Madagascar on a Playstation 3

1
Madagascar on a Playstation 3

• William Burnett
• Friday Seminar
• December 4, 2009

2
Motivation

• Curiosity
• Playstation 3 (PS3) is an expensive game console
  but a cheap home computer
• Cell processor

3
Overview

• PS3 background and hardware
• Linux on a PS3
• Madagascar on a PS3

4
Precedence of PS3 in Geophysics

• Bednar and Bednar, 2007, Playing around with a
  seismic Playstation cluster, SEG Expanded
  Abstracts
• Panorama Technologies Software
• Raytracing
• FD Modeling
• 2-way RTM
• Modified FD modeling code ran 10 times faster
  than similar array of AMD processors.

5
PS3 4 Generations
Generation Disk Space Linux Compatible?
1 20 GB, 60 GB Yes
2 60 GB, 80 GB Yes
3 40 GB, 80 GB, 160 GB Yes
4 PS3 Slim 120 GB, 250 GB No
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PS3 4 Generations
Generation Disk Space Linux Compatible?
1 20 GB, 60 GB Yes
2 60 GB, 80 GB Yes
3 40 GB, 80 GB, 160 GB Yes
4 PS3 Slim 120 GB, 250 GB No
7
PS3 Hardware

• Processor
• Cell Processor
• Sony/Toshiba/IBM
• Memory
• 256 MB RAM
• Graphics
• NVIDIA RSX Reality Synthesizer

8
PS3 Hardware

• Processor
• Cell Processor
• Sony/Toshiba/IBM
• Memory
• 256 MB RAM ?
• Graphics
• NVIDIA RSX Reality Synthesizer

9
Cell Processor
1 Dual Thread Power Processing Element (Normal
Processor) 8 Synergistic Processing Elements
(SPEs) (SIMD Vector Processors) Each 3.2 GHz
http//www.csh.rit.edu/oguns/ps3/imgs/Cell_Arch.g
if
10
Cell Processor
1 Dual Thread Power Processing Element (Normal
Processor) 8 Synergistic Processing Elements
(SPEs) (SIMD Vector Processors) Each 3.2 GHz
http//www.csh.rit.edu/oguns/ps3/imgs/Cell_Arch.g
if
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PS3 Game Operating System
12
Linux on a PS3
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Linux on a PS3

• Most Linux distributions work
• I chose Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 (YDL)
• Designed with PS3 in mind
• No one has put Madagascar on Yellow Dog Linux yet
  (as far as I know)

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Getting Yellow Dog Linux

• http//www.yellowdoglinux.com/
• Download DVD ISO Image
• yellowdog-6.1-ppc-DVD_20090201_NEW_PS3.iso
• Burn ISO image to a DVD
• Download/print the installation guide
• http//www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/installation
  /ydl6.1_ps3_guide.pdf

15
YDL Installation Materials

• Yellow Dog ISO image DVD
• YDL installation guide or another computer with
  internet access
• USB keyboard and mouse
• HDTV connected by 5-component or HDMI or a
  monitor connected by HDMI

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YDL Installation Procedure

• 1.) Insert YDL DVD into Playstation while the
  power is on.
• 2.) Reboot into Other OS

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YDL Installation Procedure
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YDL Installation Procedure
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YDL Installation Procedure
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YDL Installation Procedure

• 3.) Choose resolution
• 480i
• 720p
• 1080i
• 1080p

Command Line Installation (Still pretty easy.)
Graphical Installation (Easy!!!)
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YDL Installation Procedure

• 4.) Follow installation guide through
  configuration
• 5.) Install (Go do something else)
• 6.) Follow guide through first-boot
• At Package Selection, choose all three types
  of computer use
• home, media, and programming

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YDL Installation Done!

• Finish by configuring wireless and desktop
  fontsize/themes.

23
YDL Installation Done!

• Finish by configuring wireless and desktop
  fontsize/themes.

24
Get Madagascar

• Get Subversion (SVN)
• From command line
• svn co https//rsf.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/rsf
  /trunk RSFSRC
• Unpack (tar xvf )
• May be included if you select programming
  packages during YDL installation

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Install Madagascar

• Follow ahay.org walkthrough
• http//ahay.org/wiki/Installation
• One problem encountered
• Software included with YDL 6.1 did not have
  libXaw-devel development tool.
• Needed for sfpen, xtpen, etc (Data displays)
• Found power pc version online, installation
  completed

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Madagascar on a PS3!
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Conclusions

• Madagascar in Yellow Dog Linux?
• Yes
• Madagascar on a PS3?
• Yes
• Extra computational power?
• Not really
• SPE use requires special programming
• Memory is very limited

28
Things to look at

• SPE development kit from IBM with C compiler
  spu-gcc
• Modified code for Cell processor
• Not platform independent, but may be interesting
• News of future Cell processor development
  (doesnt look promising)

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Thanks!