The PS3 Sixaxis and DualShock3 bluetooth controllers are a great for gaming on your PS3 but will work just as well under Linux. With this guide you will be able to configure them to work on your Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) PC in USB as well as wireless bluetooth mode.
There are a variety of solutions out there but they are either overly complex, or because of the ever changing state of Linux bluetooth support, they are somewhat outdated. The advantage of this solution is that it is simple, and requires only slight modification to the default versions of the bluez-utils packages (bluez-4.12). This minimizes possible conflicts and eliminates unneeded configuration.
This guide specifically covers Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) but I’m sure similar steps can be taken for other distributions.