Debian Live for PS3

Introduction

The Debian Live CD distribution for PS3 is available at http://ps3.keshi.org/debian-live/. Since it also contains Debian-Installer, you can easily try and install Debian GNU/Linux on PS3 with this single CD.

The CD image is bootable with 20061208 release of kboot (PS3's standard bootloader). Following labels are recognized at kboot prompt:

Label	Description
`live`	Boot Debian Live
`yuv480i`	Boot Debian Live in 480i video mode
`yuv480p`	Boot Debian Live in 480p vide mode
`yuv720p`	Boot Debian Live in 720p video mode
`yuv1080i`	Boot Debian Live in 1080i video mode
`yuv1080p`	Boot Debian Live in 1080p video mode
`yuv576i`	Boot Debian Live in 576i video mode
`yuv576p`	Boot Debian Live in 576p video mode
`WXGA`	Boot Debian Live in WXGA video mode
`SXGA`	Boot Debian Live in SXGA video mode
`WUXGA`	Boot Debian Live in WXUGA video mode
`install`	Boot Debian-Installer in normal mode
`expert`	Boot Debian-Installer in expert mode
`rescue`	Boot Debian-Intaller in rescue mode

Many boot parameters are recognized by Casper. Read the manual page for details.

Parameter	Description
`locale=ja_JP.UTF-8`	Get Japanized GNOME desktop
`keyb=jp106`	Use JP106 keyboard
`username=somebody`	Set login name (default: `casper`)
`persistent`	Use persistent filesystem
`mountdelay=n`	Wait n seconds before mounting filesystem (for slow USB storage devices)

The Debian Live system contains the minimal GNOME Desktop environment with Firefox web browser. The user account has the login name "casper" with the password "live".

Building Your Own Debian Live

It's easy to build your own Debian Live for PS3 thanks to Debian's live-package package. But it has some problems in architectures other than i386/amd64, PS3 specific version is maintained in http://ps3.keshi.org/debian/. The apt-line is:

deb http://ps3.keshi.org/debian ./

Debian Live configuration for PS3 is maintained in PS3 Trac site.

On the Debian/etch installed PS3, with the apt-line above, run following commands to build your own image.

% apt-get install live-package
% svn co https://ssl.keshi.org/projects/ps3/svn/debian-live/trunk debian-live
% cd debian-live
% make

The make-live configuration is in make-live.conf. See make-live.conf(5) for datails.
Packages to be installed are listed in packages.list.
Files in include-chroot will be overlaid in the filesystem tree. You can put your own software binaries there.
Files in include-image will be merged into the ISO image by mkisofs. Debian-Installer images should be here.
The resulting ISO image will be placed in debian-live/binary.iso.

Other Resources

My blog entry (in Japanese): Hogememo: Debian Live for PS3

Release History

20070110
- Persistent filesystem support.
- Known problem: casper-rw (the persistent filesystem mounted on /cow) cannot cleanly be unmounted when shutting down. home-rw (mounted directly on /home) seems OK.
20070109
- Keymap setting support.
20070108
- First release.

Comments and Feedback

(Edit PS3/Debian/Live/Comments)

Nice work! If I manage to get a writeable CD, I'll show it at the linux.conf.au open day tomorrow, along with the other distributions that we have running already.
- -- Arnd Bergmann
Arnd: That sounds nice, I look forward to hearing people's response at the conference. Btw, if you have difficulties burning a CD, consider making PS3 boot from a memory card or USB drive. Just copy contents of the ISO into the device's filesystem (ext2/3 or vfat) labeled "BOOTMC". The process would be like this:
```
# mke2fs -j -L BOOTMC /dev/sda1
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
# mount debian-live-ps3pf-20070114.iso /cdrom -o loop
# cp -a /cdrom/. /mnt/.
# umount /cdrom
# umount /mnt
```
Debian Live seems clever enough to find correct device to mount. --TakeshiYaegashi
Forgive me if this is too forward of a question, but I burned the image and put it in the PS3, yet it's doesn't boot to the CD for some reason. This is how I interpreted a "Live" CD, so forgive me if I'm wrong. Is there a trick to getting the PS3 to boot from CD?
Can some one please write a step by step guide on how to install this on my PS3 because i cant get it to work please i would really thank if someone would do that sience im no linux master just a averege windows user who would like to explore Debian
Very nice work Takeshi! But I would second that "step by step guide" request. The live CD didn't boot for me too. /sp
Thanks, works perfectly! Did the expert install and am now running debian as my main linux installation on my PS3. The people which can't get this to work need to read up on kboot.
So is it possible to make this boot off of the memory card and not the local hd of the ps3?
I haven't tried it yet, but I believe you have to burn a DVD with the iso image. For some reason the PS3 won't boot a CD-R.
^ This is false infomation. I burned it to a CD-R and booted it just fine / buffi
Check out http://www.louiscandell.com/ps3/ as there are instructions on downloading and installing the otheros kboot. You need to do that to run this live CD or any other OS anyway. Once you have kboot installed on the P11308_S3, this CD works just fine (although running in 480i is painful!)
The instructions on the mentioned link say you have to partition the disk before installing kboot. However, this is a Live-CD, and a partition for the Other OS is only required (since FW 1.60) "if the installed boot loader must use the PS3™ system's hard disk" FAQ. Can I install kboot without partitioning my PS3 disk, just to run Debian Live? (No installation, of course.)
I allowed my PS3 to update itself to version 1.70 of the system software. The system did not recognize an HP USB Flash Memory Keychain drive (USB Mass Storage, Bulk Only Protocol, SCSI Pass Through), so I made /PS3/otheros on a compact flash card, copied the otheros.self and otheros.bld I got from 11308_CELLLinuxCL_20061110ADDON.zip and 11328_otheros.self.zip, and was able to install that. When I set the PS3 to default to booting the Other OS, I see penguins, the usual status messages from the kernel probing the hardware, then when I plug in my USB keyboard I get an unending cascade of USB interrupt transfer status messages until I detach the keyboard. Attempting to use kboot to blindly boot "live" fails. Anybody else have similar problems? Am I using the wrong otheros.self or otheros.bld? Is there a specific version of kboot that I should be trying use?
<2007-05-15> Will the included packages be up to date if I build my own Debian Live CD?
Special partitions related to boot loaders, and parted going to crap: I can setup the two partitions mentioned in the installer, one 10mb or so, and another, 1mb. Then I create a 32mb /boot and the remainder in lvm. In order for the "Partition Disks" to function, I have to set the first two boot-loader related partitions to 'do not use', then set everything else up. Before I can install packages, it refuses to continue, and forces me to initilize the created partitions for the boot loader (eg, prep, and newworld). After I do that, 'partition disks' doesn't work at all. How do I avoid this gotcha? The installer logs are at .http://li.daxal.com/~supaplex/debian/10.141.0.19/ Take note, that partman seems to flop after the partition changes (10m and 1m ones). TIA.