I use Yellow Dog to study Cell programming on the PS3. It's somewhat complicated to set up, and if you've never used Linux before, I don't recommend it. Even if you have used Linux before, it's probably not worth installing on your PS3 if all you're going to do is basic stuff. Just use your PC for that.

No. I also don't recommend installing linux on the PS3 unless you're already familiar with it (linux) and have a specific task in mind for your linux PS3 to carry out.

Linux on the PS3 is just too limited to be of much use to the average user. Now, Linux on your PC on the other hand...

Depends on what you are trying to get out of it. If you are a developer, and you want to play with the CELL, there is no other inexpensive option. If you just want to learn Linux, it's not a bad way to go.

If you don't have a PC and don't want to play games, it's 90% of what a real PC would be (it's just memory limited).

If you have a PC, your better off just skipping it. If you want to install Linux just to play with it, I would get a live CD, and do it on your PC before I did anything with the PS3.

I put YDL on my PC3 the day it came out. Played with it for 3 days, and have not gone back to Linux on my PC3 in over a year.

Wow!
Guys, don't even try this. You obviously are lacking the basic skills of a computer expert.
Reading this thread, I get the very bad feeling that most people in it have no sense of architectures ("I'll install Ubuntu on it", "why Firefox wouldn't work on it ?") and no sense of what compiling programs even means.
So for you, there's absolutely zero point in installing Linux on PS3.
If I didn't do it, believe me, only die hard GNU and Linux maintainers, developers wanting to tinker with the Cell, would have any advantage in doing this, or eventually scientists, and I'm not even sure of that.

Basically, if you're asking question about Linux on PS3, that means you have no interest in putting Linux on a PS3. The people that would have an interest in doing this already know why, they don't need to ask any question.

I have Mandriva 2008 on my PS3 (itś my primary OS on PC too). My pc version is what I use to mess around with and to do some actual work on. The PS3 version is only used for some basic browsing and checking mail, I do use it a lot since my PS3 is 100X more silent then my jet engine sounding pc (yes, I do have good coolermaster fans and casing).

Anyway, Mandriva gives you all the options of Linux and still gives the noobs an easy platform to work with.

Seem's like alot of people don't like having another OS on the PS3. But I'm bored out of my mind and got nothing much else to do so I'm still going to give it a try just to see what linux is like.

I've used linux on the ps3 for a bit now so I'll give you a few thoughts to think about. On a side note, I've been using some form of linux/unix for years now, so it is certainly possible that things that seemed straight forward to me might not be as clear to a newer user. First, linux users actually have access to multiple SPE/SPU cores (six) as well as two hardware threads for the PPU. As far as I'm aware, the linux kernel itself doesn't utilize the SPE cores, but there are ongoing projects to develop drivers (ex. graphics driver) that would make use of the extra hardware.

Second, ubuntu certainly works (and so does Red Hat's Fedora core, Yellow Dog, Gentoo, etc). As I mentioned above, the SPE is not the primary processor in linux and for the most part the hardware was supported long before the ps3 was released. You'll actually find that a large portion of the software (including firefox) works perfectly on the ps3. The problem that you'll run into, however, is sluggish performance, which leads me to my next comment.

If you don't plan on developing for the ps3 (I would recommend Fedora Core or Yellow Dog if you do), then I would strongly suggest using Gentoo. After a fresh install, that is the only distribution that provided me with a smooth/lag free user experience. The main reason for that is gentoo doesn't install a lot of extra stuff that you don't need or will ever use.

If you do go down the ubuntu/fedora core route, then you'll want to disable a large portion of the services/programs that get automatically started. If you don't, the small amount of ram in the ps3 will just kill your user experience. Luckily, there are plenty of guides on the internet describing what can safely be disable and how to do it.

In general, once the OS is setup (and unneeded programs are disabled), the ps3 serves as an ok linux box. It will handle basic things (web browsing, email, etc) just fine. That being said, the true redeeming quality is being able to develop for and use the SPE.

If you're at all interested in that MIT has a course on multi-core programming and the labs are excellent tutorials for ps3 programming. Anyways, gotta run now so please forgive any incomplete thoughts/grammatical errors in the above post. I was in a hurry when I typed it.

Well thanks alot for the info there seems to be alot of linux OS and you suggested Gentoo so I think I'll do a little research on these OS to see what the differences are. But I'll definitely look into Gentoo.

^ Really? because I am a beginner at Linux, and I don't have a whole lot of patience either...

Okay according to Wikipedia theres 6 OS that can run on the PS3, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, OpenSuSe, Ubuntu and Yellow dog. Which of these 6 would you recommend for a beginner with Linux and probably the easiest to install and run.