OtherOS fallout, Sony's changed the EULA now. It's not good. [Page 8]

GrimReaper

elliotw2 wrote: »

Voth wrote: »

I was actually thinking of putting YDL on my PS3 for a couple months now. It's really not that much trouble and I wanted to be able to use a browser that wasn't completely crippled. Oh, well.

The PS3 browser isn't completely terrible. You can use a mouse and keyboard, and it supports flash

I wish the rumour about Sony moving the browser to Firefox was true, ah well.. mind you, if they ever were to move to a different browser they'd probably go Chrome for its portability and its pretty damn good security.

elliotw2

They still use Netfront, because it's easy on RAM, unlike most PC web browsers. When's the last time you tried to use Chrome or Firefox on 256-512MB of RAM?

Synthesis

Yeah, given what a memory monster Firefox is, I could only see it working with the limitation of having one tab open at any given time.

elliotw2

I'm actually pretty impressed with Netfront's performance, most of the time. It runs well, even when I have 3 tabs open, it displays images well, and it can do most kinds of flash video that I run through it. The only problem is that it's a little slow to load a full page.

amnesiasoft

elliotw2 wrote: »

They still use Netfront, because it's easy on RAM, unlike most PC web browsers. When's the last time you tried to use Chrome or Firefox on 256-512MB of RAM?

I dunno, Webkit is what's used on both Android and the iPhone. Let's go with Presto then.

Mr_Grinch

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

I would be all for them changing the slogan to It Only Does Everything That Matters to Normal People

I'm a normal person, I like to use linux on the PS3.

Elvenshae

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

I would be all for them changing the slogan to It Only Does Everything That Matters to Normal People

I'm [not] a normal person, I like to use linux on the PS3.

Fix'd.

Anyone who includes the statement "I like to use Linux" in anything is, by definition, not a normal person.

ED!

I have 15 or so PS3 games in a single year of ownership. I have, but once, done anything beyond play video games, and use my PS3 as an awesome media center. This update means nothing to me, and I'd imagine many other people. Those that have a legitimate, mission critical use for this feature, will simply NOT update (someone mentioned computer science post-grads and the military); everyone else will go on with their day. Those that want this feature and still want to play PS3 games, will no doubt rationalize going out and buying a PS3 new, or on the cheap through Craigslist.

cloudeagle

If Sony were smart, they'd have realized that allowing Linux could lead to the system getting cracked easier than if it didn't. But they really haven't been thinking things through this gen. ($600 PS3 launch, $250 PSP Go with half-assed DD plan, etc.)

ED!

Damned if you do, damned if you don't right?

Couscous

Damned if you do, nobody gives a shit if you don't. Nobody gave much of a shit about removing SACD support and that actually might be used once in a billion years by some insane person.

elliotw2

cloudeagle wrote: »

If Sony were smart, they'd have realized that allowing Linux could lead to the system getting cracked easier than if it didn't. But they really haven't been thinking things through this gen. ($600 PS3 launch, $250 PSP Go with half-assed DD plan, etc.)

Well, that's why they had the Hypervisor, to prevent any kind of access to anything that's not the wifi, Cell, or USB. The hard drive is encrypted, so you couldn't access the Sony Firmware, only the part you formatted for Linux, but this guy apparently found a big hardware glitch in the Hypervisor.

Also: Didn't no one give a shit when the Slim didn't have LInux support?

ArcticMonkey

cloudeagle wrote: »

If Sony were smart, they'd have realized that allowing Linux could lead to the system getting cracked easier than if it didn't. But they really haven't been thinking things through this gen. ($600 PS3 launch, $250 PSP Go with half-assed DD plan, etc.)

Running homebrew is usually the starting point for piracy, but with a safe way to do so from day 1 fewer hackers worked towards hacks pirates could piggyback on.
In addition the lack of region coding removed another reason/excuse to break the PS3s security.

If Sony had not done this, the PS3 would be a big red target for the Linux/homebrew crowd.

Seeing how piracy is still not possible after 3.5 years on the market, Sony should not be accused of not being smart when it comes to security. There is plenty of lolsony to go around, but this is not it.

