Gentoo Ported to PS2

kerneljacabo writes "In what is yet another testament to the flexibility of the Gentoo platform, it has been ported to the PS2. It is still in the early stages but more information can be found here."

Comments

Shhh....

[Dieppe]

...don't tell Sony...

Re:Shhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

your website is down

Re:Shhh....

[Dieppe]

Really? I've been /.ed? Whatever shall I do!?

(I swear I need one of those "Every time someone clicks on your webpage with our banner you get $.01" pages... but they don't do that anymore do they?)

It was just a matter of time...

[fudgefactor7]

Linux is portable...so porting it to a PS2 (or a sufficiently advanced toaster) is just a matter of exercising the will to do so. Not a surprise that it was done...Gentoo or otherwise, one distro or another eventually would have done it.

Re:It was just a matter of time...

[Sexy Commando]

Don't know how to say it... Yes Linux is flexible, but not in the sense of porting a distro to another platform, becasue if a distro is ported, it's not the same distro anymore. Redhat can just build a dstro from scratch on PS2 and still call it Redhat Linux.

Gentoo is a "meta-distro," which can be put on top of many UNIX-like systems. The Gentoo Linux we often hear can be percieved as the "reference distro" of the Gentoo meta-distro system.

Heck, there's even Gentoo for cygwin and OSX

Re:It was just a matter of time...

[YE]

Obviously you've never seen a PS2...it IS a sufficiently advanced toaster, especially when propped up on its side.

Re:It was just a matter of time...

[philci52]

Toaster - no way its just plane toasted! Well mine did by lightning 2 weeks ago.

Re:It was just a matter of time...

[pyrrhonist]

Linux is portable...so porting it to a PS2 (or a sufficiently advanced toaster) is just a matter of exercising the will to do so. Not a surprise that it was done...Gentoo or otherwise, one distro or another eventually would have done it.

Yup, there's now several distributions:

• Sony
• BlackRhino
• Gentoo

As far as porting the Linux kernel to the PS2, though, it's not quite that simple. Linux in general is not as portable as you might think, and it's a major pain on the PS2. First some background:

It's impossible to run Linux on stock PS2 hardware. Why? It's because the stock PS2 DVD-ROM drive is unable to physically read anything other than the Sony proprietary game-disc format, audio CDs, and DVDs. The drive has been specifically designed in hardware to be unable to read CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVD-recordables, etc. in an attempt to keep people from pirating games. Note that you can get a MOD chip to get around this limitation, however, that is a moot point, because...

The way you run Linux on a PS2 is to purchase the Linux Kit from Sony. This kit comes with a bootable Sony proprietary DVD-ROM that loads a hardware adaptation layer upon which the Linux kernel can run. This disc is required to run Linux on the PS2, and all of the kernels for PS2 use the hardware interfaces provided by the runtime environmrent on this disc. The kit comes with a modified version of RedHat that contains a 2.2 kernel. TMK, Sony has never upgraded this, nor do they have any plans to, as the kit is purely for hobby-oriented development of PS2 games and for becoming familiar with the hardware.

Now, that being said, there has been an attempt to upgrade the stock 2.2 kernel to the 2.4 kernel. However, it has been a slow process. Why? It's because of various incompatibilities with GCC, the Linux kernel code, and the PS2's odd version of a MIPS processor. In other words, a lot of the kernel code needs to be ported by hand, and is rather difficult. So far the xRhino project has succedeed in upgrading the 2.2.1 kernel to a 2.2.21 kernel, but they have not gotten further than that.

Gentoo Port

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for the hack to run a Gentoo-ported PS2 emulator on my XBox.

Re:Gentoo Port

[The Analog Kid]

People have had success running Gentoo on the Xbox go to the Gentoo forums under Gentoo on Alternate Architectures and you'll see it.

Re:Gentoo Port

[Sir_Stinksalot]

gentoox is the project name for gentoo for x-box

Re:Gentoo Port

[Esion Modnar]

Well, I'm waiting for the Gentoo-ported PS2 emulator which runs on an Xbox emulator which runs on Wine which runs on Gentoo Linux... on my PS2!

(Fatal exception error: you have got to be kidding.)

Re:Gentoo Port

[RevMike]

Well, I'm waiting for the Gentoo-ported PS2 emulator which runs on an Xbox emulator which runs on Wine which runs on Gentoo Linux... on my PS2!

Keep waiting. Wine only runs x86 code on an x86. It is a OS call emulation layer, not a processor emulator.

Re:Gentoo Port

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. Better throw bochs in there.

Re:Gentoo Port

[bobthemonkey13]

Perhaps he wants to run code that was written for Windows on MIPS. Yeah, there's a lot of that running around...

