Slashdot Mirror
PS2 As PC
Dark Paladin writes: "What if Sony and AOL stopped whining about Microsoft's dominance on the desktop/entry into the console market, and actually did something about it? Here's an article from The Gamer's Press about how the Playstation 2 could be used as a killer Linux box, and what might happen to the PC world if it happened." It's the same sort of speculation that leads people to wonder why the X-Box shouldn't be the basis of a fine GNU/Linux machine. (Strangely, it places Linus in Holland as well.)
Honestly, I think Sony has realized they can have the best of both worlds. They can capture market from the X-Box for the hobbiests, while still making a profit. How?
Easy. Because, really, how many people are going to buy a PS2 and not buy games for it? ;-) Especially hobbiests who want to write their own little games: these are the ones most likely to want to check out all the hottest new titles too. Mass publication will still be limited to those who have contracts with Sony. Sony might even come up with minor distribution deals for the hobbiests (more money).
People who buy it as a set-top box for email and web browsing (who are also likely in the minority, judging from other similar set-top box sales) will probably have kids, and these kids will probably push to get games, too.
Sure, there are exceptions, but it would be highly unlikely that Sony hasn't done the math, or is following a route that won't still be in their best interests. Even if this route will cause them to lose some profits, it's likely that they'd lose even more to competitors if they chose not to.
To summarize: the game market doesn't go away. Just the opposite, they enlarge their market by stealing customers away from the competitors. Sony may be only acting in their best interests, but in this case, I think everyone wins.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
... it's an X-box. You'd be paying Microsoft for something they control the specs on...
...
Think about it before you consider I'm just flaming.
Sony too, should have you thinking same thoughts.
It is my humble opinion that we mustn't forget our strengths at being able to engineer *anything* on a hobbyist/cooperative basis.
Including platforms like this. I know I'd like to hack on a machine I'm much more intimately familiar with, if even only by stint of association (marginally) with the engineers that designed and built it
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Note the original outrageously great result the Emotion Engine got proved to be erroneous. The new figure (to save you the 470K download and them the slashdotting) is 616.67 POVmark, on Linux 2.2.2, at CPU speed of 294 Mhz (comparing to 1000Mhz PCs at that level). The score of $ divided by POVmark is 0.48. The only other results anywhere near that are AMD PC systems and a PowerMac G4, all of which do outperform the PS2 board, but the nearest price-performace is one of the AMD systems at 0.88. The other AMD systems are at 0.92 and 0.95 price/performance. The G4 is at 1.05 and is running OSX- very likely running just Darwin, with no GUI layer present.
It looks like if you're into POV, a PS2 can probably render faster than your PC for almost any value of PC. It takes particularly good gigahertz Athlon systems to beat it, or a stripped-down G4 running Darwin to beat it- or a quad Intel system to get anywhere near it ;)
If it _does_ become the case that consoles get used for such things and eat up marketshare of PCs- Sony does _not_ make an OS. Microsoft does. So if this starts happening, Sony is benefitted by having the PS2 beat X-Box in that sphere.
Yes, they have. Linuxgames.com has a one-line note from an nVidia developer stating that Linux won't be left out of the nForce.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
No - it can. I had a rep from Caldera at Networld+Interop sit there and tell me and a few other people that it runs on a 286. I tried to correct him, but he was a sales drone - facts are futile.
I could be wrong about the model number, but I remember having Linux on one. I also had 386BSD on it for a short time. I had wanted to try it but my machine didn't have a math copro at the time, so I found one of the PS/2's that did. It may have even been a 486.
It was so long ago... (though according to my bank, my employment is listed with them as "Recent Grad" - that was 8 years ago!)
I think it was a PS2 model 60. A pretty decent machine for 1992.
:)
I guess I should have resisted
"32MB of RAM on the PS2 isn't gonna be enough to drop X on it, in my opinion, let alone a ported browser."
Well actually they demoed Netscape 4.x, as well as (full screen) Real Video, and AOL all running on the PS2 at the E3 expo last month in Los Angeles.
I've also personally seen X with twm and open xterms on a PS2. (in which I typed "ls").
Joseph Elwell.
(ie: can't delete files without viewing them first).
Oh god - the spammers are gonna love this.
In order to delete those 30 spam emails, you have to view each and every one of them.
What's unfortunate is that the same market penetration problem needlessly afflicted Dreamcast. Too many binary-thinking fanboys pledged allegiance to PS2, and Saturn created too much ill will with developers.
