Additionally, console games shouldn't have a stationary 10-minute install screen.
Why not? PC games comparable to the console games you mention on average have much longer install periods than console games. Bioshock, HL2, Crysis, etc, all had long install times, much longer than the 10 or 15 minutes that something like Metal Gear Solid 4 took to install on the PS3.
Not all games require 10-minute installs, though. Little Big Planet is one of those that is ready to play out of the box, without long install screens.
Having a PS3 is kind of like having a Mac: all the inconvenience of PC sluggishness with the made-purposely-difficult restrictions of unofficial hardware use(e.g. installing an alternate operating system).
Hey, guess what? You can upgrade the built-in hard drive on the PS3 with any size SATA laptop hard drive, partition it, and install an alternate operating on the PS3, with Sony's blessing even. Seriously.
Fedora, Ubuntu, YellowDog, and OpenSuse are just some of the Linux distributions currently supported.
Judging by the way you refer to the PS3 and the Macs, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you don't own either.