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X-server for PS2
PineGreen writes: "Alllinuxdevices.com has a story
today about Metrolink porting their Micro-X server to Playstation2. Sony still refuses to sell their Linux kit outside Japan, and the Blockman Trading version works on PSOne only. Now, when will I have an excuse to buy a PS2?"
Of course, having an X server for PS/2 is nice, but it's not exactly crucial. Price is also an issue, so I hope that the XF86 team would produce something free if the need arises.
One thing that people seldom realise is that there are numerous ways to use even the oddest devices. But considering the PS/2, an elaborate GUI (that could result from putting a desktop environment on top of X) will not be so useful because of the TV display issues.
Naturally, this could change by the time when HDTV comes, but then from the other point of view, we shall have had a PS/3 by that time.
The iPaq's a pretty sweet linux-based PDA; run QPE and ya get most of the same toys that WinCE comes with, too. Get the new ones and ya have enough RAM to run stuff like Mozilla, too (and with a PCMCIA NIC in the extra sleeve, you can do actual browsing). [though, of course, Konq/embedded is probably a better browser for that particular environment].
1982 - 80286. Supports virtual address space (Basic MMU). Addresses 16 Megs. 12.5 MHz, 2.7 MIPS.
1984 - Macintosh w/68000. Address 16 Megs. 8 MHz, 0.7 MIPS.
....
Care to try justifying that 680x0 chips ran 2x faster than x86? Hell, the 680x0 didn't even have an MMU until 1988!
Probably true, but the PC didn't have really sexy graphics cards around that time - we were still talking fairly basic VGA, whereas the Amiga (for example) did have some quite nifty graphics chips for the time.
I'm also not sure whether you are using some form of 'standardised' MIPs, or whether you are just counting the number of instructions per second that each processor could run; in any event, since I was assembly programming both 80286 and 68K devices at the time I generally came away with the impression that a 68K smoked an 80286 every time.
Probably one of the reasons was that most of the programs I wrote for the 80286 had to be in 8086 code for an IBM PC target, and therefore I couldn't use the full features of an 80286. The nice thing about a 68K was that there was very little difference between the processors and a program which ran on the bog standard 68K ran pretty much unaltered but faster on a 68020. The 68K was designed to be a 32 bit processor all the time, whereas the 80286 had to pretend to be a 8/16 bit processor most of the time in its default environment.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Not enough RAM my ass. I have a PS2 and it contains 32 megabytes of RAM. I've been playing Gran Turismo 3 a hell of a lot lately, it's addictive as heroin. Get this; when you do a 20 lap race, there are 5 other cars with real-time reflection mapping on the windsheilds, the body, and so on. There are windmills turning in the background. You can actually watch your tires turn according to the controls and bounce up and down in the wheel well during a bumpy road in a rally coarse.
Now for the grand finale; all twenty laps (in this example) are stored in less than a meg of RAM! Every car on the track has this level of detail stored in the replay, and it takes up (on average) 100-400 kilobytes on your memory stick. The console programmers know how to squeeze everything they need out of the "small" amount of memory in their systems.
As for rendering images, I highly recommend that you walk into a Futureshop or Sony store and try out this game (or any others) to see how badly this system gives computers a thrashing. Besides, it also has a DVD player and an incredible Dolby digital sound chip. I was a massive PC gaming buff until I picked up this bad-ass machine - and I still haven't looked back.
Sorry to burst your bubble dude but Microsoft learned the lesson that Sony didn't. They're retailing the XBox for 299$ which is about the same price (currently) as a PS2. However contrary to the PS2's initial release Microsoft is filling their box with well known and relatively commodity hardware. The main part of the lesson Sony did not learn was to have the ability to supply demand for your product. Microsoft's got two manufacturing facilities so far, one in Mexico and one in Hungary with one in Asia pending. American and European XBoxes will be coming from their respective continents which reduces much of the overhead that Sony has to pay for in shipping boxes in from overseas. All things considered I don't see Microsoft actually losing money on the XBox so every one you buy is putting some money back in their pocket. Buy one and stick Linux on it if you want but you're still bending over for the shaft that is Microsoft corporation.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
hehe..imagine a code red for Xbox.
I've been reading about the PS2 Linux on some Japanese sites and find the whole thing leaving a bad taste in my mouth. This version on Linux is not free (as in freedom) as you think. 1) First and foremost you have to sign a Non-Discosure agreement when you purchase the system. Because the PS2 is a closed system, Sony will like to keep it that way. 2) You have no access to the CD/DVD-ROM, firmware drivers, or bootsystem. Making a stand-alone app is impossable. 3) Anything that uses sound/graphics/BIOS routines but be done through a closed source staticly-linked lib. It is illigal to redistibute this. 4) The system requres a boot CD-ROM which you also cannot redistibute. 5) The video out reqires a moniter that can use video sync pulses only from the green channel. The PS2 does not use a normal RGB out as it will cause the DVD Macrovision not to work. 6) Odds are Sony will not release this in America beacuse America is too friendly to hackers that like to reverse-engineer things. (Sony v. Bleem & Sony v. Connectix)
Hi Daryll,
Could you give more details about the Linux with PS2? impression, speed, stability, apps etc please?
