Month: December 2006

Gentoo PPC64 PS3 LiveCD is in BETA

I’m pleased to announce that a BETA LiveCD for PS3s and PowerMacs is making it’s way onto the Gentoo mirrors as I write this. The LiveCD can be found on the mirrors in the ppc64 experimental section. You can check out a screenshot from the LiveCD at:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/ppc64/ps3/beta.jpg

The LiveCD works on PS3s and G5 Apple PowerMacs. It contains a full Gnome desktop as well as:

  • Firefox-2x (Bon Echo)
  • Audacious
  • Xchat
  • Gaim
  • Evolution
  • Gimp-2

Among other things, we plan to add Thunderbird in the near future.

Please feel free to download and test the LiveCD; however, do not, under any circumstances, report bugs via Gentoo’s official bugzilla mechanism. I’d prefer join us on #gentoo-ppc64 to report feedback.

Note to PS3 Users

The LiveCD contains a kboot.conf file which should allow you to boot the LiveCD. Choose the label that most closely matches your TV’s resolution. This is an area where we plan to put some future enhancements.

Sound

Sound should be functional on the LiveCD. You need to unmute the master channel with the alsa-mixer application.

I would like to thank each of the following for their participation in the LiveCD creation: lu_zero, mtb, nickthecook, deadfall, wolf3l02, and mmschnei. Sorry if I missed anyone.

Merry Christmas,

Ranger

Merry Christmas and a ppc64 New Year

I would first like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, peace on earth, etc. That said, there has been a resurgence of activity with Gentoo for PPC64. We have been actively working on a real livecd which boots into a full Gnome environment ala x86.

However the real motivation behind it is that this cd also supports PS3s. We currently have the CD in beta and have one last hurdle to clear, but as of now the cd works on PS3s as is. The only gotcha is the xorg configuration which can be done by hand. The cd includes firefox-2, gnome, and other things you’d expect including sound sound. You can use the CD for installs as well.

If you are interested in this project, check out the following:

  • http://ppc64.gentoo.org/
  • http://ppc64.gentoo.org/ps3/
  • http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/cell

We have also built up quite base of folks who are PS3 savy now as well. Drop by on IRC on #gentoo-ppc64 and visit.