The premise still works. It did back in the '80s, when everybody had C64s, Atari 800s, and Speccies. The only difference between those systems and game consoles were the keyboards and "mass" storage device connectors. I know quite a few people who used their C64 only for games. Then GEOS arrived, and GeoWrite became their first word processor.
It can still work today. Now that PS2 has settled in, the "shortage" has ended, and hasty PSone ports are giving way to real limit-pushing titles, there's enough market penetration to start using those USB ports for something besides Unreal Tournament.
As much as turning a PS2 into a "full-fledged" PC sounds like a killer app, something as simple as Sony's Movie Shaker, a simple video editing package, would be even better. Insert Movie Shaker disc into PS2. Connect digital video camera to i.LINK port. Edit movies with a Dual Shock controller! Add a USB keyboard, and titles are easier. Doesn't matter if the disc boots Linux, Win CE, QNX, BeOS*, or a VAX emulator. It just works. And people raised on Atari 2600 and NES would never picture a game console doing something like that. Now that's a killer app.
*: Assuming Be didn't give it's last dying gasp in the time it took me to type this.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
The RS in RS-232 does not stand for Radio Shack, if that's what you were thinking. And 232 isn't the only RS standard.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
As far as the PS2 being a PC killer, Cringely had a column about that 2 years ago.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
So maybe you'd like to share that knowledge with the rest of us?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
But there is an issue of licensing. It's fine, according to Linus, for the kernel to load binary modules. It is NOT fine for the kernel itself to be shipped as a binary, without source modifications made public. So the question really boils down to whether or not a driver for something as basic as the system controller can be loaded as a module. The "real" Linux kernel would have to be able to boot, mount a file system, and load the module without help from any uncumbered proprietary drivers.
X is not a memory hog. X looks like a memory hog because the system accounting charges the RAM on the video card against the X process. X applications use shared memory to store (and sometimes leak) bitmapped images, and this memory is also charged against the X server. On my very fully featured X server, X takes up about 5 MB of system memory, plus it gets charged the 32 MB or RAM on my video card, possibly twice. If I turn off a lot of the extensions, X uses even less than 5MB. This is perfectly acceptable and the reason people were able to run X on 8MB 486s in 1993.
The first thing that I'd do is install Bleem.
-Waldo
" B, A, START!"
Will this replace "CLEAR!" as the warning to back off a cardiac arrest victim about to be defibrillated?
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Running MAME from the couch.
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InstantCool
Dont worry about X. It runs on a 32Mb IPaq with still enough room for java to run.
I don't know about this idea when it comes to office and e-mail tasks. For games, especially games with a lot of movement, a TV is great, since the lack of hi-res graphics is masked by the frame rate. I tried hooking my Alpha SX 164 up to my "hi res" (> 700 vert lines) TV, but it just doesn't work. Fonts come out horribly. It's o.k. for web browsing, but I have to jack the font size up as high as possible. Maybe with anti-aliasing and no RGB to S-video conversion it would be better, but I don't think you could get too much out of it.
I keep seeing these "PS2" headlines and thinking they're talking about the IBM PS/2.
I really need to wake up now.
The number of people who will buy a PS2 so they can run only free software on it is statistically insignificant. IT probably will be possible to run X on the PS2, if only to avoid the bad press from hordes of whining Slahdotters.
The most likely scenario for consumer use, however, is that Sony will use the linux kernel, but write a proprietary framebuffer-driver like DirectFB for the PS2 hardware.
They will also probably write their own GUI toolkit, also under proprietary license, that also runs on an X Windows or Linux framebuffer backend.
Meaning that while the core OS is, and always will be free, PS2 applications and the 'Official' GUI on the System will be proprietary, much like Apple's MacOS X GUI.
You will have to pay Sony to develop apps to run on a PS2 (since you need the toolkit API and libraries), but you will be able to develop and run those apps on a Linux desktop PC, as long as you have the (proprietary) runtime and devlopment libraries installed.
There are other markets for a Linux-running PS2 platform - the film, broadcast and sports industries for realtime graphics (realtime mocap-driven characters, virtual sets, advertising overlays etc.) These apps need a solid OS and devlopment tools, which is what Linux is perfect for.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
what might happen to the PC world if it happened."
Absolutely nothing will happen to the PC world. Lets see a PlayStation2 running Oracle or some other program in a colo rack. Do you think fortune 500's will rush out to buy a PS2? Get real.
