It also looks like Sony's making good on all those claims that the PS3 will be much more than a game machine. For starters, delving through its assorted setup menus reveals that you'll be able to create partitions on the hard drive, and use them to install new operating systems - presumably Linux-based ones.
Getting online is another story. After getting the PS3 hooked into your internet connection - either using an Ethernet cable or a wireless network - you'll need to install a patch before you can get out there. Depending on your connection speed, this can take around an hour of watching a progress bar inch across the screen.
After that's finished, you're free to register for Sony's online network. This also takes a while, but it'll go a lot faster if you hook a USB keyboard up to the console instead of trying to use the onscreen, phone-style "keyboard." You should also be prepared for the extremely lengthy end-user license agreement, which takes a few minutes just to scroll through without reading.
The setup hints that you'll need a credit card to register, although that's completely optional and is only used to buy stuff from the PlayStation Store. Other uses for the service, including playing online, are free. So are the user avatars it comes with, although the vast majority of the low-res little pictures you can represent yourself with are either dull or just horrible.
