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It may not have been popular, or even easy, but the simple fact that a PS3 could boot and run Linux was a pretty awesome bragging right, one that will be phased out on April 1st. According to the official Playstation blog April fools day will mark the release of Firmware version 3.21, and the death of the "install other OS" option on non slim PS3's.
Sony wasn't really specific as to why support for such a long-standing feature was being dropped, but like everything that's hard to explain "Security concerns" was picked as a blanket excuse. If you followed our How To guide last year to get this up and running, now might be a good time to say goodbye to your Linux install if you plan to keep using your console for online play.
April fools day is a terrible occasion to try and convince people you're making a serious announcement, but the fact that they are giving us almost a weeks notice makes me think they are serious about this one.
Will you miss Linux support on your PS3?
Comments are closed on this article
Rocketpop
March 29, 2010 at 4:19am
MSI's already done a really terrible April Fools' joke that got to people who owned their boards, so I'd buy that this has the potential to be a joke. MSI did worse with their announcement, which was quickly apologized for.
noobstix
March 29, 2010 at 9:59am
As an MSI customer (I have an MSI 770-C45 mobo), I never knew anything about this joke that happened over the weekend. After reading about it, it was pretty terrible and I would've probably figured it out if I saw it first-hand.
As for Sony's announcement, maybe they'll follow that up with a firmware update that will cause that "clock reset" bug that plagued PS3 users for 24 hours.
Caboose
March 29, 2010 at 10:36am
The clock bug was fixed pretty quick.
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
zepontiff
March 29, 2010 at 10:59am
If by pretty quick you mean 24 hours and if by fixed you mean allow bug to fix itself by rolling over to the next day then yes.
nuclearbastard
March 29, 2010 at 12:04am
I'm going to say this is legit. This sounds just dickish enough to not be an April Fool's prank. And as for what apps are available for PS3 Linux because of the PPC chip, there are plenty out there, and they can be used to make the PS3 a very powerful media playback and alternate gaming device, as well as a damned supercomputer
To turn around and kill an excellent feature of the PS3 because someone abused it is a dick move, and I for one would rather never get another achievement or download another demo or game again, than install new software that literally breaks my machine.
bbecker42
March 28, 2010 at 8:15pm
Linux on the PS3 is useless because whatever distro you use has to be powerpc based. This really limits what apps you can use.
lien_meat
March 29, 2010 at 12:16pm
limits the apps my butt. Just install debian on it. You have the entire debian repo! Yes, 3rd party apps, sure...but as far as a media server or basic desktop use, or server, it is amazing. Get your facts straight.