Thanks
Hetz (Heunique)
I think what he was trying to say was that you dont have to go through all the trouble worrying about all the millions of different hardware setups people might have. You write a program and it will work exactly the same on every single computer.
Mess Stuff Up
The main difference between the Jap version is that everything is in Japanese. The other big thing is that some Jap versions come with a Type III PCMCIA slot, which Sony had scrapped in favor of some proprietary interface long before the PS2 began selling in the US.
Thing is, if you wanna use it, you sorta gotta know Japanese ;-)
OK, this has been bothering me for some time now... WHY? What's the use of putting Linux on a PS2? Just because? I have a toaster that anyone is welcome to try installing Linux on Just Because. For the same price of a PS2, you can get the parts to make a more robust Linux box (or I'm certain all you DIY Linux people already have the parts sitting around to build at least 2 Linux servers). It's a damn game console. If someone needs an excuse to buy a PS2, it should be because they want to play games, not try to cobble together a Linux box on a platform that's not really expandable or particularly robust for the OS.
I don`t own a game console, but before I heard Dreamcast was going under, I almost bought theirs just for tinkering with Linux on it.
If Sony releases a Linux Kit for the US, then I`d buy one of theirs since I still don`t have one.
Till then, I probably won`t bother making that decision.
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
There is a Linux Based PDA.
It's called Agenda
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
he, he. Okay, I would like to see a link to prove that all of that fits in a meg of ram. Maybe you can "save" it in that amount of memory on a memory stick, but that doesn't mean that's how much the game is using while you're playing it. Secondly, the reason that developers can do such amazing things with consoles is that they have a unified development platform. There were games on the original playstation that were as good and better than the crop of pc games at the time, and no fool would have argued that the psx graphics processor was better than a GeForce DDR. However, since the developers didn't have to worry about their users having 5 different types of processors and graphics cards with varying amounts of memory and RAM, they could really squeeze all the power out of that little box and do some amazing things with it. The same thing applies to the ps2 (and I don't think developers have even begun to squeeze all the power they can out of it). However, all this is irrelevant to the current thread of conversation because we're talking about graphics workstations and development, not what the finished product can look like. No real developer here or in Japan has EVER developed real games on a ps2 or psx (remember the Yarooze?). No, they used high-powered computers because those machines could render things in real time as they were being developed much faster than the game consoles could. Even assuming that the console COULD render faster, there's a huge software hurdle. There's an awesome amount of development tools for computers that no one is going to take the time to reproduce on a ps2. Maya, Lightwave, 3d Studio Max, etc., etc. So, I would say in conclusion that yes linux on the ps2 is cool and would be fun to tinker with, but it certainly doesn't make it a graphics workstation or even a serious development platform.
"Do what you wish in your madness, but first let me down off this horse. I wish to see no eyes!"
And it would probably be a better computer too. I thought that the PS2 contained a 350Mhz processor, so any new pc would be better than the PS2.
You have to buy the PS2 devel kit (only if you are in .jp) - $250
You have to buy this X server which you know isn't going to come cheap. - $$$
Now, explain to me how the PS2 (which is already a computer that carries a decent price) would be a viable platform for home Internet/set-top box technology..
I still feel that a computer w/a small size and Linux/Windows would still be less money than a PS2+goodies.
The PS2 has a 256-bit pipeline, a specialized graphics CPU, and basically enough bandwidth to make your PC look like a gameboy. You could "cobble together" one of these as a Linux workstation for $500 ($300 PS2, $200 linux kit, including hdd, eth, Linux, X, GL and everything you need to program it, including the bare specialized hardware... and that's before any rumored price drop). The system would rival a SGI workstation for realtime graphics processing power. For $500. (Of course, you need to throw in some software, but you need to do that with the SGI's, too.) You could barely buy a GeForce3 for that. The PC solution would cost at least a grand, and wouldn't be nearly as powerful.
Sony is already making high end boxes using 8x of the CPUs in a PS2. Licensing the CPU technology. Just think of the PS2 + Linux as the "low end" graphics workstation, perfect for hobbiests, small businesses, etc.
It's not a toy by any means. Just because they market it to play games, doesn't mean there's not some serious technology in this box.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
The iMac and original 128K Mac follow this philosophy exactly: like a game console, it's a tight box, more like an applicance.