Actually, wait, Windows CE can run on MIPS. Maybe it would actually be worthwhile.

But.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have they fixed the file dialog yet?

Re:But.

[dosius]

That has nothing to do with Linux...that's GNOME. Sure it comes with most Linux distros, but it's not part of Linux proper.

-uso.

Re:But.

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be talking about the Gentoo file manager...

Support for PS/2

[clem]

That's great news. Now I no longer have to use my serial mouse with Gentoo.

Re:Support for PS/2

[pointbeing]

*raises hand from the back row*

What's a serial mouse?

Re:Support for PS/2

[proj_2501]

The kind you eat with milk.

Re:Support for PS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Send me 15 box Lucky Charms box tops and I will send you one.

Re:Support for PS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

The kind of mouse you plug into a COM-port, as opposed to a PS/2-port. Plz don't laughhh!!!2!2

Re:Support for PS/2

[rbullo]

For the moment, I'm assuming that you are not joking. A serial mouse is one you plug into a serial port. Not useful today...

Re:Support for PS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

* raises hand... and smacks rbullo *

Re:Support for PS/2

[IM6100]

I was about to comment that this seemed like a pretty redundant 'news' topic, as there has been Microchannel support in Linux for a few years now. But maybe this has to do with the Model 30 or something?

Re:Support for PS/2

[IM6100]

A computer without RS-232C serial ports is a computer that has been crippled by edict from Redmond.

Re:Support for PS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you do that? USB mice are cheap.

Re:Support for PS/2

[pyrrhonist]

Although, if you run Gentoo on a PlayStation 2, you'll be using a USB mouse. :)

Re:Support for PS/2

[sweetooth]

Serial mouse....
PS/2 mouse....
get it?

Sony refers to thier latest console as the PS2 not the PS/2.

Re:Support for PS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Serial and parallel ports still have their uses, but you already knew that. I wonder when/if they will be phased out of all consumer-level motherboards?

Re:Support for PS/2

[rbullo]

You wouldn't anymore, and that's the point. Serial mice are obsolete.

already!

[millette]

If only it wasn't slashdotted :(

details?

[anthonyclark]

Can someone explain to me how the ps2 runs linux? I remember an article a while back saying linux runs in some kind of virtual machine or sandboxed application.

And furthermore, why is gentoo on ps2 special? (apart from the benefits of emerge et al)

Re:details?

[chobee]

The distro from Sony requires a linux cd to be in the ps2. The kit comes with a hd, keyboard, mouse and video cable that allows you to plug up a vga monitor to it. When you first boot of the disk it formats the hd, installs linux, an then formats a memory card and installs lilo on it. After this process is done, you still need the linux disk in the ps2. This disk is read only when you first hit the power button, it then uses lilo memory card to boot off the hard drive your installed on. I haven't read the artical yet since its slashdotted but I bet the process will be to add a gentoo package that will convert your system over to the gentoo way of life. Very cool. -Cho

Re:details?

[rusty0101]

Without reading the article, which apparently is slashdotted, My recollection is that there are two ways to run Linux on the PS2.

The first way is to buy the Linux kit from Sony, which does run in a virtual machine.

The second is to run via a hack to a game and apparently some memory option. (I don't remember the full details) Apparently it allows you raw access to the hardware, not sandboxed.

There was a story about a month ago explaining how that worked. I presume that you know how to do a search in slashdot.

-Rusty

Re:details?

[aflat362]

You're thinking of the X-Box.

There was a hack with a 007 James bond game that allowed Linux to be installed on the X-Box

Re:details?

[ShadeARG]

Note: The VGA cable requires a SoG (Sync on Green) monitor. Non-SoG monitors won't work with it.

Re:details?

[ShadeARG]

And furthermore, why is gentoo on ps2 special? (apart from the benefits of emerge et al)

The only Linux distribution available apart from Sony PS2 Linux (Red Hat 5.2 based) is BlackRhino Linux (Debian based), and it doesn't work well at all from my experience with it. A new PS2 Linux distribution such as Gentoo is warmly welcomed by the community.

Re:details?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Gentoo never goes stale because you can suck down the source for software and compile it natively. So, if BlackRhino (the default distro) didn't include Apache, you would be SOL. Not so with gentoo, you simply emerge apache and it figures out all the software required to run Apache, and what order to download, compile, and install it in.

Emerge also incorporates distcc into the build process, so if you have a bunch of PS2s (or a few desktop PCs for that matter) you could farm the compile process across the network.

Re:details?

[rusty0101]

Actually that's not the story I was refering to. See this story about an exploit on PS2 similar to the 007 exploit on X-box.

-Rusty

Great.

[reverendslappy]

Now if only they could port it to 95% of the desktop market share.

*grin*

Re:Great.

