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PS3 Firmware Update 3.21 of preventing piracy by removing Linux.

Leondexter said:
I completely understand what you're saying. I comprehend. It's you who can't seem to understand what I'm saying. Let me just put this plainly, since you can't seem to grasp this hypothetically or with analogies: I have the right to own my purchases, no matter what I may choose to do with them, and no matter what others may choose to do with them. The manufacturer does NOT have the right to dictate what I do with my purchase.

If you disagree with that, all I can say is you're wrong. Oh, and the law (so far) disagrees with you as well.

Until the law finds sony or apple guilty (for shutting off jailbroken iphones from the store, though it still seems to work for me?), the law won't agree with you either. They are not telling you how to use your hardware, they are just shutting you down from a service you need to agree to shitty EULA terms to access.

Similarly: if i don't update from a very old itunes version because i want to be able to decrypt my files, I can't access the store anymore.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
That's what I thought, so... I don't have it. This feature is not on my system. Am I downloading a file that's going to go, "oops, wrong hardware" and delete itself?
 

patsu

Member
Hawkian said:
Okay. Can someone explain to me why the fuck an update that seemingly only removes a feature from a version of a system that I do not own has been stuck downloading at 7% for 15 minutes and counting?

What does this DO for me?

Your clock went to March 32 2010.
 

ReyBrujo

Member
Hawkian said:
That's what I thought, so... I don't have it. This feature is not on my system. Am I downloading a file that's going to go, "oops, wrong hardware" and delete itself?
Maybe it will install Other OS support by mistake!
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Hawkian said:
That's what I thought, so... I don't have it. This feature is not on my system. Am I downloading a file that's going to go, "oops, wrong hardware" and delete itself?

No, you're getting 3D support in the background, hidden for the games that use it later IIRC.
 

TTP

Have a fun! Enjoy!
CloakedPuppet said:
It's borderline unacceptable how slow these updates are to download and install.

Talk for yourself.
Whole process took 4 minutes to me like it always did with every update.
 
CloakedPuppet said:
It's borderline unacceptable how slow these updates are to download and install.

It's probably because you and a couple million other PS3s on Earth are all hammering Sony's servers at the same time. :lol
 
TTP said:
Talk for yourself.
Whole process took 4 minutes to me like it always did with every update.

cookie.gif


Slow PSN updates are par for the course for many if not most people. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've read and heard complaints from numerous sources.

So, you see - you're most likely in the minority here. Talk for yourself.
 

TTP

Have a fun! Enjoy!
CloakedPuppet said:
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2009/06/chocolate_chip_cookie.jpg[IMG]

Slow PSN updates are par for the course for many if not most people. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've read and heard complaints from numerous sources.

So, you see - you're most likely in the minority here. Talk for yourself.[/QUOTE]

The thing is you expressed yourself like it's a general problem with every firmware update. Which is not the case. I'm not questioning the fact that same people have issues downloading it.
 

jett

D-Member
TTP said:
The thing is you expressed yourself like it's a general problem with every firmware update. Which is not the case. I'm not questioning the fact that same people have issues downloading it.

Yeah I don't get it. I always download it at full speed from TEH INTERWEBZ.
 
TTP said:
The thing is you expressed yourself like it's a general problem with every firmware update. Which is not the case. I'm not questioning the fact that same people have issues downloading it.

...but it has been a problem with various past firmware updates - for many people. That's what I was expressing.
 

Brofist

Member
CloakedPuppet said:
...but it has been a problem with various past firmware updates - for many people. That's what I was expressing.
Have you tried downloading the update on your PC and installing by USB drive? Even though I don't have a problem with slow speeds downloading by PC always seems faster.
 
CloakedPuppet said:
...but it has been a problem with various past firmware updates - for many people. That's what I was expressing.

Fast for me <4mins. Problem must be on your end. You're the only one complaining.
 

hateradio

The Most Dangerous Yes Man
Akainu said:
So what was the purpose of linux anyway?
Linux as an OS? Or Linux in a PS3?

I'm assuming you mean PS3, it basically gives you the ability to use an operating system on that very expensive $500-600 machine.

There were some uses for the Cell, but most of the projects are dead, I would say?

I usually just used MPlayer and watched AVI's or MKV's of SD material, as well as used Firefox every once in a while.
 
Micromegas said:
Fast for me <4mins. Problem must be on your end. You're the only one complaining.
.

