SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the imagine-a-beowulf-cluster...oh-never-mind! dept.
Liliputing reports
Hacker group fail0verflow recently showed off a PlayStation 4 running Linux[1] at the Console Hacking 2015 conference, marking the first time someone has managed to install a full-blown, desktop operating system on the game console.
Although others have tinkered with the PS4 in the past, including a Brazilian hacker group that used a Raspberry Pi to break into Sony's Orbis operating system, fail0verflow is the first group to successfully install a full version of Linux on the PS4.
Sony's flagship gaming console has had a tumultuous relationship with the DIY community. The third-generation PlayStation came stock with "OtherOS", which was a feature that allowed users to upload Linux to the operating system, which the company eventually removed.
The PS4 has been much less hacker-friendly in the 2 years since the console launched... at least until now. Fail0verflow took advantage of an exploit found by another hacker earlier this year, which allowed them to get around Sony's content protections.
They fiddled with a WebKit bug discovered by the programmer to trick the browser into freeing the processes from the core of the operating system. This hack essentially turns the PS4 into a fully operational PC.
[...] The group noted that some of the differences between the PS4 operating system and a PC are "crazy" and some are "batshit crazy". Oh, and the Marvell Tech engineers that designed the PS4's southbridge chip were "smoking some really good stuff".
[1] The nugget is an embedded video in an iframe, apparently. Link to the video
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:22AM
a product they never bought
US Air Force connects 1,760 PlayStation 3's to build supercomputer [phys.org]
They bought them specifically to run Linux.
(Hinted at strongly by martyb in the dept. line.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @08:53AM
So, are you saying that all the posters who had been bad-mouthing PS3/4 here and in the green site for the OtherOS were all from the US Air Force?
Do you have any citation of criticism of Sony from the US Air Force? No? Kind of proved the point.
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Sunday January 03 2016, @10:55AM
What is it with this AC stupidity infestation? This is clearly not what parent was implying. He dis-proved thread-starter by giving a good, prominent example [engadget.com] of lots of Linux users on PS3. Therefore parent post is falsified, end of story, no need for a complete list of all disappointed Linux PS3 users.
I still kept reading AC comments because they appeared to be on average as useful as the others. It's really getting worse now. Hopefully it will get better once vacation-season is over and bored trolls go back to school/work.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 04 2016, @01:30AM
Look at the context, the original AC wrote:
* - what else would you call someone who keep badmouthing a product they never bought and would never use?
To which it was chopped up with this reply, note that important "badmouthing" part was omitted:
a product they never bought
US Air Force connects 1,760 PlayStation 3's to build supercomputer
Now, either you take this reply as an irrelevant non-sequitur, OR take it to mean the US Air Force were the badmouthers. The AC you were replying to picked the latter interpretation. So what's your pick?
P.S. But of course, from the replies it is already obvious enough that the poster never bought a PS3/4 himself, which also proved the point about people badmouthing products they never bought and never used.