Rizzi

I own a slim. I think I used Linux on my old fat Ps3 once, realised that I own a pc I could install Linux on and then forgot all about it.
Still, it's a pretty shitty move on their behalf.

acidlacedpenguin

elliotw2 wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

If Sony were smart, they'd have realized that allowing Linux could lead to the system getting cracked easier than if it didn't. But they really haven't been thinking things through this gen. ($600 PS3 launch, $250 PSP Go with half-assed DD plan, etc.)

Well, that's why they had the Hypervisor, to prevent any kind of access to anything that's not the wifi, Cell, or USB. The hard drive is encrypted, so you couldn't access the Sony Firmware, only the part you formatted for Linux, but this guy apparently found a big hardware glitch in the Hypervisor.

Also: Didn't no one give a shit when the Slim didn't have LInux support?

no one gave a shit because it was still possible to buy a PS3 with Linux support. That and Sony wasn't taking away a feature that legitimate users had already paid for.

DHS Odium

I have a PS3 with 10GB of my 60GB drive partitioned, which has Linux on it. I mostly use the PS3 for games. Still, this is shitty. It was an extra feature, when I purchase something, I purchase it for all of the features, and the hope that new ones will be added later on - not taken away. When I can no longer use that partition, my 60GB PS3 will have become a 50GB PS3. To add that space back, I need to reformat the drive, which Sony has an iffy backup and restore process. It's not something I should have to do.

I will be okay with this if Sony gives me something in return - a free game, or DLC - and makes the process of reintegrating my space dead simple with no reformat or backup necessary. I strongly suspect neither of these things will happen.

GrimReaper

ArcticMonkey wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

If Sony were smart, they'd have realized that allowing Linux could lead to the system getting cracked easier than if it didn't. But they really haven't been thinking things through this gen. ($600 PS3 launch, $250 PSP Go with half-assed DD plan, etc.)

Running homebrew is usually the starting point for piracy, but with a safe way to do so from day 1 fewer hackers worked towards hacks pirates could piggyback on.
In addition the lack of region coding removed another reason/excuse to break the PS3s security.

If Sony had not done this, the PS3 would be a big red target for the Linux/homebrew crowd.

Seeing how piracy is still not possible after 3.5 years on the market, Sony should not be accused of not being smart when it comes to security. There is plenty of lolsony to go around, but this is not it.

Honestly, I think at least homebrew for games consoles (the non portable kind) is dying out because of HTPC's. A while back I bought a pre-modchipped Xbox specifically so I could use XBMC (then XBMP) because buying a pc purely for a media center was too expensive at the time. These days you can buy a pc ridiculously cheap. For example, look at the price of an acer aspire.. those things are incredible, bought one for work recently and I was amazed at the bloody thing both at how powerful it is and the size of the bloody thing.

My HTPC runs circles around the performance of any games console and it allows me to play pc games on my 40" hdtv.

greeble

elliotw2 wrote: »

but this guy apparently found a big hardware glitch in the Hypervisor.

It wasn't so much that he found a big hardware glitch, but that he caused it. He had a little device that could pulse ground (40 nanosecond windows) out one of the leads so that the command to tell the system to deallocate memory never went through. The only thing that Sony could have done to prevent this was make it so the hypervisor would wait for a response to make sure all of its commands were executed. This would have a pretty big impact on performance.

Quantux

First, I like Linux. A lot. It's on my desktop, netbook and phone. But I never used it on my 60GB model, and didn't care that the new slim I got was missing the feature. Maybe if the gpu had been accessible... But it's really a dick move to just up and remove the feature out of fear of piracy. Especially dick to make peoples existing installs die. I'm still half believing the april fools idea, maybe they'll include something really awesome instead (BC for all maybe?) guess we'll know tomorrow.

If they do yank it, I hope someone finds a real, viable way to pirate games just to make them look extra stupid.

For those who say "who cares? stupid linux." wait till they remove a feature you like (media streaming, trophies, 1080p blu-ray playback, etc.) If they're really this scared about piracy, it's all fair game...

FyreWulff

It turned out that Sony didn't actually lock out the GPU.