[altp]

Agreed.

Why are developers spending time porting to the PS2, instead of contributing code to Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, or what ever other end user project needs work. Better yet, work on making the PPC or UltraSparc ports better.

We have a great OS and many great applications, now we need to polish them up. How pretty the icons are is more important to the end user than how many game consoles you can run Linux on.

Altp.

Re:Great.

[reverendslappy]

Absolutely. Sometimes it seems priorities are so f'd up... I can install Linux on XBox, PS2, or even friggin teletype machine, but my mom still can't figure out how to check her email w/ RedHat as easily as she can with Windows because it "looks scary". Know what I mean?

Re:Great.

[kin_korn_karn]

improving the Linux user experience carries no geek cred.

Until it does - which it never will because that's too "mainstream" of a goal for geeks to want to take up their spare time with - the Linux GUI experience will suck compared to the windows usability experience (no, I'm not talking about stability, I'm talking about the ease of doing mundane things)

Re:Great.

[GweeDo]

There is already portage for cyg-win...so DONE :P

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

so work on making Red Hat less scary for your mother. Don't flame other people, who don't care that your mother is retarded.

Re:Great.

[spencerogden]

Typical "Open Source developers have their priorities out of whack" comment. Who says the guys who did this (the port) would consider contributing to Gnome or KDE, who says they have the skills? All of that aside, if you aren't paying these guys, then how can you assign them priorities?

Re:Great.

[reverendslappy]

And people wonder why Linux is hurting for desktop market share.

Clearly what you don't understand is that my mother is not retarded, she's an average user. If people like you could get your heads out of your asses and understand that to gain prevalence, applications and OSs have to be developed for use by the lowest common denominator, Linux would be on desktops all over the place. The unfortunate truth, however, is it appears that too many people appear to have your same lack of forethought and emphasis on usability.

Re:Great.

[reverendslappy]

That's absolutely true. The fact they ported Gentoo to PS2 doesn't mean they aren't contributing other things (of real, actual importance). But you have to agree that on it's face, this sort of trite, meaningless effort sends a sort of weird message when Linux still has so much unrealized potential in both usability and market share.

Re:Great.

[IM6100]

Who cares about 'the linux GUI experience' in the first place??

My Window Manager of Choice is still eXceed on Windows 2000. Putty is pretty damn good terminal interface for non-gui tasks. And I do a LOT of things on the Linux and NetBSD boxes on my network.

Re:Great.

[dosius]

Download Thunderbird.

Seriously that e-mail client is just plain simple.

(Note: Previously the only e-mail client I used regularly was that included in Netscape 3.0x)

-uso.

Re:Great.

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure you have noticed that "Rasterman" is a name known to tons of Linux users. What's he known for? Enlightenment.

Enlightenment doesn't exactly have the buddha nature, but it is very pretty...

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. So teach her to use Mozilla for her email and browsing stuff, on windows. Let her use it for a good ammount of time.

Then, setup a linux box with a realistic windows theme, and arrange the toolbars such that it looks like a windows machine. Put the mozilla button where it usually is (where she expects is, that is), and she won't know the difference. At all.

This is why people go so far to make gnome/kde themes and things look like windows. It's you that's the retard, not your mom. If you'd help her a bit, instead of thinking she's going to get it instantly, things would not be so "scary".

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, asshole: at one time people have called Linux trite, meaningless, and weird, among many other things. It's now a movement. From Alice's Resturaunt, part of which is the best damn analogue to linux that exists:

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into
the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

It's not up to you, or anyone else to label what someone else fancies doing, regarding anything. Ever. The world is about doing whatever the fuck you feel like doing, and if someone gets a hard-on by porting Linux to computerized gerbil brains, or painting masterpieces, or whatever, then that's what they're going to do.

I don't know about you, but I'd fucking like to be able to ssh into a goddamn gerbil, even though some asshole not unlike yourself would question it's point.

The point is this: there's no fucking point. It's like selling water by the river.

Dipshit.

Re:Great.

[reverendslappy]

You're still missing the point. Nobody had to "teach" her or "setup" anything for her on WinXP. And you're kidding yourself if you think the average user can use and manage a Linux system as easily as they can a Windows system.

What it comes down to is that all the major Linux distros are still "OSs for Geeks", not an "OS For the Masses". And until the usability issues are addressed (and it's dumbed-down, to a degree probably), it won't have the market share people want for it. Read this.

The question is whether or not you want it to be dumbed-down to the point where it can be an "OS For the Masses".

Re:Great.

