVIOUSLY DONT UNDERSTAND that sony is removing a option that was ADVERTISED with the fat systems. Just because the slims don't have it doesn't mean ****. Slims didn't have it advertised. Also WHAT IF THEY REMOVE BC? next thing you know the people in this thread defending sonys action are gonna say "the slims don't have bc so it doesn't matter" will be the biggest Sony fanboy ever.

You do understand that Sonys just copping out now. What they should do is stand by there system. And since so many slims are being sold they shouldn't worry about the fats. And since they can't patch the problem let it be. If slims sold more then worry about that. Many people upgraded to slims or bought new ones. There's not that many fats left that will hinder Sony. But doing this just gave geohot permission to **** THEM OFF more and exploit the **** out of the firmware.

I'm glad because no one really bothered with the ps3 but now one of the person for the job will do it. I have faith in geohot. The minute he finds a simple hole he will abuse the hell out of it and I'll be behind him full force for the fact that Sony deserves it.

The point of it is Sony ****ed up and is continuing to **** up. Can't wait till they remove BC For some stupid ass reason or remove anything else. Sony Sony Sony you are full of fail this time around.

Are you feeling fine?? I think you should check your heart rate and blood pressure.

:p

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Nobody can defend this move. Sony just took away a large feature that a lot of people were using (remember all those PS3 clusters?). The consumer gets no benefit out of this move.

What I don't understand is why they even bothered in the first place if it's such a big security risk. Surely they would've learnt from the PS2 Linux system. That makes 8 years they've been supporting Linux on their consoles, and now they decide it's a security risk. Seems odd to me.

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Nobody can defend this move. Sony just took away a large feature that a lot of people were using (remember all those PS3 clusters?). The consumer gets no benefit out of this move.

What I don't understand is why they even bothered in the first place if it's such a big security risk. Surely they would've learnt from the PS2 Linux system. That makes 8 years they've been supporting Linux on their consoles, and now they decide it's a security risk. Seems odd to me.

I agree, I don't use it and it makes not much difference to me, that doesn't mean that the move hasn't upset me. As mentioned this is a feature that was advertised at the time of sale of the machine. Now that is being taken away making the machine LESS value for money than it started out at. In terms of security I'm guessing they thought that had that covererd witht he hypervisor system in place, but like any secuirty systems, there is always someone out there that has a point to prove and get around.

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Nobody can defend this move. Sony just took away a large feature that a lot of people were using (remember all those PS3 clusters?). The consumer gets no benefit out of this move.

What I don't understand is why they even bothered in the first place if it's such a big security risk. Surely they would've learnt from the PS2 Linux system. That makes 8 years they've been supporting Linux on their consoles, and now they decide it's a security risk. Seems odd to me.

It wasn't such a big security risk though was it, that is part of the point.

You get some guy who hacks it, shows how he did it and that its something that apparently cant be easily blocked. Sony have just done what I assume would be the quickest and easiest way of stopping it for now.

Doesn't mean I agree with it, but this is what happens when things get hacked up for so called "Homebrew" that will always lead to piracy.

And all those PS3 Clusters wont be going through PSN network to be playing games anyway, so they won't be updated.

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Well well I yesterday read on the Playstation forums that the removal of OtherOS might break US law:

Hello all' date='

I noticed there was some consternation on this topic, so I thought I'd toss my hat in the ring. I apologize for creating yet another thread on the subject, but the others had grown trollish enough in tone and tenor that I felt a new one was merited.

First and foremost, let me fully qualify my opinion on the matter:

I'm not a PS3 user (in fact, I own a 360), so this change does not personally effect me. I actually created this account for the sole purpose of discussing this issue.

I am, however, a Law Student and an ardent suporter of Consumer Rights (especially in the tech industry), FOSS, net neutrality and that ilk. As such, I have a very strong personal interest in the matter.

That being said, after examining the relevant web content on Sony's website, as well as the FTC's website, I can say with a degree of certainty that the proposed Firmware update WOULD, in fact, violate US Consumer Protection Laws.

My sources:

[url']http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/baitads-gd.htm[/url]

sinstall.html'>http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/o

sinstall.html

The case is quite simple.

The FTC defines "advertisement" as "any form of public notice however disseminated or utilized." In this case, the second Sony owned and maintained website, detailing how to install an alternate OS on a PS3. In a legal sense, Other OS is an advertisement feature of the applicable models of the Sony PS3.

As such, Sony is legally obligated to honor that advertisement. Should they disable Other OS with the oncoming Firmware update, they would be committing an ex post facto "Bait and Switch", according to US Consumer Protection Laws.