Hawkian said:
Okay. Can someone explain to me why the fuck an update that seemingly only removes a feature from a version of a system that I do not own has been stuck downloading at 7% for 15 minutes and counting?

What does this DO for me?
 
kpop100 said:
Have you tried downloading the update on your PC and installing by USB drive? Even though I don't have a problem with slow speeds downloading by PC always seems faster.

Thanks - I'll most likely end up doing that next time. It's finally finished (half an hour later).
 

EekTheKat

Member
My update routine is pretty much :

Load setup defaults on current firmware. Wipes out a few settings that I can just re-enter later.

Download the firmware via PC, use an MD5 check utility to make sure I didn't get a bad DL

Install firmware via USB drive.

Load setup defaults again, then re-enter settings and re-pair controllers/keyboards/headsets.

The MD5 hash check is probably redundant, but it makes me feel a bit better about any potential firmware upgrade disasters.

It sounds a bit long, but it doesn't take too much time at all, probably 10 minutes or so figuring in the actual download itself.
 
The Frankman said:
My DL was like 2 minutes. Where do you live that it takes some of you guys so long? What are your providers/setup?

Canada. Shaw Cable - ultra high speed. Almost always extremely dependable and very fast.
 
Stupid update gets stuck on 33%.

Then i thought, "well, let's download from the website because it's always faster".

IT'S NOT THERE!

Stupid idiots shoving a pointless update down our asses and it doesn't even work.

I'm pissed off. Finally got an off day to play online and i can't update this shit.

Any hidden link for 3.21 on playstation.com?
 
Yeah, it's annoying as shit that the firmware doesn't seem to go live on their site at the same time it does on PSN. I can only use but so much bandwidth per month and getting bumped mid download and being unable to resume suxxors.

*edit* thanks for the link
 
harriet the spy said:
Until the law finds sony or apple guilty (for shutting off jailbroken iphones from the store, though it still seems to work for me?), the law won't agree with you either. They are not telling you how to use your hardware, they are just shutting you down from a service you need to agree to shitty EULA terms to access.

Similarly: if i don't update from a very old itunes version because i want to be able to decrypt my files, I can't access the store anymore.

Why do you keep posting this? PSN has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. There's a lot more to this update than PSN access.
 

Schrade

Member
Got my old PS3 60GB transferred over to my new PS3 Slim 120. I am hesitant to format my old system until I verify everything works completely, though.

Took 42 minutes to transfer everything over. The HD in the PS3 Slim seems a bit faster. I'll have to pop out the HDs in the systems and compare what types of HDs they are.

Thank god for that proxy program. I could probably still use that to sign in to PSN and play games with firmware 3.15 still.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
dogmaan said:
Everytime I hear this i shake my head

The PS2 GPU has lots of bandwidth roughly 48 Gbits, thats 24 Gbit each way or :

19 Gbit frame buffer + 5 gbit texture buffer -> write

19 Gbit frame buffer + 5 gbit texture buffer <- read

Although i can't remember if the above is a 50/50 split read/write, it may of been 60/40

I think it also has about 1GB/s of bandwidth to access the main RDRAM.

The RSX has:

22.4 GB/s read and write bandwidth to GDDR (or 20.8)

and

20 GB/s read to the Cell and XDR memory
15 GB/s write to the Cell and XDR memory

Conveniently that adds up to about 47-48 Gbits in 2 discrete pools, that give you roughly the same bandwith as the PS2

Not only that, but the bandwidth available to the GS is actually far higher than that and the way it allows to efficiently do Read-Modify-Write operations by having separate Read and Write links (+ a dedicated link for texture data) is one of the several problems that emulating the GS would bring (beside the GB/s "value" alone).

The 48 GB/s feature is made of three components: 1024 bit combined read-bus + 1024 bit combined write bus + 512 bit combined texture bus all working concurrently.
That bandwidth is just the bandwidth between Pixel Engines and the page buffers connected to them (8 KB in size) but the bandwidth between the actual e-DRAM macros and the page buffers is far higher than that (over 100 GB/s IIRC).

Another issue is that the GS can do operations which bring many modern GPU's to a screeching halt, quite likely the RSX too thanks to its architecture. Flushing buffers, changing rendering context (a context is the set of attributes and parameters that specify how the scene should be rendered by the GPU: texture filtering mode, primitive type [triangles, triangle strips, quads, etc...], blending function used, etc...) could be done many times per frame without the GS sweating it much. How do you emulate that in a general purpose way?
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
A couple of updates:

A number of people have heard back from Trading Standards in the UK that this does appear to be in breach of UK law.

