Today Sony had some bad news for the European Playstation 3 market. The European (PAL) console will be a modified version with less backwards compatibility than that of the Japanese and US versions. “The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models,” a Sony spokesperson told the Reuters news-agency.

While Sony claims that about 98 % of old games can be played on the PlayStation 3 game console sold in Japan and the United States, not all games for the PlayStation 2 will run on the PAL version of the console. The chip made specifically for PS2 compatibility that was built into the original machines will be removed from the European version. Older PS games will instead be emulated through software. The PS3 is being released to the rest of the world on March 23.

I am sure that if you own a 1080p HDTV you have noticed the black borders around the edges of your desktop. You may have tried the fullscreen mode via the ps3videomode command and then experienced a desktop that was a little too large for your screen. Well … this is a guide that will enable you to use 100% of your real estate effectively.

In order to save space … here is a link to my post in the forums.

http://psubuntu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13

Matt Zimmerman, chairman of the Ubuntu Technical board, posted a message regarding the future state of Ubuntu on the PowerPC architecture (the one the PS3 is running).

Beginning with Ubuntu 7.04, the PowerPC edition of Ubuntu will be reclassified as unofficial. The PowerPC software itself and supporting infrastructure will continue to be available, and supported by a community team.

So basically development on Ubuntu for the Cell architecture is up to the community now, due to a lack of funding and resources. But as Zimmerman writes:

It is possible that PowerPC will once again become a fully supported architecture in the future, if the resources needed to guarantee its quality are found. The architecture is certainly gaining large numbers of users in embedded and console devices, and there are many reasons to continue to work with the platform.

I’m sure the Ubuntu community will provide some excellent releases. And if Ubuntu keeps gaining ground among PS3-users, this might make it worth some official support again in the future.

See the Ubuntu Wiki page for arguments and the Launchpad page for a list of current team members.

Today we are introducing a new feature to the site. Welcome to our new PSUbuntu Forums! A place to talk about your experiences running Ubuntu on the PS3 or ask related questions.

The main forum will be the PSUbuntu forum, for discussions related to running Ubuntu on the Playstation 3. There is also one for a PS3 discussion and one for discussing the Ubuntu Linux distribution in general.

A very special thanks goes out to “NobodySpecial” from the Ubuntu forums for this helpful tip on how to enable Java for firefox. You may see the original post here.

For Sun Java:
Download from IBM: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork…/download.html
You will have to register (free).
Choose 32-bit iSeries/pSeries, J2SE5.0. Download the TGZ version of the SDK.
The following instructions assume the latest version to download is “ibm-java2-sdk-5.0-4.0-linux-ppc.tgz” - modify the text below as needed.
In terminal:

Code:

$ sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2 libstdc++5 java-package
$ mv ibm-java2-sdk-5.0-4.0-linux-ppc.tgz ibm-java2-sdk-50-linux-ppc.tgz
$ make-jpkg ibm-java2-sdk-50-linux-ppc.tgz
$ sudo dpkg -i ibm-j2sdk1.5_1.5.0_powerpc.deb
$ java -version

The last command should give you a response: java version “1.5.0″
If not, type:

Code:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config java

To get working with firefox:

Code:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/j2sdk1.5-ibm/jre/bin/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins

Restart firefox, go to test website: http://serios.net/content/applets/viewinfoawt.php

Enjoy Java!

This guide will help you to install a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator. It should be noted that it is illegal to download roms that you do not own.
Issue the following command in your terminal.
$ sudo apt-get install fceu
You have successfully installed a Nintendo emulator. To play one of your legally obtained roms, issue the following command
$ fceu /path/to/your/legally/obtained/rom.smc
Check out this link for somw info on using FCE Ultra
http://fceultra.sourceforge.net/docs.php#using

Here is a link to the FCE Ultra web site
http://fceultra.sourceforge.net/