[reverendslappy]

That's cool with me. But don't be too fucking shocked when 5 years from now Linux is still regarded as being as "fringe" at the desktop as it is today. Because if all OSS programmers think like you and continue doing just "whatever the fuck you feel like doing", and "whatever the fuck you feel like doing" isn't making Linux a better, more usable, more desirable OS for average desktop users, I can only hope you aren't planning on making/continuing to make a career out of it.

And please... Comparing Gentoo on PS2 to the entire OSS movement? Are you high? The OSS movement is fundamentally and extraordinarily important (duh); putting an OS on a game console, a toaster, or a toilet for no tangible reason whatsoever is completely feckless, not to mention a bit dun.

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you broke out the thesaurus today, huh?

What you fail to understand is this: doing "whatever the fuck you feel like doing" is what got Linux to the state of being that it is now, and that many of the people who work on it don't care a bit that it is or is not a viable competitor to Microsoft products at any level.

Open Source developers do Open Source work for one of a few fundamental reasons. Fun, as a learning experience, (so that they may make money later--preferably doing what they enjoy), because they need (or want) something to work that's not available anywhere else, and for recognition.

To some people, OSS is fun. It's the only reason they are involved. Some of these people live to make Linux (or NetBSD) run on some abstract, stupid thing. No reasoning behind it, feckless, dun or not. If they'd rather do that than play Counterstrike, have sex, bathe, eat, or otherwise live, that's their issue, not yours.

To some people, doing the above is a learning experience. You have to start low to be able to do greater things. If this weren't the case, every 9 year old would be a world class physician. It's one of the fundamental laws of our existace. You just can't jump in and become an expert, no matter how many times it happens in the movies. No, I'm not high. Open Source is exactly about running Gentoo on a PS2, toilets, toasters, and not about everybody working on some project they could care less about.

You assume that everybody that's ever touched a line of Linux (or related) code wants nothing more than their work to stomp over to Redmond and trample Billy Gates into oblivion; and I can assure you that's simply not the case.

If it weren't for everyone doing whatever the fuck they want, we wouldn't have Linux, we wouldn't have Samba, or the V4L, or DRI, or Apache, or GTK, QT, Gnome, KDE, the free *BSDs, Gimp or anything else. Everyone would have abandoned ship long ago if someone dictated to everyone else what to do.

For that matter, why the hell are you arguing with me, or even reading slashdot? You could instead use ****EVERY WAKING HOUR**** working on making Linux more desireable for the average user, since that's what you seem to deem "fundamentally and extraordinarily important".

IHBT. IWHAND.

Dipshit.

Re:Great.

[claud9999]

Have you seen the kinds of icons made by people who do ports? They ain't pretty. ;^o

Seriously though, most people I know are either good coders (porters) or good artists but VERY RARELY are both good coders and artists.

NetBSD

[grub]

NetBSD runs on the PS2 and has for some time. Too bad it's dying. ;)

slashdotted already....

[nsadhal]

Unfortunately, I can't read the details, but I presume this would mean that there's a gcc port for the ps2? Would someone care to discuss how much stuff needs to be modified from one of the original Gentoo releases to get this to work?

Re:slashdotted already....

[GweeDo]

There has been a version of gcc ever since Sony released the Linux Toolkit. This is most like just portage for the Linux PS2 toolkit

Re:slashdotted already....

[drewness]

I'm sure some extra work would have to be done, but the PS2 has a MIPS64 processor in it, which is already quite well supported by gcc, so that part at least shouldn't be an issue. I'm sure a bigger issue would be drivers for the I/O devices, and getting the kernel to boot, because the PS2 would require it to be signed. But I'm sure that Sony's Linux Kit is way out of date, so if you really want Linux on your PS2 this might be the way to go.

and

[butane_bob2003]

kaboom! /. effect strikes again. Anyone find a cache of this?

PS2 not PS/2

[Salica]

[...] testament to the flexibility of the Gentoo platform, it has been ported to the PS/2 [...]

Don't tell me you cannot make the difference between an old IBM PC and a game console ;-)

Re:PS2 not PS/2

[TWX]

For longevity, I'll put my money on the PS/2. I have a Model 50 at the office that has been running for several years straight. As cool as the Playstations are, they don't do well with excessive amounts of on-time or funky environmental concerns. So, if we lose the ability to produce new electronics, IBM all the way...

Re:PS2 not PS/2

[hplasm]

Is it the PS/2 that runs OS/2?

Sounds like six of one.....and half of the other one??!?!?!

It's ideal for the process.

[Future Man 3000]

Given the methodology of Gentoo's packaging system, I'm not surprised that it's the first mainstream Linux distribution that's making it over to the PS2. Compiling the whole system from source on-the-fly isn't just for optimization purposes.

Not that the process would be any fun on the platform, of course -- I imagine glibc being an overnight compile, for example -- but it does testify to the strength of the source distribution system's portability.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[volkerdi]

Given the methodology of Gentoo's packaging system, I'm not surprised that it's the first mainstream Linux distribution that's making it over to the PS2.