This being said, I highly encourage all PS3 users who feel jilted by this change to stick to your guns. Post in the forums, call their customer service hotline and, should the need arise, find a Class Action suit to join. Despite what the detractors may say, the law IS, in fact, on your side.

Peace, Love and Empathy,

Jaecyn42

Source

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I agree, I don't use it and it makes not much difference to me, that doesn't mean that the move hasn't upset me. As mentioned this is a feature that was advertised at the time of sale of the machine. Now that is being taken away making the machine LESS value for money than it started out at. In terms of security I'm guessing they thought that had that covererd witht he hypervisor system in place, but like any secuirty systems, there is always someone out there that has a point to prove and get around.

It wasn't such a big security risk though was it, that is part of the point.

You get some guy who hacks it, shows how he did it and that its something that apparently cant be easily blocked. Sony have just done what I assume would be the quickest and easiest way of stopping it for now.

Doesn't mean I agree with it, but this is what happens when things get hacked up for so called "Homebrew" that will always lead to piracy.

And all those PS3 Clusters wont be going through PSN network to be playing games anyway, so they won't be updated.

Exactly. PS3 Clusters will continue to flourish.

"Home piracy" is destroying legitimate features by forcing SONY's hand. Geohotz announced he would be working on CFW and we all know where that leads. Like the PSP CFW to play "homebrew". It's sad that his desire for internet fame (what was even the point of hacking the hypervisor other than prove it could be done? Why not keep that to himself and be happy about his mad skillz?) lead to the removal of a feature.

SkyDX, as said before, since the update isn't mandatory and the "block" is from the PSN side of things, the PS3 product in itself will not have a feature forceably removed. Only if the customer chooses to do so. You can argue that you can't play games or use a SONY provided service that way but I think that falls under the legal doutrine of "Having your cake and eating it too!". :shifty:

And to clarify my stance on this before somebody thinks I'm a SONY shill, I'm not in favor of the removal of legitimate features. I'm against the veiled motives that some people have to brew up a storm about this, especially because the most vocal protesters are people that never even used Other OS. I'm not seeing any University with a cluster complaining. People have been itching to start pirating PS3 games and this puts a big dent on those plans.

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Is it seriously even a problem about removing the 'Other OS' feature? I don't have any data to hand, or scientific evidence, but I'd be more than certain it's barely used, if at all, and when it is used, you have a really really crummy computer. It's a console. The only exception to this is of course clustered PS3s for distributed applications, and I'd imagine they just don't update because not being able to access PSN or play games isn't really a concern of a clustered node.

This is a total non-issue.

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Home piracy is destroying legitimate features.

Well, yes and no. Piracy is an easy one to argue, but consider homebrew applications and properly unlocking the device to do anything. Take this interview with J Allard for example, around the 360 launch.

* GI: I was wondering if you had any office pools going around yet for how many hours it'll take modders to hack your system?

* Allard: No, we don't have any office pools like that (laughs). We do know that they're already being very ambitious with it, and it's flattering in a way. It's kind of funny. A lot of the modders... First, game piracy is bad. Right? Shame, shame, shame. But if we all look at it, you know, half of us in the room would not be employed if game piracy was more rampant than it was. It's bad for the industry. As it is the industry's not in the best financial shape. Piracy only makes that worse.

So putting piracy aside what did most of them do? They made it a media player. They had it connect to portable devices. They had it copy my music off of my PC so I could get it here. They did visualizers. They made themes. They made it something they could actually participate in. Well, we took a lot of those great ideas and said, "You want to make a theme? We'll give you a theme editor. Go put themes on." You don't have to chip your box to make your box yours. You don't have to unscrew it to put little green lights in it. Just rip off the faceplate and go put on a theme. Because everyone wants to do a lot of what legitimate modders wanted to do. There will still be the hobbyists that want to rip it apart. There will still be the pirates that want to rip it off. We can't avoid that.

I also think you've jumped a bit there. Remember that it's Sony destroying legitimate features. When the MechAssault exploit for the Xbox was discovered, did Microsoft take the game off shelves and ban anyone from Live playing it? No, they quietly updated the game and left it at that. When a new jailbreaking exploit is discovered in Apple's devices, do Apple go around removing features (say, TIFF support)? No, they patched it. I could sit here all day listing numerous exploits and patches that don't purposefully break things and remove features that you paid for, but you get the idea.

Sony shouldn't have advertised the feature if they intended on dropping it when they felt like it.

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^ Completely agree with the above post. Companies should not be allowed to advertise features, and then remove them as and when they please.

And yes, a feature dependent on the server side is still considered a feature.

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Well, yes and no. Piracy is an easy one to argue, but consider homebrew applications and properly unlocking the device to do anything. Take this interview with J Allard for example, around the 360 launch.