Amazon have responded to my request for more information about how they intend to handle this to say they're handing it over to the relevant department (ie. the lawyers) and I should have a response by the 4th April.
 

Firewire

Banned
iapetus said:
A couple of updates:

A number of people have heard back from Trading Standards in the UK that this does appear to be in breach of UK law.

Amazon have responded to my request for more information about how they intend to handle this to say they're handing it over to the relevant department (ie. the lawyers) and I should have a response by the 4th April.

Sorry late to the thread, but what exactly does Amazon have to do with a Sony firmware update?
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
Firewire said:
Sorry late to the thread, but what exactly does Amazon have to do with a Sony firmware update?

Under EU law (and from there into member state law) when a product ceases to be fit for the purposes it was advertised for as in this case, the consumer's rights are against the retailer that they purchased from. The retailer has to either make repairs or replacement, or some appropriate compensation.

If the problem was caused by someone further up the supply chain - right back to Sony in this case - then the retailer has to pursue their claim against them. So in this case Amazon would be responsible for refunding all the people Sony has screwed over, and their lawyers would present Sony with the total bill. :)

I bought my PS3 from Amazon, so they're the people I have to talk to.
 

missile

Member
beast786 said:
... What is a reason for them to not open the RSX?

The only reason I can think of would be, that opening up RSX can cause more problem in their eyes toward piracy. Hence in their eyes whateve open RSX would gain will be far worse by losing to piracy.
Possible.

I think it's a sum of multiple things. First an foremost I think that having the
RSX enabled from day 1 would have made the PS3 a good competitor for
low-end PCs over time. Not everyone needs 4GB of RAM. One can do quite
a lot of stuff with PS3Linux if set up right. A friend of mine recently bought
a low-end PC for his girl-friend. She just needs it to surf the web, do some
word processing, play same small games, and watching youtube vids.

Secondly, programming games under PS3Linux + RSX isn't something Sony
would favor, I guess.


Fafalada said:
The few 100 people that own(ed) a PS2 Linux kit produced a more active community then entire Linux using PS3 userbase to date.
For obvious reasons.

Fafalada said:
If there are "many" people concerned, it's not because they cared about using Linux.
Not all, right.
 

Azerach

Banned
iapetus said:
A couple of updates:

A number of people have heard back from Trading Standards in the UK that this does appear to be in breach of UK law.

Amazon have responded to my request for more information about how they intend to handle this to say they're handing it over to the relevant department (ie. the lawyers) and I should have a response by the 4th April.
A Finnish website has been in touch with local authorities aswell. They didn't get an answer straight away as the case seemed a bit more complicated than normal, but the case was forwarded to people with more expertise and they will give their opinion on the matter next week. Will be interesting to see how this develops :D
 
Most useless fw update ever on any machine, removing a feature and not adding anything else is the stupidest shit ever, and why don I need to install this on my slim and potentially break it.
 

JudgeN

Member
iapetus said:
Under EU law (and from there into member state law) when a product ceases to be fit for the purposes it was advertised for as in this case, the consumer's rights are against the retailer that they purchased from. The retailer has to either make repairs or replacement, or some appropriate compensation.

If the problem was caused by someone further up the supply chain - right back to Sony in this case - then the retailer has to pursue their claim against them. So in this case Amazon would be responsible for refunding all the people Sony has screwed over, and their lawyers would present Sony with the total bill. :)

I bought my PS3 from Amazon, so they're the people I have to talk to.

Is this law everywhere in Europe or just UK? Could turn into a huge cluster depending on how this goes.

I don't know if I would give up my BC PS3 to take advantage of it though (if I lived in UK).
 

missile

Member
Some interesting links in here;

rapso -- ps2dev.org said:
ragnarok2040 said:
If you live in the US, contact your state's AG to investigate into the matter as well as your representative. Yet another Japanese-based company acting suspicously would make a good story in the media, as well. After all, they've gone after Illusion and Toyota.
(I posted this already in sony's blog, but it got censored *hehe*)

So in case you're not US, but EU, just follow the link http://ec.europa.eu/competition/forms/consumer_form_en.html
It's free, simple and powerful. Just fill in the form and send it.