Slackware has supported the Microchannel bus based PS/2 machines for years.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[Future Man 3000]

:)

The thing I always liked about Slackware was that I was able to grab just what I needed over a 9600 baud SLIP connection (A, AP, D, N, and sometimes Y). Thank you for that; I don't know if I would have gotten into Linux when I did otherwise.

Sadly, it was not a PS/2, but an Acer with 4MB of memory so that I could get UMSDOS working. However, should PS2 support find its way in, I will happily play your distribution alongside Grand Theft Auto 3 and Madden 2004.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[IM6100]

I am lazy about futzing around with Slip, and always throw an ancient ethernet card into a similarly ancient machine that I want to install a freenix on, and install from an NFS server.

That was an early winning point for NetBSD, in fact. It has/had(?) FAR better integration of PCMCIA into the base kernal, so it was trivial to install NetBSD on any old laptop, so long as it had PCMCIA. Linux at the time had it's PCMCIA support as a pasted-on kludge, which made it a horrible hack to install Slackware.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[dosius]

Mainline is Debian, SuSE, Head Rat or Mandrake.

Gentoo is an also-ran.

(I say this as a fan of Sourcemage) ;)

-uso.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[doorbot.com]

Compiling the whole system from source on-the-fly isn't just for optimization purposes.

Not that the process would be any fun on the platform, of course -- I imagine glibc being an overnight compile, for example -- but it does testify to the strength of the source distribution system's portability.

Perhaps you can explain this to a simple Debian user such as myself...

You say that you can "compile the whole system from source on-the-fly" -- that I can accept, given you have binary for your initial compiler. But having a binary compiler to compile your compiler negates the "advantage" of having a hardware-agnostic boot disk, as you need to have the particular compiler for your hardware first. Sure you could include a compiler for multiple platforms, but then you have the problem of getting that same CD to boot every system.

So what you end up with is a custom CD for your hardware which then compiles the whole system for you. One week later, you're done, and should have used emerge to merge pre-compiled binary packages. But if you're doing that, why not use Debian or RedHat? You could have just used a "binary" distribution and just downloaded the final product (which in most cases is smaller than the source tarballs).

I understand that there's a certain level of bragging rights when you compiled your system from "scratch" (if you can call it that with Gentoo), and there is the assertion that you're now running an "optimized" OS, but is it really worth it for most users? Do they notice the 0.1% increase in speed? I doubt it. One would be better off compiling the specific apps which actually need the extra speed, and spending the time they save learning some new Linux skills.

I guess I just don't understand what the all the excitement about Gentoo is... it just seems like Debian with a different packaging system (and slightly different release schedules). It seems like Gentoo is the new Slackware... many users run it because "someone said it was cool" but not because of any inherent superiority. I ran Slackware because I wanted to learn the "real" way to run a Linux system (CLI only), and then I moved up to Debian when I got tired of recompiling packages.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[Future Man 3000]

As far as optimization goes:

For something like the PS2, there are probably negligible improvements in using a compiled-from-source system over a prebuilt binary system. The hardware is mostly the same no matter which PS2 you're installing to.

For computers, the optimization can be quite noticable. Between Debian-i386 and Gentoo compiled specifically to my Athlon I do see a difference, although said difference is paid for by letting my system sit for a day or two the first time I install Gentoo to compile everything. I'd bet that if I optimized only my CPU-intensive binaries, such as the kernel, the compiler, glibc, XWindows, kde, perl, Java, X, wine, bochs, povray, and oggenc, the rest it wouldn't matter if it's i386.

As far as compatibility goes:

It's likely a great quantity of Gentoo packages can be compiled without modification on the PS2 if the development kit has been ported and the headers aren't confusing. A Debian-i386 disc doesn't do anything in the PS2 drive. If somebody wanted to sit down and compile a jillion packages to serve the PS2 community, more power to them; I like Debian, and would probably check such a thing out. But with Gentoo one doesn't have to wait on the benevolence of a developer with too much time on his hands to port an obscure package just to set the ID3 tag on an MP3 -- they can try 'emerge mp3info' and see if it compiles OK.

People that brag about using a particular distribution are sad, IMHO. Use what works, I say.

Re:It's ideal for the process.

[Yaztromo]

Given the methodology of Gentoo's packaging system, I'm not surprised that it's the first mainstream Linux distribution that's making it over to the PS2.

It's not the first mainstream Linux distro ported to the PS2. If we ignore Sony's Linux for a second, BlackRhino was released for the PS2 last March, and it's completely Debian based.

