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BlackRhino Linux Now Available for PlayStation 2
Mr. Spock writes "BlackRhino Linux has been released for the PlayStation 2. It's developed independently by xRhino, a middleware developer. Check out the details and download instructions on the official website. A Playstation 2 Linux kit is required to use BlackRhino."
>> but what's the point of this past that?
You're a coder with an interest in running code against PS2 hardware, or anything other than an x86 for that matter.
It's neat to write some code and get it running on a Sega Genesis, Gameboy, SNES, TG16, or whatever.
This is the first time you've been officially sanctioned by the merciful corporate gods to be able to do so.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Because you get all but one of the developers manuals, and can access all the hardware in basically the same way as games do. Which could be real handy if you want a job in ps2 game development.
I'm curious as to what kinds of projects people might use this (or any flavor of linux on a PS2) for. The only practical thing I can think of is some kind of a cheap game development platform, but then who is your target audience? Other PS2/Linux owners? What are people using these platforms for? (not a flame, just curious)
i have seen alot of people buying the PS2 Linux Kit as altenative to a linux based PC, sure you can do it but whats the point?
the reason to play around with a PS2 Linux Development kit is _not_ as an alternative to a PC running Linux. If you want that, go buy a PC. Also, its not really an appropiate setup for learning about 3D graphics, once again a PC is cheaper and easier with DirectX and OpenGL etc.
what it is appropiate for;
1. another 'embedded' platform for hardcore kernel hackers to get intimate with the exotic hardware porting etc. These ppl. may find the black xRhino of interest.
2. the number one reason, is for up and coming game developers to have a better chance getting a foot in the gaming industry. it is a chance to understand and develop for a modern and relevant console...anyone who wants to take it on, should already have a strong grasp of low level C, assembler, 3D graphics etc. for these ppl, the release of the black xrhino is not really so important, as they are already trying to cut the OS out as much as possible ( or using special OS modules eg. SPS2, which open up the hardware to user space) to get as low and and dirty to the hardware as possible.
remove NOT from email.
Seems like an awful lot of trouble to run Linux. And the Linux Kit costs $199.00!!! You can get a
whole computer system at WALMART pre-installed with Lindows for about $50.00 more (a playstation 2 alone costs $200.00, and I have to buy a monitor!?). Why would I want to screw with my Playstation 2 to turn it into a Linux system that needs me to port applications -- obviously this is just for a hobbyist with time and money to burn.... a little TOO geeky for me...
You would be writing a Linux Game then, not a ps2 game.
If you write a ps2 game, you get to run in super user mode and touch all the hardware. If you write your game on linux. well you wrote it on linux, not ps2. You would run as a user program, and wouldn't get to touch the hardware. Have you ever deved on a console?
I have if you count GBA as a console.
If you knew what you were talking about, you'd know that the T10K pro kit is basically upgraded PS2 hardware and an x86 Linux PC in a big box. The Linux kit just combines the two units into one. There are kernel extensions to allow direct hardware access, and indeed direct hardware access is what the pro dev manuals cover. At the same time the linux aspect allows network and hard disk access, and real debugging support.
Give me the manuals the professionals use any day over some hacked up, incomplete homebrew GBA nonsense...
I had a friend who got the Linux kit for his PS2, instead of buying a walmart PC. I was skeptical of it at first, especially since he knew nothing about Linux or computers in general, and was looking for this to be a cheap first PC (I had a hard time explaining how it wasn't really a PC). I did have to walk him through the install a little, but as soon as he had a desktop he was using it as well as many Windows user's use their desktops. He's since moved on to a real Linux PC as well, as well as moved away from the RedHat based Kondora Linux(that's what the Sony Linux distro is based on) but he still uses Linux on that machine as a desktop.
The PS2 Linux kit isn't for everybody, but it's not JUST for developers either. If you think you would like it or could use it, then it's probably for you. If you can't think of why anyone would want to Linux on their PS2, then it's probably just not for you.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I've been a PS2 Linux kit owner/user from day 1. Some people think that owning and using this kit is silly unless you're a game developer, but I dismiss those allegations as quite incorrect :).
I see two excellent uses of the PS2 with Linux installed on it in my home:
When the PS3 comes along, chances are good that, like the PS2, it will be backward compatible. If this is the case, and I buy one, I normally wouldn't have any use for my PS2 anymore. However, with the PS2 Linux kit installed, I can continue to make use of my hardware investment by dedicating the system exclusively to Linux, running network tasks. The system is more than fast enough to act as a mail server, a personal webserver, a file server, or any number of other tasks.
I initially bought my PS2 for games. But they won't be making PS2 games forever. Linux, OTOH, will be around forever, making the hardware investment more useful for a longer amount of time.
Yaztromo.
I'm one of the guys that put the BlackRhino Linux distribution together and also, one of the founders of xRhino.
We started the company for the sole purpose of bringing Linux to the PlayStation 2, this was far before we even knew of Sony's PS2 Linux efforts. How great would it be, we thought, for everybody to have access to this incredibly advanced piece of hardware through Linux. As we now know, Sony was thinking the exact same thing.
A typical PlayStation 2 developer sits at a standard PC, edits his/her PS2 code, compiles it on the PC and then uploads it to a big honkin' machine called a DTL-10000. These big honkin' machines aren't cheap... infact, you could buy a good used car for the price of one of these boxes. Couple that with you have a team of 15 developers and that is a huge amount of up-front investment for a start-up game company... and thats just for the hardware.
While developing our PS2 commercial application, we were able to use much cheaper PS2 debug units to write, compile and test our code on. Instead of a big honkin' machine that cost the same as a good used car, we spent 1/10th of that on an equally powerful development machine for each developer.
Coding on the PS2 Linux kit allows a PS2 developer to test out ideas and use pre-built Linux libraries to speed development along without tying up expensive development hardware.
So, the PS2 Linux kit lets a developer save time during product creation by using cheaper hardware to accomplish the same code, compile, run, debug cycle.
It also helps the developer in another way, which was our main point with BlackRhino Linux and our PlayStation 2 product. Our commercial product is called RockSteady and it is a MP3 and Internet Radio player for the PlayStation 2. It would play MP3s off of any Samba share on your network, and it would also stream Internet Radio from the web and play it on your home stereo system.
While developing the product under BlackRhino Linux, we didn't have to worry about writing a networking stack from scratch, or a MP3 decoder, or a scripting engine, or an XML parser, or anything a typical Linux programmer takes for granted. Since we were running Linux, we could use all the development tools available under the open-source sun.
Linux has one of the most solid networking stacks out there, libmad was our MP3 decoder, Python our scripting language, libxml2 was our xml parser and SDL was used for graphic display. It wasn't nearly as fast as coding natively, but we were able to put a complete application together using about 1/5th of the resources it would have taken to do it the traditional way... and that is the true power of using Linux to do PS2 development, it saves you precious development resources (time and money).
I thank those of you that have Linux kits for explaining why somebody would want to use one... again, its not for everyone... but it sure is a great little development box.
-- manu
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.