BTW, Carl, it was a nice guide you wrote there (I read it even though I already have YDL and I bookmarked it because it was a pretty nice painless reference)
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Fedora 5 I think is the 'safest' mainline route to go for Linux on PS3 - I wrote a guide to its installation actually at PS3 launch for the Linux newbie:
http://linuxps3.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=32
Granted, 'newbie' is not the majority of people here who are interested in Linux in the first place.
For me I like YDL in that the memory footprint of the UI is a bit lighter, but Fedora feels a little more robust. I'm on YDL right now because I'm not doing much in terms of Linux on PS3 day-to-day, but I plan to ramp that up shortly with a new setup that will see my PS3 connected on a regular basis to my monitor (via component inputs).
I do not have a monitor that accepts component or HDMI input (I use a laptop), so I plan to keep YDL on the PLAYSTATION 3 (E17 is not that ugly and it is quite light on resources as you also noticed, it is barebones, but it works), plus I do not like to use a TV for coding (even an HDTV... I would also have to buy a Desktop PC and get a new monitor to use the PS3 purely as a Linux workstation).
I also think I will be connecting remotely to the PLAYSTATION 3 (ssh, VNC and friends are also your friends) and coding from my PC using either Eclipse or Visual Studio.NET (depending if I have booted Fedora Core 6 or Windows XP/Vista RC2 [yep, I am still waiting a bit to buy the retail version] even though I am mostly on FC6 these days)... more RAM, a more responsive system and most importantly Beryl and Emerald (Beryl's Window Manager) and the combination of an Emerald's Vista-like theme plus the nice Murrine's GTK engine and GTK theme I use for GNOME (it makes for a nice combination).
Just like I did with with PlayStation 2 Linux (I would really miss being able to browse on tons of tabs on Firefox while also using the flash plugin on sites like comedycentral and youtube, plus have several gaim tabs opened, plus have Eclipse, Acrobat Reader and sometimes OpenOfficle Calc and/or Writer opened [yeah, I love crazy multi-tasking, which is why I love the push to real multi-core CPU's
)!
I prefer to configure, compile, update and work remotely and then turn on the TV when it is time to DO stuff
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As far as yum dependency hell is concerned, look at this post:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/pla...by_date_ascending&message.id=1327987#M1327987
Setting up Fedora-extra a well as freshrpms will get you basically all you need (yes, including VCL, gstreamer08, gcc-compat, SDL, SDL_Image, etc...)... ScummVM compiles (I was able to install every plugin it wanted) and runs.
Fedora Core 6 or Fedora Core 7 (with GNOME 2.16/2.18) would be nice to have too, but you know... I suspect that in the long run (given the fact YDL is pretty much compatible with Fedora Core repositories) that YDL might be better optimized for PowerPC and CELL in particular compared to Fedora Core.
Of course if, when the Core and Extra repositories merge, YDL cannot take advantage of them anymore and remains isolated to its own repos... well, by then more and more people will have experience with installing and optimizing Linux for PLAYSTATION 3 so it will be even nicer using a wider used OS like Fedora Core.