I also think you've jumped a bit there. Remember that it's Sony destroying legitimate features. When the MechAssault exploit for the Xbox was discovered, did Microsoft take the game off shelves and ban anyone from Live playing it? No, they quietly updated the game and left it at that. When a new jailbreaking exploit is discovered in Apple's devices, do Apple go around removing features (say, TIFF support)? No, they patched it. I could sit here all day listing numerous exploits and patches that don't purposefully break things and remove features that you paid for, but you get the idea.

Sony shouldn't have advertised the feature if they intended on dropping it when they felt like it.

But the thing is, the PS3 already could do pretty much anything. It could run Linux, it could stream video, it could use user made themes. The exploit forced SONY's hand because it depends on Linux being present. "Linux" here being a catch-all term because there are a lot of versions (I can even see it in my mind someone making an Exploitbuntu distro). They can't "patch" them all obviously so they took the drastic option of removing it. The exploit can't even be used for anything now but SONY has to nip it in the bud before it gets to the "homebrew" level. Maybe we should stop calling it Homebrew and just start calling it "Piracy + some funny apps that have no real purpose other than show that they can be done".

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Nobody can defend this move. Sony just took away a large feature that a lot of people were using (remember all those PS3 clusters?). The consumer gets no benefit out of this move.

What I don't understand is why they even bothered in the first place if it's such a big security risk. Surely they would've learnt from the PS2 Linux system. That makes 8 years they've been supporting Linux on their consoles, and now they decide it's a security risk. Seems odd to me.

Those PS3 clusters are fine. You don't need to update the firmware for those, since you're not using the PSN.

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I'm against the veiled motives that some people have to brew up a storm about this, especially because the most vocal protesters are people that never even used Other OS. I'm not seeing any University with a cluster complaining.

You don't know that for a fact, yet you persist in saying it over and over again. Either post some proof of it, or STFU. I'm very upset about this and yes, I have used Linux on the PS3 (for legit purposes). Stop calling everyone here who wants to continue using it a pirate or a liar, because that seems to be what you are saying with that statement.

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But the thing is, the PS3 already could do pretty much anything. It could run Linux, it could stream video, it could use user made themes. The exploit forced SONY's hand because it depends on Linux being present. "Linux" here being a catch-all term because there are a lot of versions (I can even see it in my mind someone making an Exploitbuntu distro). They can't "patch" them all obviously so they took the drastic option of removing it. The exploit can't even be used for anything now but SONY has to nip it in the bud before it gets to the "homebrew" level. Maybe we should stop calling it Homebrew and just start calling it "Piracy + some funny apps that have no real purpose other than show that they can be done".

Wrong. They don't have to patch all of the Linux distros, they need to patch the hypervisor, which is where the flaw that allows the exploit is at. It's increasingly obvious that you haven't got the first clue what you are talking about here, so welcome to my ignore list. Goodbye.

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Maybe we should shift this discussion to the real motivations beneath most of the protests from people who never even touched that option: the fact that this upgrade could prevent the use of an exploit to run pirated software on the PS3. :rolleyes:

Geohotz announced he would be working on CFW and we all know where that leads. Like the PSP CFW to play "homebrew".

Those are some very daring statements you've made there. Saying CWF leads to piracy is one thing (even though there are many uses for it beyond piracy), but saying anyone who?s angry about losing OtherOS has been "motivated" by piracy is a bit ludicrous. I very much doubt there is any great number of PS3 owners out there waiting for piracy. If anything, PS3 owners are the only of the current gen least likely to be looking for piracy because of how secure the console has been. It is the only console that still hasn?t been opened to piracy (something, which I might add, its OtherOS feature may have had a hand in).

The thought that there is some prospective pirate, out there now, clasping his hands over his, as of yet, unused PS3 and silently muttering the phrase ?any year now, any year?? is quite hilarious to me.

Wrong. They don't have to patch all of the Linux distros, they need to patch the hypervisor, which is where the flaw that allows the exploit is at. It's increasingly obvious that you haven't got the first clue what you are talking about here, so welcome to my ignore list. Goodbye.

The exploit Geohot created can?t be fixed via a hypervisor patch. The hack essentially requires running a voltage over the memory controller, causing it to foul up. That?s not something you can really patch for?

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Those are some very daring statements you've made there. Saying CWF leads to piracy is one thing (even though there are many uses for it beyond piracy), but saying anyone who?s angry about losing OtherOS has been "motivated" by piracy is a bit ludicrous. I very much doubt there is any great number of PS3 owners out there waiting for piracy. If anything, PS3 owners are the only of the current gen least likely to be looking for piracy because of how secure the console has been. It is the only console that still hasn?t been opened to piracy (something, which I might add, its OtherOS feature may have had a hand in).

