10 Awesome Linux Applications for Your PlayStation 3

Posted 05/13/2009 at 8:30am | by Chris Comiskey

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So you’ve installed that shiny Ubuntu distro onto your PlayStation 3 and finagled a couple of cool applications to boot. And yet, there’s still a lot of empty real estate on that newly formatted hard drive, and you’re no doubt pondering what else you can load up on your now living room-friendly PC. Turns out, there are literally thousands of options available; but the task of sorting through the seemingly endless lists and testing each and every app to see if it suits your tastes and jives with the PS3 can be a daunting task. But luckily for you, we’ve done exactly that; we rolled up our sleeves, burned the midnight oil, and muscled the necessary digital elbow grease to whittle down the Ubuntu archives to the top 10 absolute keepers. So what are you waiting for? Plug in your PS3’s keyboard and mouse, fire up Jaunty Jackalope, and read onward to get cracking.

Last.FM

If you’re at all serious about home media, you probably have a badass audio system hooked up to your entertainment center. And let’s face it; the best PC speakers out there just can’t compare to the flagships that make up a home theater’s THX configuration. So it’s only natural that you prefer listening to music outside of the setup sitting beside your main computer. Enter Last.FM. It serves as an always-on background radio station, catered and tweaked to stream random audio tracks precisely suited to your personal tastes. Here’s how to grab it:

Open up FireFox and punch in www.last.fm

Sign up for your free account and then check your email for the necessary credentials (you’ll need them shortly).

Next, travel to Applications => Add/Remove Programs. Ensure “All” is selected in the upper left hand corner of the titles column, and also that the “Show” menu reads as “All Available Applications.” In the search field, type out “Last FM” (minus the quotation marks), and then make sure you tick a checkmark to the left of the name.

Then press “Apply Changes.”

(Note: All applications included inside our list will be installed in the exact same way. Simply follow the same instructions above and substitute the corresponding application name in the search field.)

After Last.Fm has installed, you’ll be prompted to fill out some information. Hit “Next” from the beginning, and then enter your user name and password when prompted.

Now hit “Finish” to close the setup.

Navigate back to Applications=>Sound and Video=>Last.FM

At this point, all you have to do is enter a tag or an artist to get the gears moving, crank the volume, and enjoy the music.

Audio CD Extractor

Streaming radio stations with randomized songs are great, but sometimes you just want to kick back your feet, reminisce, and dust off your ancient CD collection (hey, Steppenwolf had some great tracks, after all). But one thing your PS3 is not is a 10-disc CD changer. What to do? Easy. Download Audio CD Extractor and rip all those golden oldies straight to Ubuntu’s default music folder. Find your way back to the Add/Remove section, and throw the app onto Ubuntu.

Once you’ve installed the program, go to Applications=>Sound and Video=>Audio CD Extractor. Now, just slide in your favorite CD, check off each track you’d like to rip, and then hit “Extract.”

Let the program run for a few minutes and you’ll be on your way to tipping back brewskis to a stored digital copy of Magic Carpet Ride in no time flat.