Kev's Development Toolbox

Sony have long been saying that the PS3 will support and run Linux from it’s internal harddrive, although current rumours are that it will not be available from day 1 when it ships on Nov 17. However, Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) already have their Linux distro modified to support the Cell processor ready to go, and will be available from day 1.

YDL for the PS3 Cell processor is based on Fedora Core 5 with the Enlightenment Window Manager, and will come with a simplified ‘1 click’ install that simplifies the installation and does not require the user to complete pages of configuration screens typical on Linux installations.

Running Linux on the PS3 together with a wireless keyboard and mouse will enable to use the PS3 just as any other PC, and allow them to run any Linux apps that are available. Expect to see to ‘heavy-lifting’ CPU intensive apps like video processing coming to the Linux based PS3 any time soon…

For more information about TerraSoft’s Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3, visit their website here.

Microsoft has announced their plans to offer movie and TV downloads as part of the online XBox Live service for the XBox. Their new service will be live on November 22.

Sony have been quiet for some time about the ‘Tivo-like’/media center type functionality that the PS3 will be able to support, which may mean that TV and movie downloads may not be initially available for download from their online service from day 1, however Sony’s online service is going to be free to all PS3 users, unlike the XBox Live service which has some free access but also a paid subscription service.

BEA’s dev2dev site has a good introductory article to Groovy and Grails. This is worth checking out if you have yet to take a look at what is going on with Grails, which although still in early development, is currently functionally rich enough to be usable, and is worth looking at to see how much complexity in web application development can be removed by approaches such as ‘convention over configuration’.

This is an awesome idea from Sun – fill a shipping container full of processing power and associated support equipment, all installed, setup and ready to go, and then deliver to where ever the customer needs it.

Sun’s ‘Project Blackbox’ is exactly that. Datacenters in shipping containers, ready to be delivered. Offered in various configurations, with one that will give you a computer with enough processing power to put you in the Top 200 list of supercomputers, this really is an awesome idea to get processing power delivered to where ever you need it.