The thought that there is some prospective pirate, out there now, clasping his hands over his, as of yet, unused PS3 and silently muttering the phrase ?any year now, any year?? is quite hilarious to me.

Not everyone but you must admit that amongst people with a legitimate beef, there is a group of people clamoring against the removal of Other OS that never even used the feature or knew that it existed. They know however that Geohotz used it to access the Hypervisor and open the possibility of CFW.

There isn't a direct relation between the development of CFW and piracy, as CFW adds sometimes overlooked features by the original developers and that's great. I used to run Rockbox on my iPod and liked it very much. But there is also no denying that once CFW is possible, the running of pirated copies is right behind it.

The exploit Geohot created can?t be fixed via a hypervisor patch. The hack essentially requires running a voltage over the memory controller, causing it to foul up. That?s not something you can really patch for?

Exactly. SONY is fighting a war of attrition now. How many people will not update just waiting for the CFW that may never come vs. playing online and all that fun stuff.

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There an article on itworld that goes to say that the motivation behind this move could very well be killing PS3 supercomputing rather than preventing piracy.

If Sony does indeed still lose money for every PS3 sold, people buying large amounts of units for clustering while not spending anything on software doesn't sound like a good deal for them :unsure:

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Well, yes and no. Piracy is an easy one to argue, but consider homebrew applications and properly unlocking the device to do anything. Take this interview with J Allard for example, around the 360 launch.

I also think you've jumped a bit there. Remember that it's Sony destroying legitimate features. When the MechAssault exploit for the Xbox was discovered, did Microsoft take the game off shelves and ban anyone from Live playing it? No, they quietly updated the game and left it at that. When a new jailbreaking exploit is discovered in Apple's devices, do Apple go around removing features (say, TIFF support)? No, they patched it. I could sit here all day listing numerous exploits and patches that don't purposefully break things and remove features that you paid for, but you get the idea.

Sony shouldn't have advertised the feature if they intended on dropping it when they felt like it.

+1 i read somewhere else that the SPU that uses the Other OS feature is the same one use that the playstation moves uses, that's why they need to disable the Other OS feature. I read it here... I can't link to the actual article (at work :( )

http://www.n4g.com/News-502610.aspx

makes sense i guess...

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I assume your post is aimed at me, and I also assume that you forgot that there's a PC version of L4D / L4D2, which would be a non-XBox 360 platform.

I do know that as I play it on pc. I was refering to the fact that it's not on ps3 yet when you(figurative) say multi platofrm people end up thinking ps3 before pc. That's al. Was attacking you just making sure the people who are new to consoles realize multiplatform doesn't only mean 360 or ps3. Could mean pc/ds/wii/etc

Well well I yesterday read on the Playstation forums that the removal of OtherOS might break US law:

Source

lmao great post. What's funny is not only did Sony get owned by a 360 fan. They also got owned by a straight up LAW student. I wanna see how they will get around this lol.

Btw for those who say no one uses the linux support I thought over 34 people how to use it. Now they all watch Movies through Linux or the parents have made it a family computer with xfce that they can oversea.

So yeah, when they recently found out about this they didn't update and bombarded Sony with emails and phone calls. Sonys phone support can't even explain why it's been removed and emails are worthless. But they all will ask for a fraction of the money "back" for removing such a useful feature.

Not EVERYONE is a pirate. This comment goes towards the person who said "those arguring Sony removing it must hve another motive rather then Linux". I'm on my phone or I would multi quote

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From http://us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/index.htm :

Notices

* Do not download or install updates using data other than official update data provided online or on disc media by Sony Computer Entertainment, and do not download or install updates by methods other than those described in the system documentation or on this website. If you download or install update data from another source, by another method, or with a PS3™ system that has been altered or modified in any way, the PS3™ system may not operate properly and may not be able to install the official update data. Any of these actions may void the PS3™ system warranty and affect your ability to obtain warranty services and repair services from Sony Computer Entertainment.

* This update is for PS3™ systems purchased in North America. DO NOT update your PS3™ system through this website if you purchased your system outside North America. There is no guarantee of proper operation with other models sold outside North America.

* The system software and system software updates installed on your system are subject to a limited license from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Refer to http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-eula for details.

* If your PS3™ system software version is 3.21 (or later), you do not need to perform this update. To check the version of your system software, go to (Settings) > > (System Settings) > [system Information]. The information is shown in the [system Software] field.

* This system software update includes all features contained in previous versions.

* To play some software or use some features, you may first need to update the system software.

* Depending on your PS3™ system software version, the screen images and icons that are used on this website may differ from those that appear on your system.

SUE!

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