Installing Debian on a PlayStation3

Unofficial modern bootloaders

Patching Sony's official firmware with OtherOS++

CFW means 'custom firmware'. It adds new options into Sony's XMB menu. Refer to the PS3 Developer Wiki for instructions. The CFWs can be downloaded from megaupload. Where it says "Run ... .pkg" it means install it using Game->Install Package Files then run it using Game->PSLight The target hard disc will be /dev/ps3dd. Do not worry if the create_hdd_region.sh does not work.

Installing the official debian CD does not work, because the CD drive somehow gets lost early in the install process.

AsbestOS / bootOS

AsbestOS has been renamed bootOS in version 2.01.

It is supposed to allow installation of debian.

Asbestos install debian squeeze as a live system in RAM and files on USB stick, on fat and sim ps3

kmeaw-asbestos-v1.5 clain working on FW 3.55 on both fat and sim PS3

Graf_Chokolo maintain a ps3wiki and do advanced developement for ps3

Old Sony OtherOS feature

This official feature was removed with Sony's firmware 3.21 and no longer works. These used old petitboot and kboot programs, which can be downloaded easily.

netboot debian installer

Live CD/DVD/USB

Eugen Paiuc 'adb' has produced PS3 Debian/sid live ISO

This can be loaded through petitboot, and installed to /dev/ps3da using debootstrap howto.

Building otheros.bld (petitboot) from source

This is untested, and obsolete, and here for reference only.

git clone git://nbd.name/openwrt.git base=59008615d8b31946d5845e0c146ec6d80d05caf5
(cd openwrt; git archive --format=tar --prefix=openwrt-petitboot/ $base) | tar xf -

cd openwrt-petitboot
./scripts/feeds update
./scripts/feeds install -a

wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/cell/ps3-petitboot/ps3-petitboot-09.11.30-owrt-patches.tar.bz2
tar xfv ps3-petitboot-09.11.30-owrt-patches.tar.bz2
mv ps3-petitboot-09.11.30-owrt-patches patches
quilt push -a

cp target/linux/ps3/petitboot/defconfig-ps3-petitboot .config
make defconfig
make

cp bin/otheros.bld /media/disk/PS3/otheros/

## use 'quilt pop' to remove the patch ps3-fb-rotate.diff if enabled, otherwise expect a 90ยบ rotation on your screen

References

IRC