As I said in an earlier discussion here, console generations are around 5 years long, and I should damn well expect them to be. Look at the first year PS games, then at the last year PS games: the difference is amazing, and goes to show what happens when a developer has 3 or 4 years to optimize and tweak for a standardized hardware set.
I don't know about anyone else, but if my home computers don't get at least 3 years of daily usage, something's wrong.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
aren't they require to distribute the source publicly? it is linux so that is GPL.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I work retail selling games and systems. Joe blow has been suckered by M$ again. I have the exact same discussion two or three times a day whay the xbox is not god. These mindless minions see 733Mhz vs. 300Mhz. Thats it. They hear nVidia, and drool. Why? Because M$ is paying GameStop (formerly Babbages, formerly Software ETC. formerly...)Big ass bucks to hype the box. Yeas it's going to look great. Until it blue screens. Now what does all this have to do with running linux on the PS2? A lot of you have the toaster mentality, Sure I can give my toaster an ip, but why? Same reason to all that. Why the hell not? I have no illusions, I don't think this will replace those pretty sgi machines they show off on the local weather report, but put these in schools for a whole lot less than apple has been extorting out of the educaton system, and boom. Computer literate kids. Wow what a concept. I'm not talking about future MCSE's who can click in all the right places, but people who actually know how to use the tools. Computers are tools. And just like my wrench set, my linux box dosen't need constant supervision and intervention just to do the job. The windows box at work while supposedly faster and with twice the memory can't pull up IE in less than the time it takes for my box to load the newest mozilla build. and we all know how fsckn long that takes... My point is, well hell, I didn't really have one...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
consoles are sold as a platform for running games.
they should give the consoles away. the real money does NOT come from the hardware. it comes from software. They charge for the box to get money upfront to cover initial development and actual build/ship costs. After they recoup these costs it is all gravy.
Remember back to BillG vs. IBM RE: dos and windows
IBM thought it was all about the hardware.
Gates knew it was all about the software.
If you can run linux chances are high that you will also write or use free or at least non-sony software. This translates to Sony making less money from licensing of software for their boxes.
Hence they will wait as long as possible.
Or, even longer.
comment directly in my journal
...you can't get the Japanese Linux kit, is because it's completely useless unless you have a japanese PS2, due to the differing expansion ports recquired for the hard drive / ethernet unit.
I have little doubt that when the US/Euro equivalent of that unit is released later this year a translated Linux kit will be made available.
Suggesting the Dreamcast isn't... actually your right :-)
Dont you mean open source && free == best. Yea thats right shut your mouth jackass.
Mess Stuff Up
Have you played NBA Street? :)
It's also meant for Internet access and a lot of other embedded and desktop functions, functions that can be very nicely developed on Linux.
As for games, with SDL and Linux, there are lots of nifty existing Linux games and new Linux games that could be cross-compiled for the PS2 without the expense and complexity of licensing the PS2 development kit.
Q: Now, when will I have an excuse to buy a PS2?"
When Metal Gear Solid 2 comes out! everyone knows that.
BOSTON SUCKS!
Consoles are very standardised. This means you slap in a CD and *it just works*. They all behave the same too, no performance surprises. Now imagine a postscript RIP and print server that *just works* with cheap USB printers. Imagine a fileserver that *just works*, doing RAID on firewire disks. imagine all these one-function CDs that can be made !
The Linux PS2 is not a great computer, but you can be sure you will have *zilch* install problems. I took 3 days of typing strange hex numbers to install my latest server with redhat (ultra 66 problems). And another 2 hours to get X up. I would gladly hav bought a PS2 in it place, just for the time savings.
This is not a signature.
But rather than some possibly expensive, commercial X server, I wouldn't mind having VNC for the PS2. Not only would that probably be a lot easier to develop, configure and use, it would also work with both Windows and UNIX machines on the back-end.
Unless you need high-speed general-purpose computing, I really do very seriously doubt that an off-the-shelf PC solution can be made to best these things. Their graphics bus is insanely fast, and the specialized hardware is really quite sweet. Remember, as well, that it's necessary to throw in a DVD player with the cost of any "comparable" PC.
This is a source of many misunderstandings with the GPL. It does not require anyone to "publically" distribute anything; you merely need to provide with the binary distribution a written offer (valid for a minimum of 3 years) of at-cost distribution of the source to any third party. This means that the offer is only distributed to those who get the binary distribution. In any case, the presence of GPL is not a guarantee of public distribution, even though it encourages it. Furthermore, Linux kernel modules do not fall under GPL (at least AFAIK, I've seen no lawsuits against the makers of VMWare et. al.), so Sony probably just threw any interesting PS2-specific ultra-nifty code into a binary-only kernel module, (or a userland library, which is explicitly not required to be GPL according to Linux's license) which they don't have to release the source to.