Yaz.

emerge finalfantasy

[Wayne247]

Too bad that once linux runs on something, the something isn't of much use anymore. What would a Linux Playstation2 be used for? One would need to hack away at least the video drivers for it to become something of a MAME arcade emulator.

Making a PVR with that is impossible, no tuner!

I don't really see the point of always trying to fix some linux or some BSD distribution on every freaking piece of processing hardware there is. A commitment to portability?

How about spending more time fixing bugs in actual useful and popular software for linux instead? It would be pretty sweet to have PCs with better hardware support than running gentoo on my refrigerator. "Yay! Kernel support for FridgeLight and TempProbe"

Laurent

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[stratjakt]

Making a PVR with that is impossible, no tuner!

Two USB ports on the front. You could conceivably add a tuner, though supporting it under lunix is a pipe dream.

How about spending more time fixing bugs in actual useful and popular software for linux instead?

And thus it is with Open Source. Fixing bugs and maintaining old code is booooring. Noone wants to do it, so noone will. Same with documentation.

If the whole world ran on a volunteer basis, there'd be no janitors. Who'd clean up all the shit?

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[Not_Wiggins]

Well, one possible benefit is to build support for the hardware once it goes obsolete for its current purpose.

Sure, right now running a different OS on a PS2 might have limited application (running emulators for older game systems seems to me like it would be a popular use)... but what about when you have a bunch of PS2's piled in the corner because everyone has a [insert name of latest console version]?

At least then you might be able to extend the useful life of that equipment and use it for other things. This has been a tradition for linux/BSD with older hardware. Heck, my Pentium 75MHz firewall was running until it died last year giving me about 6 years of life beyond when it was still useful to me as a desktop... talk about getting my money's worth out of that computer! ;)

Still, porting to a single platform *might* (as in a distant *maybe*) allow some benchmarking comparisons between different base OSes.

NetBSD has a PS2 port... could be interesting to see which port ("linux" vs "bsd") offers better utilization of the base hardware.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[PhiltheeG]

My kid already has a Playstation 2 w/net adaptor (which he bought with his own money instead of an XBox) in what little space he has left in his bedroom. If all I have to do is add a USB KB/mouse (already have) and a 40 gig hard drive (already have) to give him the ability to do research/schoolwork, check email and whatever without hogging the family PC, then yeah I'd be willing to do that.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you 99%.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[MenTaLguY]

And thus it is with Open Source. Fixing bugs and maintaining old code is booooring. Noone wants to do it, so noone will. Same with documentation.

If the whole world ran on a volunteer basis, there'd be no janitors. Who'd clean up all the shit?

Well, how about these janitors, for example?

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I'm not really sure I'd call Open Source strictly volunteer, anyway. Personally speaking, about 40% or so of the OSS hacking I do is fixing bugs that I personally need fixed.

Granted, the other 60% is probably making new bugs for other people to fix (I like to think of it as "adding features")... but somehow we still seem to come out ahead in the end. ^_-

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[brandorf]

Currently you can't boot Linux on the PS2 without the Linux kit, as you need the DVDs that come with the kit to boot from. So even if you added those parts you still couldn't boot linux.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[stratjakt]

I still say it's like the girls in high school who wanted to volunteer at the local pet hospital.

They all loved cuddling the newborn puppies, but weren't thrilled about cleaning up after the Great Dane with explosive diarreah.

There's a lot of non-glamourous, tedious but still necessary work to be done.

This is why linux as a desktop OS is still a bit of a joke, whereas MacOSX (a commercial, do yer job or get fired effot) came from BSD at the command of Jobs.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[RealisticWeb.com]

The point to this is not practicallity. People that assume that are misunderstanding, IMHO. The people that do this kind of this do it as a hobby. For example, I'm almost finished making my own MAME arcade cabinet. Basically you put a computer in side an old arcade machine and hack a keyboard so that the arcade buttons actually press keyboard buttons and you can play MAME games on it. You could just as easliy say "you already can play MAME on your desktop, what is the point in going through all that trouble?" or "you used to have 104 keys on your key board and now you only have 12, what is the point?", or "Now that computer is inside that arcade manchine you can't do anything else with it, it's not nearly as usefull". Half the fun was hacking the keyboard into and soldering on the arcade buttons. The other half of the fun will be actually playing on the thing. Is it practial? NO! My wife doesn't want to let me keep it in the house because it is so big. Was it fun? Heck yeah! When you fire it up, and it actually works there is a big sence of accomplishment that is hard to get in other ways. That is why so many programmers (myself included) also write code in thier spare time. Why do people put neon in thier PC case? Why would you put LED's in your mouse? Why would you put a blower on the hood of a Ford Fiesta?