What should you claim? simply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
selling counterfeit goods which are not what they claim to be, e.g., designer clothing, fake works of art, archaeological objects, etc.
Your PS3 suppose to support linux and all PS3 games? well, you paid for that, but one of those will not work today on.
false advertising
on playstationlinux you can still read that the PS3 supports more than just all PS3 games, blue ray hd, dvds etc. it also supports Linux says sony. (With no linux, I could have bought a cheaper X360, which had more features at the beginning like in-game mp3 playing. was cheaper and had earlier HD movie renting).

I don't think this is about Japanese companys. It's rather about some management decision without the care of customer's rights.
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
JudgeN said:
Is this law everywhere in Europe or just UK? Could turn into a huge cluster depending on how this goes.

Everywhere in Europe, but the duration varies from country to country. The EU directive specifies that it must be at least 2 years. Some countries went with a longer period, up to 6 years in the UK.
 

patsu

Member
missile said:
Possible.

I think it's a sum of multiple things. First an foremost I think that having the
RSX enabled from day 1 would have made the PS3 a good competitor for
low-end PCs over time.
Not everyone needs 4GB of RAM. One can do quite
a lot of stuff with PS3Linux if set up right. A friend of mine recently bought
a low-end PC for his girl-friend. She just needs it to surf the web, do some
word processing, play same small games, and watching youtube vids.

Doubtful.

I'd say the Netbooks, iPads, and low-end PCs make a better choice.
 

ConfusedMan09

Neo Member
iapetus said:
Everywhere in Europe, but the duration varies from country to country. The EU directive specifies that it must be at least 2 years. Some countries went with a longer period, up to 6 years in the UK.

Surely Sony must have realized that this law exists. Did they really expect every to just quietly update. As someone living in the UK, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on how this pans out for consumers.
 
Sony will have no choice but to restore other OS support. They seem to have no idea how many laws the removal of features is. If you buy something that can do *insert thing it can do here* that suddenly cannot do *insert thing here* then it is a faulty product and the customer is entitled to a replacement.

They got away with it when they took backwards compatibility away as they advertised it as a new model that did not have this feature. Same applies to the new slim PS3 with other OS support being removed, they advertised it as not having it so it is allowed. The device the customer bought still retains all the functionality the customer paid for.


In short, we paid for other OS support which is why removing it is illegal.
 
iapetus said:
Everywhere in Europe, but the duration varies from country to country. The EU directive specifies that it must be at least 2 years. Some countries went with a longer period, up to 6 years in the UK.

To clarify in the UK it is 1 year for any electrical item and 6 years for any electrical item bought with a RRP of £200 or more IIRC.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I suspect that Sony's defence against the "no longer fit for purpose" argument will be that access to PSN is not a right, and that they are offering users a clear choice between that functionality and the ability to install OtherOS.

I think its already been proven that they can simply withdraw access rights to the PSN network and all features relating to that service at their discretion. That being the case, the need to install the FW update is mandatory only in the sense of how it relates to PSN access.

Essentially, Sony is probably going to argue that the removal of OtherOS is a measure to safeguard the security of PSN, and that it is entirely their right to demand the feature be disabled before they grant access.

The key thing is that they are coercing (strong-arming is closer to the truth) the end-user into removing OtherOS, they aren't disabling it remotely or actually forcing anyone to do it, so legally there is no case to answer.

I feel bad for Iapetus and other PS3-Linux users, being given Hobson's choice like this is a pretty shitty thing to happen, but I can't see any litigation going anywhere because the key point is that Sony do have the right to withhold PSN access and services in order to protect the security of the online platform.
 
Clear said:
I suspect that Sony's defence against the "no longer fit for purpose" argument will be that access to PSN is not a right, and that they are offering users a clear choice between that functionality and the ability to install OtherOS.

I think its already been proven that they can simply withdraw access rights to the PSN network and all features relating to that service at their discretion. That being the case, the need to install the FW update is mandatory only in the sense of how it relates to PSN access.

Essentially, Sony is probably going to argue that the removal of OtherOS is a measure to safeguard the security of PSN, and that it is entirely their right to demand the feature be disabled before they grant access.

The key thing is that they are coercing (strong-arming is closer to the truth) the end-user into removing OtherOS, they aren't disabling it remotely or actually forcing anyone to do it, so legally there is no case to answer.

I feel bad for Iapetus and other PS3-Linux users, being given Hobson's choice like this is a pretty shitty thing to happen, but I can't see any litigation going anywhere because the key point is that Sony do have the right to withhold PSN access and services in order to protect the security of the online platform.

Understood, but I have no doubt that future games will require updated firmware, resulting in a loss of functionality.
 
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