After some struggles to get the PS3 Media Server to run on Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ozelot), somebody must heard my prayers (not that I prayed, but anywhoo). You can install PMS now using a PPA and there is even some official documentation from Ubuntu available here. And the official PMS forum thread can be found here.
This new repository makes it kinda foolproof to install PMS on Ubuntu and here everybody is happy to have their movies and music again.