My hat is off to the people that have accomplished this. There doesn't have to be a good reason for the project to still be worth it.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The PS2 has a pair of USB ports, not to mention a firewire port. With all the tools portage can throw at you, it would be no small shakes to compile the drivers and support software needed to adapt a USB or firewire tuner.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[confused one]

With the port it has on it, (joystick, usb, firewire, ethernet) I can't imagine how you could connect it to much.

I have heard it could make a good missle guidance system. Too bad it only runs a proprietary OS. Oh wait...

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[pyrrhonist]

Too bad that once linux runs on something, the something isn't of much use anymore.

I'm assuming that you think that after one installs Linux on a PlayStation 2, it can't be used to play games anymore.
Well, guess what? You can still play games on a PlayStation 2 even if it has Linux install on it.

What would a Linux Playstation2 be used for?

It's primary purpose is for creating PS2 games without having to spend thousands of dollars on a T10K. Other than that, you can use it like any machine that has Linux installed. If you don't want to use Linux at the moment, you can play PlayStation games with it.

One would need to hack away at least the video drivers for it to become something of a MAME arcade emulator.

No you don't, Sony did a fine job already of writing Linux video drivers. And MAME is already ported.

Making a PVR with that is impossible, no tuner!

True enough. You'd have bigger problems than that, though. There's only one spot for an IDE drive, and it only supports 40GB. You could use the USB ports to hook up a hard drive, but the PS2 only has USB 1.1. The PS2 wasn't designed to be a PVR.

I don't really see the point of always trying to fix some linux or some BSD distribution on every freaking piece of processing hardware there is. A commitment to portability?

Sony ported Linux to the PlayStation to promote the creation of PS2 games and allow developers to become familiar with the PS2 hardware interfaces without having to purchase a very expensive PS2 development station license. It wasn't just because they could. Sony uses Linux on their development platform, the T10K, so it wasn't too much of a stretch. The Linux kit comes with almost all the PlayStation hardware information and manuals that the T10K development kit comes with, so not only is it a good deal in terms of cost to the developer, it was a nice gesture by Sony.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[pyrrhonist]

The PS2 has a pair of USB ports, not to mention a firewire port.

There is no support for the IEEE 1394 (firewire, i.Link) port under PS2 Linux.

Re:emerge finalfantasy

[Kris_J]

When you're right you're right. I installed the Linux kit in my PS2 about a month ago. I used it for about a week before switching it off. Since then I think I've demoed Auto Modelista for about 5 minutes and watched three episodes of Coupling on the PS2, but I certainly haven't booted Linux.

so let me get this straight:

[Anonymous Coward]

ps2 already had linux on it, and now a different distribution has been ported? wow, amazing. next thing you know, they'll port red hat to macs.

Portability of Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more of a testament to the portability of Linux and GNU. Give credit where it's really due.

Re:Portability of Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up insightful. I, for one, am sick and tired of all these johnny-come-lately gentoo fan boys. All the windows weenies in my shop are all going on and on about gentoo. Shit like: "I learn so much about the system installing gentoo". You can learn about linux with any distro. Better yet, you should have been learning about linux 5 years ago with any of the distros rather than doing all your compsci homework on windows. You people call yourselves programmers. Sheesh.

Re:Portability of Gentoo?

[dosius]

I hate to sound like I'm trolling, because I'm really not trying to. My own observation is that Gentoo is more about zealotry than anything else. I have seen other distros with the same idea of building everything from source, and they aren't riddled with zealots. I'm a Red Hat user who has bits and pieces of SourceMage on my system. I hang out on #sourcemage on irc.freenode.net. Those people are certainly not zealots for their distro, they just like working with the code, building things from source, and knowing where their code comes from.

-uso.

Gentoo on PS2 != new linux distro most likely

[GweeDo]

This probably means that they have brought portage over to the PS2 Linux kit. The PS2 Linux kit uses a version of the 2.0.x kernel redone for the MIPS processor in the PS2. If they brought portage over (which is what Gentoo is) then you get the power of portage on the system you are already familiar with, just like what the Gentoo team is doing with Mac OS X. Gentoo on OSX != Mac OS X running some new kernel or something, just means you get the power of Portage for getting apps and depenedencies and what not.

Re:Gentoo on PS2 != new linux distro most likely

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they already had a port of BSD's ports on OS X? Why would they want its younger, less experienced cousin?

Now

[Vampyre_Dark]

Now we can finally find out what happens when you introduce penguins into the bandicoot's habitat.

What about i386

[Anonymous Coward]

They seem to have forgotten all the i386 problems.

The install disc doesnt work, Portage isnt completly working, assholes every where and they work to get it on a console.

Im glad to see binary ebuilds(for saving compiles/dsitrbution) "isnt a priority" but this is.