It's just that nobody ever wrote a driver for the RSX

Unco-ordinated

Quantux wrote: »

First, I like Linux. A lot. It's on my desktop, netbook and phone. But I never used it on my 60GB model, and didn't care that the new slim I got was missing the feature. Maybe if the gpu had been accessible... But it's really a dick move to just up and remove the feature out of fear of piracy. Especially dick to make peoples existing installs die. I'm still half believing the april fools idea, maybe they'll include something really awesome instead (BC for all maybe?) guess we'll know tomorrow.

If they do yank it, I hope someone finds a real, viable way to pirate games just to make them look extra stupid.

For those who say "who cares? stupid linux." wait till they remove a feature you like (media streaming, trophies, 1080p blu-ray playback, etc.) If they're really this scared about piracy, it's all fair game...

You realise that wouldn't make them look stupid, right? If anything that'd actually justify removing linux. Why? Because if piracy does start up on the PS3 then it'll almost certainly require linux, which most people probably won't have by that point (having long since upgraded their firmware). If anything, what would make them look stupid is if nothing ever eventuates from geohot's hack.

Oh and besides the fact that that last part is a slippery slope fallacy, none of those features have any security holes in them, so they're not going to be removed.

FyreWulff

Didn't stop them from removing SACD support

Unco-ordinated

SACD was dropped because they were paying royalties for something nobody at all used. And they didn't patch the feature out (it's still in my PS3), they just stopped including it with new systems.

DasUberEdward

WHAT A TERRIBLE UPDATE

sigh. not only is it removing a feature but it's taking forever.

UnbreakableVow

Really?

Mine took like three minutes tops

halkun

FyreWulff wrote: »

It turned out that Sony didn't actually lock out the GPU.

It's just that nobody ever wrote a driver for the RSX

This is false. You only had access to a chunk of ram that emulated video memory. Every frame the hypervisor copied this ram chunk into the RSX. The performance hit was massive and was why you couldn't play hi-def videos.

Originally, Yellow Dog was "working with Sony to get GPU support". Then there was silence.
After about six months, a hole was found in the hypervisor that gave access to the GPU registers. A driver was being written using the codebase from the opensource Nvidia driver. It got to the point where a good deal of hardware GPU commands could get issued though the hole.

A month later Sony issued an update under the name of "security" that patched the hypervisor and closed the access to the GPU without any warning.

We all kind of saw where Sony was going.

Oh, about removing features from the PS3... How's watching Hulu on the PS3 web browser working out for you guys.

FyreWulff

halkun wrote: »

FyreWulff wrote: »

It turned out that Sony didn't actually lock out the GPU.

It's just that nobody ever wrote a driver for the RSX

This is false.

Originally, Yellow Dog was "working with Sony to get GPU support". Then there was silence.
After about six months, a hole was found in the hypervisor that gave access to the GPU registers. A driver was being written using the codebase from the opensource Nvidia driver. It got to the point where a good deal of hardware GPU commands could get issued though the hole.

A month later Sony issued an update under the name of "security" that patched the hypervisor and closed the access to the GPU without any warning.

We all kind of saw where Sony was going.

Oh, about removing features from the PS3... How's watching Hulu on the PS3 web browser working out for you guys.

Well, according to geohot he found nothing that blocked GPU access when he got all the instructions, so...

halkun

FyreWulff wrote: »

halkun wrote: »

FyreWulff wrote: »

It turned out that Sony didn't actually lock out the GPU.

It's just that nobody ever wrote a driver for the RSX

This is false.

Originally, Yellow Dog was "working with Sony to get GPU support". Then there was silence.
After about six months, a hole was found in the hypervisor that gave access to the GPU registers. A driver was being written using the codebase from the opensource Nvidia driver. It got to the point where a good deal of hardware GPU commands could get issued though the hole.

A month later Sony issued an update under the name of "security" that patched the hypervisor and closed the access to the GPU without any warning.

We all kind of saw where Sony was going.

Oh, about removing features from the PS3... How's watching Hulu on the PS3 web browser working out for you guys.

Well, according to geohot he found nothing that blocked GPU access when he got all the instructions, so...

...because he broke the hypervisor

Unco-ordinated

halkun wrote: »

Oh, about removing features from the PS3... How's watching Hulu on the PS3 web browser working out for you guys.