Look for entertainment purposes of installing Linux on a PS2 fine I could see why someone would be overly excited, however in the real world Linux isn't everything so let's not forget that. Uh no I'm not a Microsoft user I use BSD before anyone decides to troll. The fact remains this is nothing more than a novelty.
Want Root?
Heh - "mission critical software that lives depend on." I don't think such a thing exists. When we (we being biomedical engineers) need a computational device that cannot fail, we do EVERYTHING in hardware - that way, it quite literally cannot fail.
What most people are missing about the Linux PS2 as a Wintel killer is that it has very little to do with an immediate business model and very much to do with unseating a powerful marketplace player (Microsoft). Jackson's identification of the "application barrier to entry" was right on the money.
- A PS2 that can run Linux instantly beats any PC on cost of software alone. Note that this is a marketing perspective, not a detailed technical one. Sure, MS Office might be better than Star Office, but Star Office is free, not ~$500.
- A Linux distro for the PS2 can be realistically sold for $20, and make a profit because your "developer costs" are mainly the costs to create nice skins and a Sony look-n-feel and configure everything "out of the box." Sell it at the more usual $50 for a PS2 game and you're going to town. Half the price of WinDoze, ten times the functionality (remember, it comes with the marketing equivalent of MS Office).
- You've now smashed the application barrier to entry and made money doing it. You can run every PS1 and PS2 game, and many of these are titles consumers already own. You can play DVDs and CDs. And it replaces that new PC you were thinking about. And there's thousands of apps available that will run as soon as someone does a
./configure; make install.
Does this make sense for Sony? Damn straight. One of the things Sony worries about all the time is "What do we do about Microsoft?" Anyone in new business development at Sony at least considers that question on every new business concept they consider. Get rid of Microsoft's hegemony and you've opened up a door for massive new revenue streams, even if you lost money doing it. The fact that you can make money means it's stupid not to do it.-----
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Klactovedestene!
The reason I believe you are wrong is the exact same argument you use, namely: yours (and mine) grandparents do not need to learn to use a PC to use the internet/e-mail/recipe-tracking/etc. and they don't need to know how to program in the bash shell or use emacs. Linux can be scaled down and implemented with a simple GUI that hides the guts of the system completely. Granted, for the "geek market" (which includes the likes of us) it would help the marketing of these systems if there was a way to remove the hood and play like nuts. =)
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Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
My grandma bought a $2000 Compaq (or it was bought for her, not sure which) and as far as I know, she only uses it to e-mail once a month or something. If it were simpler and faster for her to use, she'd use it more, I'm sure of that. (In her case, an iMac might even be simple enough, but it's a bit too late to suggest that now...)
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Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
But who knows?
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Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
That is, only if they're aimed and geared properly for that market. I tend to believe most parents would have an easier time forking over $300 for a PS2/XBox over a PC, especially if that PS2 came with a module to allow basic internet/WWW interactivity (including e-mail) and basic functions like word-processing. For the success in this market, however, it is imperitive (in my mind) that these are extremely simple and intuitive with an attractive "movie-like" interface, or non-techies will be just as lost as with PCs.
I tend to forget this like most others, I assume, but there are PCs in the homes of something along the lines of 5-10% of the world's population, if not less.
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Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Microsoft's dominance in the desktop market has nothing to do with hardware. Its a software issue. There are plenty of cheap hardware solutions with which one can run Linux, but this doesn't change the Microsoft monolopy on desktop software.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Game Cartridges used to have additional hardware, such as memory, to enhance the system resources. It was a hack to distribute some of the cost of the console to the game developers.
Someone you trust is one of us.
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/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
What happens when chipsets like the nForce only cost a few bucks (this will eventually happen)?
This will empower things like Tivo and DVD players and even TVs with great gaming abilities. The Microsft tax will NOT be useful for these devices. So why isn't there a REAL movement for putting Linux into these things? The world WILL need it sooner or later.
I'd like to see it sooner.
Imagine an open console spec for all manufacturers to use as they please...
More
I ran X on an 8MB 486 in 1993. It beautifully filled my RAM and started swapping vigerously as soon as I wanted to run an application. (486/66Mhz, Slackware 1.03, kernel 0.99p15)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
How many articles per week must we put up with discussing how makes a 'killer linux box?'
Let's face it--due to their very nature, open OSes (Linux included but not exclusively) can be ported to and compiled for just about any chunk of hardware that has enough computing power!
