What Distro should I use?

[TacticalFart]

No, I am not giving up on Gentoo. I think it is the greatest thing to grace the PS3 (or any comp period). But I'm WAY too new to linux to use it properly, so I'm going to come back to it when I know more.
Any way I need a distro that can do the following.
IRC: I have yet to see a distro that can't do this. maybe set up an fserv
Use VLC: ...
use bit torrent: I'll find a way.
and interface with a external hard drive through usb, and write to it.
Emulation: Lowest priority, don't care if I get it or not.

I've tried FC5, and it went berserk after I opened 5 windows (HDD light came on and never went off), Ubuntu (couldn't adjust the screen resolution), Gentoo (Perfect, but I'm not skilled enough to use it, and had trouble mount external drive, even then couldn't write), and YDL (could mount the hard drive, but couldn't write). I was unsucessful in writing to the hard drive on all of these distros.

Does anyone know where I should go from here? I know I'm being picky, but I would still like to be able to do these things. I know these kinds of threads are annoying but I'm at a crossroads and my TomTom ran out of batteries.

[Adiuvo]

Ubuntu really is your best bet. What problems do you get when you try to change the screen resolution?

[mohaas05]

Yellow Dog is the best. Supports wifi and is designed for the ps3 so it runs better on it. judging from your problems i doubt thats a distro issue but probably an installation issue or hardware issue. ive used FC5 and YDL and they both work like a charm.

[Sinfulfate]

Originally Posted by TacticalFart

No, I am not giving up on Gentoo.

I would recommend Ubuntu as well it seems to be a very easy installation and someone should be able to get your resolution issue resolved. I have bit torrent on gentoo so it should work fine on all distro's. VLC should work fine on all distro's as well but I would recommend mplayer over that. Thats what I use and it plays all my videos fine. Not sure about the interface with a external usb device or the IRC thing but emulation should be just as good with ubuntu as it is with Gentoo or YDL.

[Anti-QuickJay]

I would say Yellow Dog.

[TacticalFart]

Originally Posted by Adiuvo

Ubuntu really is your best bet. What problems do you get when you try to change the screen resolution?

It only has one resolution. I get no other choices. I remember someone saying that there is a command I can run to change it, but things went downhill from there. I think it was (this is from memory) ps3videomode, followed by something else. Are you using a different resolution? How did you pull that off?

[Sinfulfate]

The following is an example kboot configuration file.  Edit it
#  to suit your needs before attempting to reboot your system or
#  you may be unable to boot the new install.

#  default: the default kernel label to boot should the user not make
#  a selection. Uncomment the following line and set a default kernel label.
default=Gentoo

#  timeout: number of seconds to wait for user input before the default
#  kernel label is booted. Uncomment the following line and set timeout.
timeout=10

#  The format from this point on is within a kernel label.  At a minimum,
#  you must pass the kernel and root device.  The syntax is as follows:
#
#  label='device:<path_to_kernel> initrd=device:<path_to_initrd> kernel_options'
#
#  You should also pass the video options as well. An example of video 
#  options are as follows:
#
#  480i = ps3fb:mode:1
#  576i = ps3fb:mode:6
#  720p = ps3fb:mode:3
#  1080i = ps3fb:mode:4
#  1080p = ps3fb:mode:5
#
#  You can review all possible video modes using the ps3videomode application
#  provided by the ps3pfutils package.  i.e. ps3videomode -v will display 
#  possibilities.

#  The following is an example kernel label.  Uncomment and edit as needed. 
Gentoo='sda1:/boot/kernel-genkernel-ppc-2.6.16-ps3 initrd=sda1:/boot/initramfs-genkernel-ppc-2.6.16-ps3 root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/sda1 init=/linuxrc video=ps3fb:mode:8 rhgb' (replace video=ps3fb:mode:<required mode id>

This? Choose the video mode that fits your tv.

[TacticalFart]

That's the fstab for Gentoo. In Ubuntu, unter system>prefrences>screen resolution, the resolution setting only has one I can choose from.