I wouldn't have been able to get access to Hulu anyway but you can't exactly blame Sony for Hulu blocking access to the service from the PS3.

UnbreakableVow

Why the fuck would anyone watch Hulu on the PS3

Even when it worked, it sucked and was choppy as hell

Kainy

Actual text message I sent this morning:

"Taking a shower while my PS3 downgrades itself"

R.I.P. features. I wonder what's next, backwards compatibility...

Synthesis

Kainy wrote: »

Actual text message I sent this morning:

"Taking a shower while my PS3 downgrades itself"

R.I.P. features. I wonder what's next, backwards compatibility...

Ah, well, probably not, but if so....I can do without PSN. Until my PS3 dies anyway.

THEPAIN73

If they took away BC I would cry.

Dirty

Kainy wrote: »

Actual text message I sent this morning:

"Taking a shower while my PS3 downgrades itself"

R.I.P. features. I wonder what's next, backwards compatibility...

Does anyone honestly believe they are going to retroactively remove BC? I mean seriously believe it would happen, and not just throwing out slippery slope bullshit to make the removal of Linux sound more dire than it really is.

jclast

The only thing that bugged me about the update is the same thing that bugs me about every PS3 update - that they take longer than I'd like when all I want to do is play a game. I don't know what witchcraft MS coded into the 360 to make it update faster, but they both go wireless to the same router, but PS3 stuff is noticably slower.

And if I want to use Linux for something I'll just grab the netbook that sits on the table next to my couch. That PS3 HDD is for games and saves - I won't have any sort of "productivity" hanging out where Kratos slaughters everything that is unwise enough to exist in his general vicinity.

ArcticMonkey

360s updates are incremental, while PS3 downloads the entire firmware every time. Another security measure from Sony.

Dirty

Yeah, waiting for firmware updates are a bitch on PSN. That's why I update after I play a game.

Quantux

Unco-ordinated wrote: »

You realise that wouldn't make them look stupid, right? If anything that'd actually justify removing linux. Why? Because if piracy does start up on the PS3 then it'll almost certainly require linux, which most people probably won't have by that point (having long since upgraded their firmware). If anything, what would make them look stupid is if nothing ever eventuates from geohot's hack.

Oh and besides the fact that that last part is a slippery slope fallacy, none of those features have any security holes in them, so they're not going to be removed.

Why would piracy require Linux? I don't quite understand that part. The ps1, ps2, DC, xbox, xbox360 all got modded just fine without it (hard and soft mods).

My point was that they pissed off a lot of people by removing the feature and actively disabling their working installs just because some guy might have found a way to run unsigned code that might be viable for use by pirates sometime next decade. And I agree that when nothing comes of the hack, they will look silly, but I liken it to someone who has a gopher problem and they nuke their backyard, only to find gopher holes in the front yard too. Right now, they're crowing to the shareholders that they are still Sony 1, Pirates 0. Just look at all the diligence being done to thwart those nasty hackers. But they haven't checked the front yard yet...

I do know removing something like blu-ray output to 1080p is not really going to happen, but my point is that at some point, there's going to be another breach of "security", and if this is any indication, the reaction will be just as stupid. More likely it'll be:

"Like to stream un-drm'd videos/music to your ps3? Sorry, that feature has been disabled for security reasons. Please wait while we redirect you to the Sony Store."

Or some random flash exploit:

"Like to surf the web from your ps3? Sorry, that feature has been removed due to security reasons. Please wait while we redirect you to the Sony Store."

The real slippery slope is the one that Sony is on trying to please the stockholders by pissing off the customers.

Dehumanized

Not updating until they come up with more firmware that includes a carrot with the stick. Personally unaffected by the removal of the feature, though.

GrimReaper

Dirty wrote: »

Kainy wrote: »

Actual text message I sent this morning:

"Taking a shower while my PS3 downgrades itself"

R.I.P. features. I wonder what's next, backwards compatibility...

Does anyone honestly believe they are going to retroactively remove BC? I mean seriously believe it would happen, and not just throwing out slippery slope bullshit to make the removal of Linux sound more dire than it really is.

The only way I could see them removing BC is if someone found a way to use it to play pirate PS3 games, but considering the BC is on a soac separate from the rest of the PS3 I don't see how this could happen.