Cal me a curmudgeon, but it just ain't news anymore. Linux can run everywhere. Whee.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Admittedly, you'd need a power supply, but consoles tend to use power pretty meagerly, don't they? It might also be a little bulky, but should be more ruggedized due to being designed at least in part for hyperactive 5 year olds.
What do people think?
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Yeah, I screwed up - I admit it. I've made a change, but kept the original in there.
Thanks for letting me know :).
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
UM what???
PS2 games run bare to the metal. Just because you can run a certain OS on hardware doesn't mean that suddenly all the games for that hardware now use the OS. Using your logic all games that can run on the PC are linux games.
Also, unless there is a HUGE rewrite of all the libraries for the ps2 linux getting a 3d game built for linux to run on the system is going to be hacky if you can do it at all (so I don't think q3a will run or if it does it will run unplayably slow).
From what I've heard the API for the ps2 is difficult to use because you need to program using the ps2 paradigm in order to get a resonable level of performance out of it. I doubt having an OS between you and the hardware will help with performance one bit.
The short stroke is games for the PS2 will continue to run bare to the metal as always. They will not be linux games. Sorry.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Try a Pioneer unit. I got my DV-333 for 200 USD, and the visual quality is far superior to the PS2. It's being replaced by the DV-343, which supposedly has a better picture yet costs the same. It supports VCD and SVCD, even burnt to CD-RW. If visual clarity isn't worth that much to you, there's an Apex player with MP3 support that goes for $130! So, breaking it down, you can either get: a much better quality player for $100 less, or a similar quality player with MP3 support for $170 less! Of course, neither of these players will play PS2 games, but if all you want to do is watch DVD's, there are better options.
I don't deny that people buy the PS2 to watch DVD's, but I think they're not well informed about the DVD quality that the PS2 provides. I watched the animated series Clerks DVD on a PS2 and on my DV-333, and the difference was striking (even for a cartoon!). During scenes with action (like someone moving their arm!), the image would become quite pixelated. Well, not quite pixelated; it's hard to describe. Only half of the frame would be rendered (every other line of the frame), so action scenes have a weird blurry/see-through quality. Even the owner of the PS2 had to admit it was pretty bad.
As for the networking stuff, I don't see how they're going to do it. Few PS2 games out now support anything beyond the standard setup (few even support the multi-tap!), and someone else mentioned the game designer's rule of thumb that only 5-10% of all consoles have any given add-on. Had they included it with the initial shipment of the PS2, I think it would have worked well, with lots of games supporting it. Q3 and UT, two games that could have had a lot of luck with online multiplayer (against PC's and DC's), are already out for the PS2, without support for any networking option.
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The PS2 is a game console first, which means it's got a lot of limitations built in. Games are used to these limitations right off the bat, as they'll take the tradeoffs for a very limited compatability problem-- if it works on one PS2, it'll (usually) work on all.
First off, game programmers (of which I am one, and I've got a development box for one of the top name consoles this Christmas at my desk at work) always gripe about lack of RAM. However, we're used to it.
Most unix/linux desktop/workstation applications are *NOT* programmed with a concern for memory. [Embedded applications are a completely different area, but most linux coders are not working on that.] Virtual memory has always been an option for traditional unix development, so the big RAM hogs like X, gcc, and web browsers just run a little slower on older boxes.
On the other hand, the PS2 has 32MB RAM, and I highly doubt there'll ever be any virtual memory. If you want to use the HD (which'll be in maybe 5% of PS2s, tops), programmers will have to explicitly manage all RAM and swapping. That's a huge paradigm shift from traditional unix desktop/workstation programming, which is where 99+% of linux types work on.
32MB of RAM on the PS2 isn't gonna be enough to drop X on it, in my opinion, let alone a ported browser. A ground-up rewrite with a stripped down custom-built GUI (Qt, even though that gives some people the fits) is the only reasonable solution. Plus, the resolution of a TV is just plain lousy. No beans about it. People aren't going to want to use it for reading stuff for long.
Next, there's the market for addons for game consoles has historically been *very* limited. In the games business, one rule of thumb I've heard is that you can assume that maybe only 5-10% of customers will have any peripheral (ram, input, bolt-ons like the Sega 32X) not bundled with the box. Unless Sony sells a PS2 with a HD and a keyboard, you're talking about a very niche market here.
Finally, as I mentioned above, there's a different programming mentality between console game programmers and desktop/workstation types. Game programmers are used to precalculating, preconverting, doing as much work as possible to code and assets long before it gets to the console.