Apparently the Japanese version has more hardware standard like a hard drive and some other cool gizmos. The US version with a kernel on it is pretty crippled as compared to theirs. They wont sell theyre kit in the US until theyre sure theres enough interest I guess.
I also forget to mention that the register set of a 68K is much nicer than that of an 80x86 to play with, as the 68K doesn't tell you (much) that you can only perform certain operations with certain registers. The 68K only had data registers (D0-D7) and address registers (A0-A7)- none of this AX - accumulator, BX pointer, CX counter, DX secondary accumulator s**t.
This probably was part of the reason that 68K programs seemed much more reliable than there 80x86 brethrenm even without memory management, protected addressing and all that stuff.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Not everything has to `make sense`.
Sometimes it`s just out of fun.
Another thing on my wish-list is a Linux based PDA.
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
Hope so! :)
Blogging because I can...
I don't think he claimed that it doesn't exist. I think he just said he would like to have one, "just for fun".
So does this mean that there's no way out for Microsoft? That because of Linux, they are going to lose money on this hardware?
It has top secret military uses. . . Saddham would love it!
ROFL
You should submit that to UserFriendly.Org
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
If you want to tinker with Linux on a game set-top box, get a Dreamcast. Althought the PS2 is a cool thing, use it for games. That's what it's made for. --Ted
I'm curious.. maybe I missed it someplace, but why are they refusing to sell the linux kit outside of japan? Is there some sort of thing in it that makes it so that its not distributable or something?
I'd buy one for GT3 and ZOE, but that's me.
All right...
Why on earth would anyone buy a PS2, plus the Linux kit? You can cobble together a PC out of used parts that will perform at LEAST as well as the PS2 linux box for a lot less. And if you arent already technically proficient with PC hardware, building a machine will help you learn those skills rather than just plugging together the PS2 black boxes.
Just because something can be doen, doesn't mean that it makes sense to do it.
Or is this one of the He who has the most toys wins' sort of things? Sometimes it makes me want to cry...
I'd install a PSX emulator on it so I could play the games that the PS2's built-in emulator has problems with (like, say, Final Fantasy Anthology).
But wouldnt it be great to put linux onto the X-Box when its released? Throw something like that into Microsoft's face. Die Microsft, Die.
seconded.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
No version of Linux can be sold without source availability. Sony are very savvy about Linux and they know about the community and the GPL.
This is not a signature.
make sense does not exist. All I know is make install, make clean, make bzImage, make dep, make zImage, and make menuconfig.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Metrolink is selling their Micro-X product. That's based on XFree 4.0 and runs in a much smaller footprint. You don't need it, but with the memory limits of the PS2 it's not a bad idea.
I've got a Japanese PS2 running Linux, so if people have questions, maybe I should do a more complete piece on Slashdot. I did a presentation for my local users group not long ago that could be adapted.
ps: If the answer involves a part of the Sony distro that is closed, please tell me to shut up.(don't forget reverse engineering!)
BOSTON SUCKS!
"Now, when will I have an excuse to buy a PS2?"
Maybe when they come out with this game for the Playstation 2 platform:
"This is it! Your chance to experience the high-stress world of being an Air Traffic Controller with ATC Simulator - the most complete and most authentic Air Traffic Control simulator ever released for the personal computer."
Oh the glory, the money, the excitement, the women, now I can live the life of an air traffic controller right from my own bedroom! Move over Everquest, I have a new addiction to feed!
Sorry yea I know this is a little offtopic, but I was beside myself when I saw this game on EB's website.
I posted to
Sorry about that. I accidentally posted as html instead of plain old text, hence it has no line breaks. My bad.
"Do what you wish in your madness, but first let me down off this horse. I wish to see no eyes!"
One good reason to buy a PS2 + Linux kit is to do architecture or compiler research on floating-point SIMD units, that may require measurements on real hardware. If the goal is to make a table comparing the four popular floating-point SIMD sidecards (SSE2, 3DNow!, Altivec, and Emotion Engine), the PS2 + Linux kit is the cheapest way to get the fourth column of the table.
I am sure that Sony just does not want mass world-wide distribution of this kit for fear that hackers will get a hold of it and use it against Sony. I ca't see any other viable reason for Sony's actions.
How many PS2 Linux Kit would sell here in the US? ....PS9).
It'll be a small percentage of the installed base.
Granted that there'll be people buying PS2 for the Linux Kit, but it'll be really minimal by comparison. Then again, the Linux Kit will shape the future of coming Playstation (PS3, PS4,
First off it's Metro Link - two words.
Can someone explain why anyone would want to put the wonderful graphics hardware in a PS2 to use displaying inherently ugly X windows? I much prefer the sunrays in GT3. :)
So if you want to see Linux on PS2 outside Japan, do your share and register here for European version or here for American version. And remember, this is only to see if there's interest, so the registrations don't commit either side to anything.