Sony Annouces Linux PS2 Port for US

krismon writes "Sony has announced that it is gonna release the Linux port(old Slashdot article) for the Playstation 2 in the US, after selling out SUPER fast in japan." I saw this running, it's pretty impressive.

Comments

OS Wars on the Console?

[Whyte Wolf]

Does this mean that it'll move the OS Wars (Linux vs Windows) to gaming consoles?

Then again, looking at the menu system for the Xbox, I can honestly say I'd prefer windows to what MS is doing on their console system....

Wonder if Sony's Linux port will have wacky interface options?

Makes sense

[HomeGroove]

Wouldn't this make sense for Sony to do? With the release of the HD/Ethernet port coming up (November?), it seems like this would be a great solution for the elusive set top box. And could this be a server farm solution right out of the box?

It's also nice to see a company do this. While it would be fun to hack the Xbox, this will be a nice solution to those just getting their hands dirty with Linux (myself included...Mac OSX has whetted my appitite. Next stop, YellowDog).

Kudos Sony!

Follow Up On The Petitions?

[Lethyos]

Sony has answered our petitions to bring a Linux port to the PSX2. Many people who singed the petition, myself included, claimed that seeing Linux available on the PSX2 would prompt a purchase. I know I intend to, but in general, are we going to support Sony for supporting us? Are we going to encourage big companies to do what we ask by following through with our claims? Or is the general public going to just drop the ball and show Sony and other large tech corps that what we write in petitions is bullshit?

Re:Why Ethernet? USB - USB networking (PC - PS2)

[i_am_nitrogen]

While the PS2's CPU has only a mere 300MHz clock speed, it is not an Intel architechture CPU -- it is a MIPS Rx000 (sorry, can't remember which model straight off the top of my head) by SGI (originally). It can execute more instructions in parallell than an Intel CPU can, in fact, enough to be faster than the XBox's 733MHz CPU. That's the same reason an AMD AthlonXP 1800 at 1533MHz can beat a Pentium 4 2000 in all tests but Q3A (Q3A seems to be optimized for Intel over AMD). Performance matters, not numbers. The clock speed is really meaningless when comparing CPUs of different architectures. MIPS (millions of instructions per second) is a much more accurate measurement. So, DivX, DVD, or whatever wouldn't be a problem at all for the PS2, since it can handle HDTV resolution DVD decoding/scaling. It would be MUCH slower to send uncompressed video (24bits/pixel*1280columns*720rows*30fps=79MB/s) over a 100mbit/s network (12.5MB/s theoretical maximum without protocol overhead) than it would be for the PS2's CPU to decode it locally, since DivX video is usually around 500KB/s for transparent quality at 1440x720 (I know - I use DivX to compress my high-res 3D animations from Bryce et al when I'm low on hard drive space). Firewire is only 40MB/s, so this would still be insufficient for uncompressed consumer HDTV video.

Re:Important Notes Re: Linux PS2

[DickBreath]

Er, right...because far more people have PlaySation 2 consoles than PC's, and none of them have VCR's so you couldn't dub that summer party video to tape.

The purpose, in my mind, wouldn't be because you couldn't just use videotape, but because a CD that runs on PS2 is cool. Novel.

With a little work, you could no doubt make a single CD that works on a PS2, or Windows and Mac. What the CD presents on each platform might be different.

[This is assumption on my part. I know when I put a PS1 disk in my Mac, I see files. Presumably true on Windows. Also presumably true of PS2 disks. Therefore, couldn't you just put an Autorun.inf file on that disk along with exe files that a PS2 would just ignore?]

It's also novel to make christmas cards on square business card CD's, which play on Mac or Windows, and give them to family. The point is that most family members don't get christmas cards on CD's. Let alone on oddball sized CD's. It's the novelty which makes it cool. This becomes one cool topic of conversation at a family get together. Extending this concept to also play on PS2 seems logical.

On Mac and Windows, the disk might launch one of KAI Power Show, or Macromedia Director player, or just a web page in the browser. On PS2 it would probably have to do something different.