Does adding stuff to the PS3 harddrive make the PS3 run slower?

May be...

For example: Linux



My PS3 is 160 gb

Linux is not a good example because the PS3's processor is not a general purpose processor, therefore, not well designed to run Operating Systems like Linux. Linux will always run rather slow on the PS3, regardless of available hard drive space.



Otherwise, not really. Its more likely to happen when your hard drive is close to being completely filled up.



EDIT: The hard drive capacity doesn't really matter since the PS3 has the same amount of RAM no matter what hard drive you use. Any hard drive close to being full might slow the PS3 performance somewhat since there's a lot of info to search through. And the PS3 itself doesn't necessarily slow down; its the accessing of data on the hard drive that might need a few extra seconds.

yup yah because its clogging it