Running Linux On The PS3
By Marcus Creyton

One of the great features of the Play Station 3 is that it can use Linux, which means that PS3 owners can customize their system and get lots more out of it. Gaming consoles are usually designed so that foreign systems can’t run on them, but the PS3 goes in the total opposite direction, allowing an experienced Linux user to personalize their system. Most gaming systems are “locked” so that other systems can’t be run, so PS3 is unconventional in allowing this. The only thing you can’t do on the PS3 is run accelerated graphics.

PS3 isn’t the first system to allow Linux. The xBox also has this feature, but the PS3 differs in a few ways. First off, the PS3 is more powerful. In addition, the xBox requires a certain chip to run Linux, whereas the PS3 can run it without. In fact, it’s totally free to run Linux on the PS3.

Some of the things you can do with Linux on your PS3 include:

-Use your Play Station like a PC, with a keyboard and mouse. Not all PC programs will run on the PS3, at least not yet, but Linux enables you many options.

-Run your own operating system. This is a boon to those who want to personalize their system.

-Use the internet. You can surf the web on your PS3 with an internet browser such as Firefox.

-Use office software. Although, it’s been reported that Windows doesn’t run well on the PS3. However, in the future, Microsoft could make a version of Windows that can run on the PS3. The rumor mill is buzzing, but there is no official word about this.

-Run MAME and other kinds of emulators. This means you can play all your favorite games from yesteryear on your brand new shiny Play Station 3.

-Play different types of media, such as DVDs, ROMs and CDs. Running Linux, you can watch movies or listen to music on your PS3.

-Connect to network shares. This feature allows you to save and retrieve files on another server, thus saving your memory.

The only problem with getting Linux on your PS3 is that it’s difficult to install and hard to use. Right now, it’s pretty much the domain of experienced programmers and hobbyists. Hopefully, in the future there will be a more user-friendly interface for running Linux on your gaming console. Since PS3 came out, most programmers have used Fedora Core to run Linux on their PS3′s, but there is a new system called Yellow Dog which is designed specifically for use with PS3. Yellow Dog is highly recommended and gaining popularity.

Still, the best thing about Linux is it’s free. All you need is a PS3, the proper cables, a USB mouse and keyboard, a USB flash drive and some other gear to make installation smoother… ok, so it’s not really free, but Linux itself is! If you’ve used Linux before, it may not be so tough to install. There is a variety of websites out there with tips for installation and most recommend Yellow Dog. You can also find ideas on how to run Linux on gaming forums.

Marcus Creyton writes on game console systems. He is a PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii enthusiast. For information, guides, cheats on PS3, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 go here: http://gameconsolekingdom.com

Free Linux Games – Part 1
By Levi Reiss

Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But what if you are not interested in becoming a computer nerd; can this software still be useful to regular people? The answer is a resounding yes; you can make use of this tiny operating system whether or not you want to learn the sometimes gruesome details of operating systems. This article presents several free games that are immediately available once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux.

To access these games either click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Games: there are eleven; Canfield, Freecell, Golf, Mastermind, Minesweeper, Pegged, Slide_Puzzle, Solitaire, Taipei, Thornq, and Xtris and Taiedit which is not a game, but a game editor. We will examine the first six games in this article saving the rest of them for a companion article. As with any gaming systems, be careful not to get addicted.

Canfield is a relatively complicated single-deck solitaire card game. If you are not familiar with this game you’ll have to go to a source such as Google to find out how to play it. There is no help function. And sometimes the cards move fast, too fast to learn what is happening if you don’t know the game.

Freecell is a relatively complicated single-deck solitaire card game. I think that it’s easier to win than Canfield but maybe that’s because I am an ex-semi-Freecell-addict. It’s a lot easier to get addicted to Freecell on Windows because their version includes a seed number that lets you replay it. There is no such seed number in this version of Freecell.

In spite of its name, Golf is yet another card game one that is fairly well known. For more information about this game access http://www.delorie.com/store/ace/docs/golf.html

Mastermind is a game in which you use a mouse to drag colors from the palette (on the left) to the empty cells in the guess row. When the four cells in the guess row are full, right-click on the right of the screen to see how you did. There will be one black peg for each cell that is the correct color, and one white for a color that is not in the correct sequence. Keep going and you can eventually figure out all the colors in the row. If that’s your thing.

Some people will remember Minesweeper from the days of Windows 3.1. The goal is to clear a field of mines by clicking on a square that has no mines and right-clicking on a mined square to deactivate it. The screen indicates how many mines are adjacent to a square that has been deactivated or clicked on. One false move and you lose. When you start the game you can choose from four levels by enter 1 (the easiest), 2, 3, or 4. I vaguely recall that Windows 3.1 gave me more options, but frankly Damn Small Linux’s Minesweeper is a good time waster.

Pegged is a field of thirty penguins and thirty-one spaces. Initially one space is empty. A move consists of one Penguin jumping over another generating an additional empty space. You win if at the end of the game there is a single penguin. You really win if the solitary penguin is in the center square. Some would say that you really, really win if you close the Games menu and get back to work.


Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Free Linux Games – Part 2
By Levi Reiss

Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But it’s also great for playing games. This article presents several free games that are immediately available once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux.

To access these games either click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps/ icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Games: there are eleven. A previous article discussed several. Now we will look at Slide_Puzzle, Solitaire, Taipei, Thornq, and Xtris and Taiedit which is not a game, but a game editor. As with any gaming systems, be careful not to get addicted.

Do you remember a hand-held non-electronic game in which there were fifteen moveable tiles and sixteen squares? By moving the tiles correctly you could reconstitute a series of numbers. Slide_puzzle is similar but even more challenging. First you load an image, a graphics file such as a jpg file. I didn’t have one readily available so I opened Firefox went to google images and downloaded into the /home/dsl directory the first crayfish image that Google offered me. Then I loaded it into the game which chopped into into pieces to be reassembled. Left-click on a tile to slide it into the adjacent empty space. Right-click to see the original image. If you are really good you won’t have to take a peek at the original image. It helps if you have chosen an image that’s easy to reconstitute. I don’t recommend crayfish.

Solitaire is the good-old Klondike solitaire card game. While testing it for this article I did win twice in a row and came close the third time. This is the solitaire that I remember as a kid. Watch out, it’s moderately addictive.

Taipei is a very addictive game in which you try to remove pairs of corresponding tiles. Of course if a tile is covered by another tile you must first remove the covering tile. To find out if a tile may be removed right-click on it. If it changes colors it may be removed by clicking on its available partner. The partner tile is usually a copy (9 and 9, Heart and Heart) but any direction tile may be paired with any direction tile, and any color tile may be paired with any color tile. The numbers in the lower left hand corner of the screen indicate the number of remaining tiles and the number of tiles that are presently removable. In one game I started with 144 and 12. By judiciously removing two tiles I went to 142 and 15. I lost that game, like I lose most of the time. If the rules sound a bit complicated, they are. But you can learn by playing. And you can always press the Backspace key to undo your latest tile removal. The last time I played I was blocked, pressed the Backspace key, and went on to win. Some would say beginner’s luck. The instructions claim that every game can be won. I don’t believe it.

Taiedit lets you modify the game of Taipei. Good luck, this application looks moderately sophisticated.

Thornq is yet another solitaire card game. For more information about this game access delorie.com/store/ace/docs/thornq.html

You may not believe me, but I won this game without knowing how to play it. Beginner’s luck. The point is that Damn Small Linux offers a wide variety of solitaire card games. The final game offered with the system is xtris, a version of Tetris, the game in which you arrange falling blocks. This version offers a few controls including the possibility of playing several games at once.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”