Okay, a guy at my dad's work bought himself a PS3, played Killzone 2 and is now getting rid of it because he prefers the 360. The price is £150, aka DIRT FUCKING CHEAP!

I had been searching around the market for a PC tower/shuttle to hook up to my TV and use but upon hearing the price that this guy was looking for I had to take a step back; the difference in price between the tower I was looking at and this PS3 is negligible when compared to the features that a PS3 could bring. 

I know that the PS3 has good support for Linux and this might in fact be the best option so long as the distribution is well featured. I wouldn't be using it for anything beyond surfing, IM'ing and working/researching for University -- will the PS3 be able to fulfill these (admittedly few) needs? If so, what distribution(s) do you recommend?

Thanks in advance =]

You could probably achieve that with the built in PS3 browser, but I don't know how fast it would be. I personally haven't installed Linux, but there are a bunch of Youtube users who have which could give you an example of what to expect.

Linux is free for your computer.

Is there an advantage for you to have a PS3 as a computer?

@Godwind

As much as I appreciate the reply, did you bother to read the OP?

"I had been searching around the market for a PC tower/shuttle to hook up to my TV and use but upon hearing the price that this guy was looking for I had to take a step back; the difference in price between the tower I was looking at and this PS3 is negligible when compared to the features that a PS3 could bring. "

To develop; I mean that I could effectively get a fully functional PC as well as a PS3 - a console, media player and Blu-Ray player - for approximately the price of the tower I had been looking at.

The ps3 doesn't support linux fully and linux does not support ps3 fully, you can do some things but you get no access whatsoever to the graphics card in the ps3 that i know of.
your looking at the most basic linux functions.

Yeah, but I think that's all he wants. Basic functions. Web browsing, IM'ing, and research *which is most likely just browsing again* aren't that intensive and I'm pretty sure the PS3 versions/distros of Linux can handle that. SO if I'm correct and that's all you want to do on it Lashe, then sure. Go right ahead. Need to research how installing is done though. I was thinking of doing it myself *just to do it* and it seems fairly easy. Notice the "fairly". lol.

Yes TC the PS3 running Ubuntu would more then likely meet your needs. I would advise making some adjustments to Ubuntu however, like turning off bluetooth, power mangement, stuff like like. Also i would connect the PS3 to the internet via ethernet. Basically you want to cut as much of the fat out as possible to make Ubuntu run faster on it.

Check out psubuntu.com they have all the imformation you need and they tell you everything you need to know to speed it up. You can find that here http://psubuntu.com/wiki/SpeedUpPSUbuntu.

Good luck and have fun learning linux. If you do get a desktop as well, i would recommend using Linux Mint on it. Its a derivative of Ubuntu and comes with all the codecs you need preinstalled, like flash. Plus IMO i fill Mint is more stable and looks nicer as well.

It can do all of those things, but don't expect it to be too powerful. I tried GNU/Linux on mine for a while, it wasn't bad. There's a custom build of various distros to suit the PS3, or you could use Yellow Dog which is designed from the ground up to work with the PS3. I personally didn't like the window manager, though. Xfce or Gnome are much better >.>
Anyway. As you're new to linux, give the custom build of Ubuntu a go =)

Haha just so people know - I'm far from a linux n00b, just a PS3 one =P Been using Ubuntu for.. 6 years now?

Anyway, I bought the PS3 and it shall be in the post tomorrow -- pretty psyched! Cheers to everyone who replied, seems like this will do me just fine!

Yup! Just bare in mind it's PPC architecture, so some things won't run unless it was compiled that way. Adobe Flash player, for example- but there are open source alternatives for that these days.

"Haha just so people know - I'm far from a linux n00b, just a PS3 one =P Been using Ubuntu for.. 6 years now? Anyway, I bought the PS3 and it shall be in the post tomorrow -- pretty psyched! Cheers to everyone who replied, seems like this will do me just fine!"