We do not develop on a console, for that console-- we don't run gcc on a PS2. gcc is one of the really bad offenders in assuming it's got as much ram/virtual memory as it wants. We run gcc on a host PC, and use that to cross-compile code. Same with all the art tools, sound/music, etc. There's a ton of work needed to get things done, and consolers are optimized for gameplay, not development.
Shipping a PS2 with "linux" on it means that they'll have to axe gcc (and lots of other development tools, I'm not singling it out), as there's no realistic way they're going to run on the PS2, building for the PS2. Is unix without a compiler really unix? In my mind, nope. I want the power to tweak out anything on my system, and run what I write. Consoles can't do that.
Nathan Mates
Maybe he's the one who ported linux to PS2 for his missile control thing :)
Oh shit don't tell me he actually did something good?
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
- Grab a shoe box
- Put a label on it saying "Linux"
- Put some C4 inside and connected it to a big red button saying "Start Button"
"killer linux box"One of the things which is great about making a linux distro for a box like the PS2/Xbox (and possibly NGC too), is that the hardware is the same on all the units, and that means very easy installation for end users... And THAT means, provided it becomes a success, a lot of people might get a good impression of Linux, thus making them interested in running Linux on their Desktop PC's as well. A great thing! ;-)
And even if they not, Linux' sure would get some well-deserved good press
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Greets, Øyvind Berg ~ ËlaC|n
__ elacin
I've heard of other devices using similar schemes. I remember reading (as a Slashdot quickie, perhaps? Maybe ~12 months ago? not sure...) about a Eastern European hospital using an Atari 800 as a data acquisition/display device.
Also, I witnessed first-hand a bicycle shop that used an NES cartridge to aid in wheel adjustment. There was a sensor thingamabob that would measure the true-ness of a wheel as it spun... the sensor thingamabob was connected to an NES cartridge which was plugged into an NES (obviously) that displayed the results on a TV screen.
http://www.bootyproject.org
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Console game companies (Sony, MS, Sega, Nintendo) sell the console at a loss, much like cell phone companies give away cell phones, so that you will run out and buy their games. They receive licensing fees for games that run on their platforms. These fees more than make up for their losses on hardware (well, except in Sega's case ;) If people start to buy large quantities of consoles, but don't buy games to run on them, the business model will fail. At that point, these companies will either stop subsidizing console prices, or will put in protections to prevent anyone from using them except as game consoles.
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
The cheapest iMac is $900.
You need something like Webplay and a $100 junker Intel computer. With a big hard drive, of course.
My only regret about my Webplay jukebox is that I can't afford to put in a bigger hard drive at the moment.
When's AOL going to start sending out PS2s to everybody? I bet you could build a sweet server farm...
I don't think you understand the point of the article. The idea is that if AOL & Sony want to combine efforts they can make an idiot-proof version of linux. One with just email, web browser and a link to connect to AOL. That's it. Think kiosk.
So if you want to play a ps2 game just start it up with a ps2 game in the tray. Want to browse or send email? Just pop in that in that AOL CD/DVD. This disk would boot linux, but who would know?
It's a fast chip, but it has some brain dead limitations. Its lighting is not perspective correct, which can look very bad in some situations, and large geometry can cause problems if it's not tesselated. Just takes a little extra effort to squeeze good rendering out of the PS2; it's not impossible.
-John
Especially if Saddam Hussein is using them to play that new WTO game.
:)
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
[custom PS1 solution for hospitals]... it's used to access patient records for waiting room-type purposes. It's definitely not used for anything that is time or life critical.
As we all know, hospitals certianly don't consider patients in the waiting room to be time critical.
HMO's should love this, as they don't consider what goes on in the rest of the hospital to be life critical. Most importantly, and above all else, it reduces costs.
Time-Life would sue, because of use of the term "time or life".
I always wondered how often the PS1s needed to be replaced
I've got a kid who has spent endless hours mastering Spiro 1, 2, and 3. Machine is two years old. Still works great. She's starting to get bored with it. I can assure you that kid-handling of this mahcine and its disks has made me cringe sometimes -- but the machine still works.
--
"Linux is a cancer" -- Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
How they input patient information with that crappy gamepad, I'll never know. ;-)
Patient has a history of heart problems: Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right...
Maybe they mixed up Linus with Guido?
More likely, the writer's kid brother (who the writer consults on all matters geekish) mixed them up.
Anyway, that's the tech press for you.
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
The reason MS dominates the market is that they got into the market, squashed the competition, there was no alternative and now most people don't care and don't want to learn something new.
