Slashdot Mirror
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.
While Sony is really earns its bread in the liscensing market rather than the hardware market, it is still important for them to put units in consumers' homes, because that is the only way to build a userbase for PS2 games.
What is the additional cost for releasing a linux-enabled PS2 machine? Not terribly much. It's the sort of thing linux enthusiasts might release on their own in a few months, given a chance. By putting in this marginal amount of effort, Sony gets both a more valuable commodity and some brownie points among linux enthusiasts.
I honestly can't see a single downside for them. The remarkable point is not that the PS2 is capable of this but rather that Sony actually had the foresight to act upon it. That's the hallmark of a nimble corporation and speaks loads for their future.
Of course, Sony is also in bed with the RIAA and the dvd cca, so anyone who buys a PS2 is going to hell in my book, but that's your choice.
According to popular rumor, the "HomeStation" is Microsoft's 2nd generation XBox. This will provide television recording, internet surfing, games, kitchen sink, etc. How can the poor little PS2 and its successors keep up with that?
How?
By using Open Source software. Currently, the PS2 running Linux has far more applications than the HomeStation (since the HomeStation is still in Development). All Sony has to do is stay ahead of Microsoft.
If Microsoft runs a native windows type OS or something on their HomeStation and markets it as a computer, then we have anti-trust laws being broke even more than now. Microsoft can't get away with owning the hardware and the software.
Keeping
Has anyone been able to get the PS2 under linux to talk to a another linux box via USB? Is the USB hardware on the playstation supported in sony's linux port?
A couple of megabits a second is nothing to sneeze at, a lot of things could run full speed under X at 2Mb/s.
The firewire port would give far better speeds, but every recent PC has USB.
Currently I have a box with TV out which gets lugged into the living room occasionally to play movie files in various formats & xgalaga on the TV. Having a PS2 as an X-term would be a far more convenient (and cheaper) idea than a box with a GeForce with TV-out. Things that chew serious amounts of CPU (eg. DivX) could be run on the real box in another room and piped to the local display on the PS2. After a certain point the bandwidth of firewire would be desireable.
Some are of course questioning WHY?
With a keyboard, mouse, Hard Drive, and Ethernet/Modem adapter, SONY may have essentially created the next cheap home computer, and they'll be able to push this onto the market as such with the right marketing.
You see- back in the days of the Commodore 64 a computer didn't have to have a completely dedicated setup for people. It was fine to have a computer just plugged into the TV for occassional gaming, BBS, and type-work.
The Playstation 2 can perform all of the modern equvilants of these roles, and it doesn't even REALLY need Linux to do it, but why complain that it uses Linux?
While I honestly DOUBT that Linux is going to be a major part of the Sony Playstation's acceptance as a general purpose low-cost computing device, I honestly do think it's a "Good Thing" for Linux. Think of the number of budding coders that could print their first "Hello World" on this thing? And while Microsoft may own the PC market right now they don't own EVERY market, at least, not yet, and there is room for a whole new level of personal computers. A market that hasn't been filled since the last of the Amiga 500's began to die off.
Dreamcast could've had that market, but they ignored it. XBox could have that Market, but Microsoft won't play their cards right (I don't think). Nintendo doesn't want that market or they would've had it a long time ago.
Sony. Linux. It bothers me, but I can see it happening.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I am going to wait for the Linux Hack of the XBox. A 766 Proccessor, 8 GB HDD and NVIDIA video, for $299, can't be beat this side of an E-Machine.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli
i'll give you one word for the best reason for this port. Mozilla. By porting Linux to the PS2, a port of Mozilla becomes trivial, and Sony doesn't have to spend the mega bucks to create a web browser. You just have to create a skin which looks decent on a TVs limited resolution, maybe an image proxy which downsamples the pics so they're viewable on a TV.
As for your question about expandablity, remember those USB ports. USB is fairly well supported on Linux, so pretty much any supported Linux device, such as storage controller, network card, input device, etc suddenly becomes a PS2 device.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
Ive used it, and its SLOW
PS2 doesnt have much memory and its unexpandable anyway, so things like building a kernel take all day while the thing swaps into the stratosphere... if youre going to develop for this thing, you really want to cross compile. You dont want to self-host build at all.
CPU wise, the R5900 @ 294mhz is roughly equivalent to a K6/233. Please, dont argue about what this CPU is "theoretically" capable of. Right now GCC is very unoptimized for this architecture, so a K6/233 IS what this thing is going to perform like, unless you want to hand code MIPS ASM.
Its very cute, but the Mesa HW implementation is rather incomplete and binutils has various bugs preventing lots of stuff from linking properly.
Oh yeah, it's also expensive as hell (compared to what the equivalent $$ would buy you in x86 hardware)
To me, its mainly a curiosity, nothing more. Dreamcast Linux is far more interesting -- and far cheaper.
The main reason everyone I know who has bought PS2 linux is for the VGA adaptor so they can play PS2 games in hires ^_^;
Still, it's nice that Sony did the port.