Before Sony's 3.21 OFW upgrade PS3 was able install Linux on console like PS2 did with OtherOS function. Maybe some tax avoid was in sense as PS2 classified firstly as home pc in EU.. though the trick was officially via Demo Disc which had Yabasic programming Demo. For PS3 Sony removed function but hackers brought it back with name OtherOS++. PS3 has some open source software running like FreeBSD and Sony lists all on their site if interested check out: https://doc.dl.playstation.net/doc/ps3-oss/index.html During short life of OtherOS on PS3 there was YellowDog, Ubuntu, Fedora.. Linux Distros ( and way later was Red Ribbon GNU/Linux for PS3 -debian project but it was one star flight ). Some put a notice affordable to get IBM Cell processor (PowerPC64 + 8 SPUs) even US Air Force. Total floating point performance : 218 GFLOPS - which only recently Ryzen did beat (fun fact; PS4 was less powerful than PS3 (2.0 TFLOPS) but easier to program (and people learned by now write multithreaded software) and more memory). Sadly most public interest has faded and console was classified hard to code at during its lifecycle due unique system design.

US Air Force 1760 pcs of PS3 Cluster

But wait! No problem! T2 SDE Linux is still here today! Which itself can not be directly called like others a Linux distribution a 'distro' but a System Development Environment. So it supports building distros in easy way. Very wide support for different hardware... architectures. And as example thanks for too this site is running from.. Playstation 3 hw directly (since 8th October 2021 24/7)! It took own time sure but its good time learn the Linux and software under the hood. In future here will be some "distro" but not yet. Due limitations of PS3 like RAM there is PS3VRAM module which adds GPU VRAM as additional RAM (swap space) for XDR to give slight boost if not needed under GPU acceleration. One big bottleneck of PS3 is clearly IO limitations or their speeds. One way is to go around if Linux installed internal HDD is not to make there swap partition as you will hit Disk IO bottleneck and CPU wont get all it needs and results almost idling whole time if anything Swap space usage required. Best to make Swap space external memory like on USB device (make just some 3-4GB, if you make too big it can too slow down due usb speed). This most likely comes as everything still under Linux goes via PS3's Hypervisor (some hinted it being some IBM Hypervisor). Att! Full Memory loss is most likely over next operations. For the Linux i made some modifications for already customized firmware which i found to be best fit for OtherOS++ usage which will create HDD space for OtherOS++ (VLASH) during system format and which supports directly booting to Petitboot bootloader (no need boot to GameOS anymore). Only after install run Rebug ToolBox to install Petitboot and boot to OtherOS++. On some Slim models there is working Wake On Lan support. Here is couple 3.55 CFW size variations: Download: *.PUP (~178.9 MB) MD5: 2c8188740c3b30d5be929068f924b537 (60G, min 80GB HDD) Download: *.PUP (~178.9 MB) MD5: 236c15a7093acb817edcfc14d40ddb7e (220G, min 240GB HDD) If you come from higher FW be sure you have QA Flags Enabled (like via Rebug Toolbox - Utilities tab) and some cases easiest is to use M3.55 Rogero Downgrader CFW in middle to jump backwards in FW versions. After install you need go and do format via Recovery Menu with Option 5 or you need take out HDD and format it ex. to Exfat and put it back to console to trigger System Format. After format you see disk space has decreased for GameOS in via PS3 Settings menu. If you do Formatting via XMB (GameOS) it is not the same format and it will reset to normal formation. But what if i have Rebug now? Its most likely configured to take full amount of disk for GameOS so there is not much left for OtherOS++ to be taken. As stock on Rebug thats 256MB but can be even smaller. After CFW we get next step which is installing Petitboot Bootloader! With help of Rebug ToolBox. During installation of CFW you know which one you want: NOR systems: dtbImage.ps3 (~9.8 MB) MD5: 0f16158794f9650961f0c52e28f83671 NAND systems: dtbImage.ps3.bin.minimal (~8 MB) MD5: 02cc6ef50879f03dbf3dc519bc0dd299 Petitboot Version (or build date): 11.05.29-17.52 Petitboot installation on to CFW: Move dtbImage.ps3* file on to USB stick root and launch Rebug Toolbox. To resize VFLASH partition for Petitboot: Rebug Toolbox -> Utilities -> Resize VFLASH/NAND Regions which from you can continue... -> Install Petitboot (if this hangs and wont continue.. just reboot console and it might already boot at next time to Petitboot) Go next back to first tab (System) and choose -> Boot OtherOS (choose Boot.. use current). Now Petitboot will launch where you can then launch installation or ready installed Linux... but first couple steps still inside Petitboot In Petitboot choose Exit to Shell Here then need bring up OtherOS++ partition (ps3dd) up with help of create_hdd_region.sh -script which you have moved too on root of USB stick (now i was testing do you read guides first fully before going ahead forwards). NOR Petitboot you can run script as follow from USB stick: ./var/petitboot/mnt/sda1/create_hdd_region.sh NAND Petitboot will have slightly different location..: ./var/petitboot/mnt/sdb1/create_hdd_region.sh Now you can resume to Petitboot environment by writing and running commands first 'exit' then 'petitboot'.. and you had already USB keyboard attached.. right? (Writing 'exit' command will reset Petitboot so you wont get gui glitch when running 'petitboot') Petitboot will show automatically installation medias from USB stick or installed Linux from PS3 disk. Go wild! As a bonus i recently found how you can make Petitboot to launch item automatically so you don't need click boot after you installed and all done in Petitboot. Go in Petitboot shell and write ps3-bl-option -O 5 (0 = first item, 5=second timeout) which writes default value of null (nothing - empty).

Originally Sony made instead of Petitboot a bootloader installation to be done via GameOS Settings menu and bootloader was actually same but just gzip compressed as otheros.bld -file.