Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Re: [dttsp-linux] dttsp-ps3

[Robert McGwier]

Lamar Owen wrote:
> On Saturday 03 February 2007 01:50, Robert McGwier wrote:
>   
> > Both dttsp and gnuradio build on the PS3.  I managed to get everything
> > to install.  As I have always found with redhat/fedora installations,
> > what is absolutely seamless and without peer in Ubuntu is a royal pain
> > in the derriere with Fedora.  I had to add all of the PYTHONPATH, etc.
> > as usual and I had to roust about on the internet for ppc rpm's to
> > install wxGTK and wxPython since I was absolutely determined not to have
> > to build them.
> >     
>
> Prebuilt ppc RPM's for wxPython and all dependencies are available in Fedora 
> Extras: http://fedoraproject.org/extras/5/ppc/repodata/repoview/W.group.html
>
> On FC5, the default is to have Extras enabled; perhaps the PS3 install doesn't 
> have that.  In any case, see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/UsingExtras 
> for usage notes.
>
> The gist of it: if the PS3 install is default FC5, then you just do:
> yum install wxPython
> and that pulls in everything you need (just like apt-get install on Ubuntu 
> would do).  If you want to see what is available, do a 'yum list' and it will 
> spit out everything it knows about.
>
> If there were GNUradio RPM's in Extras, you could do a yum install 
> gnuradio-core and it would pull in everything required, just like apt-get 
> install would do.
>
> To solve your PYTHONPATH stuff, when building GNUradio configure for a prefix 
> of /usr instead of /usr/local.  A make uninstall should do the right thing to 
> pull all traces out.
>   
I built everything with a prefix of /usr and I did the FC5 repositories 
and the Extras.  I used rpmfind,  freshrpms,  anything I could find that 
would stop the broken things.  I found that based on the rpm for python 
which comes on the FC5 image,  the path to Python.h  that gets 
configured into gnuradio is completely WHACKO.  I found a later version 
of python for ppc (2.4.3 as opposed to 2.4.2 which is on the image) and 
after installing that, everything came perfect.  The installed wxGTK and 
wxPython and the gnuradio things installed in /usr/local/python worked 
fine as soon as I put both /usr/local/python2.4 and /usr/python2.4  in 
my PYTHONPATH.  This is NOT configured automatically.

Never mind my whining,  this was quick,  but I have become completely 
and totally spoiled with Ubuntu and synaptic.  YMMV (Matt had problems 
on a bleeding edge laptop) and I would not wish the path to Ubuntu on 
PS3 on my worst enemy (google for Ubuntu and PS3:  Load FC5,  put on 
pieces of GenToo for ppc,  load ubuntu in a /mnt and then install.  
YIKES, not for me).


>   
> > The audio system on the PS3 with Fedora and Alsa is a little odd.  I am
> > unable to address /dev/dsp in any meaningful way.   Portaudio correctly
> > calls the devices (running pa_devs) but all of the examples fail in
> > gnuradio-example/python/audio.  I modified several to attempt portaudio
> > and that failed.
> >     
>
> Build GNUradio with OSS support but not ALSA support.  ALSA devices are 
> enumerated differently than OSS emulated devices; for some reason (and this 
> is true on FC5 i386 too) if you build the ALSA support things break, but they 
> work fine with OSS support built.  At least the last time I built on FC5 that 
> was true, but that was older GNUradio.
>   
I told the examples to use OSS.  They failed with "illegal instruction" 
on the command line and no other information.  Eric and I both suspect 
that there are power PC's and then there are Power PC's.  When you look 
at /proc/cpuinfo and/or run top,  you will see two CPU's, both PPC.  We 
believe that all of the power gobbling,  out of order, speculative 
execution stuff has been removed and that a form of hyperthreading is in 
its place.

There is a lot to learn here but solving the sound system issues might 
be a bit of work.  Wireless networking does not work at all under Linux 
on PS3 with the PS3 Wireless.  This is well known and documented on 
several sites.  "It is being worked on" according to YDL pages and RSN 
it will be fixed.

I have received two updates in 5 days from Sony on the base OS 
(hypervisor/bios etc.) so things are still fluid and moving very fast 
and are not stable at all.




>   
> > I went from new toy to Fedora core 5 compiling jack,  dttsp, and
> > gnuradio in a week.  We can do business with this.  They are available
> > in numbers (at $599) at my local target and walmart.
> >     
>
> Very cool.
>
>   
It is indeed.  I want my HDTV gnuradio demodulator and display running 
as a very interesting gee whiz app.   I do not know how we will get 
access to the very fast display hardware now (RSX, 2 terraflop   display 
engine).  But I really want to do some serious signal processing outside 
of this gee whiz as a killer app.

Bob



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