Straight from IBM, here's a guide to installing Linux on the Playstation 3. Like you didn't think we'd have this? As mentioned before, the main job of the PPE in the Cell BE processor is to handle the input and output tasks. The only really interesting part is spe_create_thread. The first parameter is a thread group ID (zero indicates that it should create a new group for the thread), the second parameter is the handle to the SPE program, the third parameter is the pointer to the data you want to transfer, the fourth parameter is an optional environment pointer, the fifth parameter is a mask of which SPEs you are willing to run the program on (-1 indicates any available SPE), and the final parameter is a list of options you want to employ (in this case, you don't want any). The function returns the SPE task ID number, which you then use as a parameter to spe_wait. spe_wait returns when the SPE task terminates.
