Linux petitioners want Sony to open up PS3's graphical innards

WHILE THE LINUX community is pretty chuffed that Sony lets them stick their fave operating system on the PS3 there's one hitch that is giving them the heebie-jeebies.

Sony provides partitioning tools to allow the console to be dual booted and to setup a Linux as the one to boot from.

Terrasoft produces a custom distro of Yellow Dog Linux for the console. and versions of Fedora, Gentoo, an Ubuntu have all be seen running n the box.

But the Penguinistas have run into the problem that all versions running on the PS3 have no access to RSX, the Nvidia-sourced GPU.

Access is blocked by the Hypervisor chip so there is no chance of getting around it without Sony's approval. And, naturally, Sony doesn't want geeks producing 3D games under Linux and undermining its investment. It flogs the console in order to make mountains of wonga on the highly-priced games folk play on it.

"Do they think people will code Gears of War 2 at home?" asks our Penguin-friendly course, who notes that the actual performance in Linux is "bloody awful" because of the block.

So now there's a a petition online asking Sony to open up the RSX. It's here.

Will Sony listen? If it looks like its cash flow would be hit by such a move then that's highly unlikely, we suggest. But it's worth a shot. µ