It is hard enough to get people to change software, but this author thinks you can change what software AND hardware someone uses. I don't see this happening for a long time, if ever.
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Oh bother.
Let me see if I get it: as long as it has a processor, someone will get Linux running on it; no matter it's a toaster, refrigrator, tv, etc.
Steve Ballmer once said Linux is virus, may be it is legitimate. This man really have foresight - Linux would be spreading faster than virus and reside in many devices.
Sorry Steve, I bashed you for speaking ill of Linux. I was wrong.
Something about Sony's Linux PS2 is puzzling me. Has the manufacturing cost of the PS2 come down enough yet for them to make a profit on the consoles alone?
It's well known that in the console world, Sony, Nintendo, et. al. subsidize the cost of their consoles by charging a royalty on every game sold. When the PS2 was first announced in Japan in late 1999, the people at the Microprocessor Report predicted that both the EE and the GS (the PS2's CPU and graphics chip respectively) would cost Sony about US$350 each to manufacture.
It's also well known that over the 5 year life of a console, die shrinks with the chips eventually bring the console's manufacturing costs down below the console's retail price. Has this happened yet?
If not, don't expect Sony to be making their Linux PS2 widely available (I think only ~4000 were made).
Actually, not really. I know of one company that's developing medical software that uses the PS1 as the platform. TV screens are cheaper than monitors. PS1s are cheaper than PCs. And once the software is in the CD tray, the thing never has to be opened again.
;-)
Replacing or upgrading the software just requires a reburn and a few stamps for postage. Of course, these are just clients to a much larger machine somewhere nearer to the IT department.
How they input patient information with that crappy gamepad, I'll never know.
Dancin Santa
You buy your little home terminal (the X-box) for cheap, either near cost or possibally at a loss. This will work as a game console as is. However it will also have the ability to get internet functionality. To do this you'll need to subscribe to Microsoft's service (MSN) and pay a monthly fee. The applications for e-mail, wordprocessing, etc won't actually reside on your system, but will come down the network (Microsoft's .NET).
The moves MS has been making lately (Xbox, MSN parterning with Qwest, the whole .NET software solution, etc) aren't being done in a vaccuum. They are all interrelated.
On the other hand, this looks like a great way of killing Microsoft's X-box: buy lots of subsidized units and put Linux on them, populate whole Beowulf clusters with the things, and otherwise go hog-wild at Bill and Steve's expense.
--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
It does mention printing. It mentions getting HP to make USB drivers for its printer for the PS2. I really don't see that happening, though. What I do see the posibility of happening, is Sony getting HP to make a small and fairly cheap Deskjet that's all black, to match the PS2. Then branding them Sony and putting them on sale in electronics stores right next to all the accesory controllers and such. But, Sony, being as big as they are, could just about as easily make their own printers. But for some reason I don't see that fairing to well in America, if for no other reason than finding extra ink cartridges for the thing.
Companies like AOL are in it for the greenbacks period. While a PS2 running a linux varient might appeal us geeks running *inx and spending too much time on /., I tend to doubt the demand wouldn't be nearly enough to gain AOLs intrest.
:P
There aren't all that many Linux buffs with AOL accounts, for obvious reasons. Considering their reputation for utter leetness I doubt many would be eager to sign up just to get their PS2 online. I mean.. who here wants to admit to signing up with aol? *G*
And on the flip side, how many AOLers can hack X11? (well...maybe kde.. *grin*)
Anyway long story short, putting linux on game consoles is something best left to geeks
Whats a sig?
------ cat ~/lamesig >> ~/lamecomment ------
'..that kernel panicked like a nun in a crack house!'
much appreciated
I'm the stranger...posting to
"Linux can be scaled down and implemented with a simple GUI that hides the guts of the system completely."
In fact, I'm teaching spending July trying to teach senior citizens how to use the Internet, and I hope to find a cache of old 486 machines I could load Linux on and give to them as "email machines". I'm hoping to configue them to boot right into a web browser or email client, depending on user needs. Speaking of which, can anyone recommend a really easy to use web browser or email client for Linux? I know it sort of defeats the purpose of the OS but if I can't make it easy, I'll have to use freedos (freedos.org). If you have any thoughts, you know how to email me...
I'm the stranger...posting to
feints within feints, wheels within wheels
How in the world would they gain back their losses if most of the people buying their platform were using Free (as in beer) software? They would be screwed. Which is why this will never happen.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush