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Sony Announces Version 1.0 Of Linux for Playstation 2
ResearchBuzz writes: "Sony has announced the May 2002 release of Linux (for Playstation 2) Release 1.0." He quotes from the press release: "The company expects the kit to sell for about $199 USD when it is made available in May 2002 exclusively through its website, http://www.us.playstation.com."
Is this really useful? You need a monitor which supports Sync-on-green to use this. I guess we won't be able to use this as a set-top box.
Considering there is a hard disk and a operation system that is developed by "hackers," what is stopping someone from creating a bootloader for Linux to boot PS2/PSX burns (let it be a DVD-R/CDR).
I don't see why it would not be possible to do so unless they have really done a good job putting protections into place.
A MAME DVD would have enough space on it for all the most popular MAME's game ROMS
BUT, would Sony allow such a distribution ???
Checkout MAME here : http://www.mame.net
And for all your ROM needs here : http://www.mame.dk
Galaga,Outrun,Spy Hunter,Xevious,Rolling Thunder - ahh !! my childhood !
Darren Kruse CCNP CCDP
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Has anyone ran linux on a PS2 run any Benchmarks yet? I'd like to know just how fast the CPU really is.
For those who are interested, this is the place to go. Every 'community' like /. stated as one or two guys with an idea...
In other words, the site is kinda small right now.
It helps if you, like, smoke a lot of weed.
Sapere Aude - Homer
All of the hardware can be had for well under $100
And this is exactly why Linux won't make it bigtime,- there's no money in it. I'm sorry to be so negative (but I'm sure the Karma Police will fix that) but here's a company that's actually doing something kewl, and what do they get? People bitching about 2 hundred fucking dollars.
Have you looked a M$ XP license recently?
I mean, what do you expect? Sony people preparing each individual kit by purchasing used gear from eBay???
Show me an other company selling an add-on kit including harddrive, keyboard, mouse and network adaptor AND an OS for $200,-
Back when this story last hit /. I observed the dump of dmesg from the thing and the DVD drive was conspiciously absent. Without that we can't build up a DVD/DiVX;)/MP3/OGG/etc player very easy.
Democrat delenda est
According to the press release, ``The graphics output requires a high-resolution computer display, with standard output set as XGA (1024 x 768 resolution); home televisions cannot be used as monitors."
This is the only thing that bugs me (well, aside from the fact that I live in Japan and this won't run on my Japanese PS/2, and the Japanese version of the kit is high near impossible to obtain). I don't really _need_ a monitor (I'd just ssh in from my main workstation) but I would really like to be able to, say, watch streaming video on my TV. (Example: Star Trek Enterprise won't be showing in Japan for like, another 2 years. I have been grabbing eps from the 'net and watching them on my crappy 17" LCD monitor, while my 24" TV sits there idle.)
Anybody know more about this? Surely the development of a driver to push video through the RCA video hookup wouldn't be too difficult?
But, looking at Apple's DVD-R compatibility list, they say that a PS2 works fine.
Unfortunately, I'm sure that Sony won't allow redistribution of their accellerated X server; otherwise, you might be able to ship pure Linux game packages on DVD-R.
Umm...they do provide all the hardware except the TV or monitor.
It comes with a 40 GB hard drive, network card, 2 Linux DVDs, a VGA interface adapter, a mouse, and a keyboard. This is a competitive rate for all of this stuff. Plus, you have the guarantee of compatibility.
What else were you planning on putting into your playstation? A floppy drive?
This is a competitive product; most applications don't need a powerful processor, and it really is a full fledged computer which even has an edge for gaming with the built-in hardware. Is $300 too much to pay for a fully loaded computer?
I gotta tell you, I'd never buy a playstation for just the games. But I'd buy one that I could use to run games AND a mature operating system.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The press release nor either of the PS2 web sites appeared to mention source code, as far as I could see. So I asked for a clarification.
Color me impressed. Not only did I receive a reply within minutes, but they are indeed fully abiding by the GPL.
This forum message contains the reply with a bit more info.
Thanks, Sony!
I've been contributing to open source projects for 15 years and now these jokers want to sell me that code back?
I don't think thats quite right.
Given the recent modchip and regional liscencing case, this leaves Europe (SCEEurope's teritorry) as the only region you can't run Linux on the PS2.
So can Alan Cox be arrested for running Linux on his PS2 in the UK? Hmm. Also, you will note, Blokman Trading the guys who did the "privateer" Linux port to the Playstation have appeare to have dissapeared off the web. What happened to them?
Sony are in the same class as Microsoft: they seek to create a monopoly by proprietary lock - in, and regional liscencing, so this is the equivalent of MS Linux coming out.
Yet everyone celebrates...
/usr/games/fortune > ~/.signature
Yes you can...
Sorry, But I have seen a PS2 that was chipped cold boot to a DVD backup of Kolona 2. It happily booted the DVD and started the game. Only a un-modified PS2 display's this behaivoir... mods that correct these little bugs make everything alright....
but then again.... How the hell does it boot a origional DVD disc when modified to boot from a backup?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I agree that lack of TV output is my only complaint with their package.
I somehow doubt that X can't run on interlaced NTSC, but rather that text is ugly and difficult to read at typical font sizes.
The option of running at 640x480 or even less if necessary would increase acceptance even if a monitor were recommended.
Another cool application would be dual monitor support (including TV plus RGB). I have no idea how the connectors work, and this is more viable if VGA is a seperate connector rather than an adapter for s-video or something.
Virtual desktops in X window managers would let you direct apps to monitors of your choice (say TV displays desktop 2 and 4, and VGA 1 and 3).
Why do we want this again?
I wonder how well emulation would work on a PS2 for systems like the N64,dreamcast, and or an X86 based PC?
Did you consider that perhaps they simply didn't have the time to do any of the above with the release? I wouldn't doubt that Sony made numerous patches to all of the packages listed to make them work on the PS2. If they were releasing an x86 distribution, I might go complaining to them asking why they didn't include, at the very least, glibc 2.2.4, XFree 4.0.3, kernel 2.4.14 or such, a newer version of gcc, and the like. But, keep in mind, this is a highly targeted distribution, probably with a lot of bugfixes and support issues that they did themselves, given the architecture, so it's not worth even bitching about anyway.
Dogma: Dead (mostly because your Karma ran it over)
Imagine that the world found cheap energy. Really cheap, if not zero point energy something like being able to burn saltwater in an engine.
The economy of the world would likely become a luxery economy, probably an entertainment economy.
But don't think that means hollywood! Think Hobbies... people only want that escapist crap because they have to do things they despise to make a living. Entertainment Economy would include things like linux hacking.
Ok, so this opinion of mine is utopian crap. Sue me.
-pyrrho