Will somebody please make another app-get portage like app, this is pathetic

PCJr.

[yonex737]

So when's the port to PCJr?

Re:PCJr.

[warpSpeed]

So when's the port to PCJr?

or the banana jr...

Re:PCJr.

[IM6100]

The PCJr. will be a particular challange. Not only doesn't it have memory protection, it doesn't even have a DMA controller.

Every disk fetch and all I/O on a PCJr. has to pass through the CPU's registers. There are special kludges and BIOS 'features' in the junior that make it capable of even running DOS.

It makes for a glacially slow machine. I used to be fond of running 3-Demon on my PCJr. The machine was so slow that if you turned to face down a long hall of the 3-D wire-framed game, the rendering of the wireframe would significantly bog down the game.

I guess I'm weird that way, that I consider that 'cool.'

Re:PCJr.

[dosius]

I have yet to see *any* full *x more recent than a V7 clone running on an 8086, let alone on that crippled POS called PCjr (I say this as a former PCjr owner - my PCjr went teh kaput on me).

-uso.

Re:PCJr.

[confused one]

I think we have a copy of Xenix floating around in the company that might work...

perhaps also ...

[Anonymous Coward]

their webserver is running on a PS2.

Go Microchannel!!!!

[vertical_98]

I can dig out my first non-IBM compatible PC. I loved the PS/2 and the PS/1.

Vertical

Re:Go Microchannel!!!!

[confused one]

Sony PS2 (Play Station 2), not IBM PS/2 moron.

Good!

[TheLevelHeadedOne]

Now we can dig out out those 2 model 50's and the model 70 we have in the closet and make use of them.

...now if we can only find a 100Mb Ethernet micro-channel architecture NIC....

I sure hope Gentoo will run in 640K with 2M of extended RAM...

Google cache

[The Old Burke]

Google cache of the release notes here.

Direct download link here.

Gaah!

[His name cannot be s]

Please don't call it the PS/2

When I read that I was thinking: I wonder if there is any good support for microchannel hardware?

PS/2 == IBM Crap :(
PS2 == Sony Crap :) :p

Linux on PS2 has been done many times :)

[qmrq]

This has been done before, and there is actually a cluster of PS2s.

Someone above said 'don't tell sony'. Sony sells the kit to do this! Anyone who wants to run Linux on their PS2 can easily do so by ordering it.

Re:Linux on PS2 has been done many times :)

[stratjakt]

Umm

Gentoo on PS2 = mod chip, complete access to the hardware, and not buying the kit.

Yeah, you can get Sony's kit. But it's extremely crippled so far as accessing the hardware.

Re:Linux on PS2 has been done many times :)

[brandorf]

How exactly is it crippled? The only resrictions it the fact that you don't have documentation on the IOP (presumably to prevent you from producing software that will boot on any PS2 without a sony liscence) and you have to use the provided runtime enviroment. Other than that you have pretty much full access to the unit, except where the antiquated version of linux restricts you.

My personal PS/2 confusion

[bloatboy]

Despite the fact that I own a Sony Playstation/2, every time I see some release about the PS/2, my first thought is of those old IBM Personal System/2 (also abbreviates PS/2) nightmares I learned on.

So I have a whole cycle of "Why did they bother to develop on such and old and proprietary.... Oh yeah, wrong PS/2" every few weeks or so.

Re:My personal PS/2 confusion

[tycage]

PS/2 is the IBM Personal System/2
PS2 is the Sony PlayStation 2.

Note the lack of a / in the second.
Hope that helps you in the future.

what i really want to know

[Anonymous Coward]

what i really want to know is how come my PS2 mouse doesn't seem to be able to plug into my PS2? seems like fraudulent advertising to me...

Stop Downloading!

[terradyn]

My friend/co-worker is the one who did this port... He's trying to upload a fix right now and this /.ing is making it hard for him to do that!

sigh...i can see this is gonna fall on deaf ears.

Re:Stop Downloading!

[terradyn]

Also, whoever's downloading, you're only getting partials because he hadn't finished uploading the port before this got posted (Thanks kerneljacobo & CmdrTaco). You are all downloading partials so it won't work anyway!

Re:Stop Downloading!

[ninedigitbandit]

I'm the one who upload the tarballs. And because i never got a chance to finish uploading. you can download the stage1 tarballs but it wont build because my portage diffs arent there. If I do get access again I'll post a link to the portage-diffs.

Re:Stop Downloading!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be sure to clicky the link a few times just to give you hell :)

Re:Stop Downloading!

[Mr. Spock]

I seem to have stopped the bleeding for the moment. At some point in the upgrade path the memory footprint seems to have grown a bit. Time to upgrade the toaster that runs the website, obviously!

--Your friendly playstation2-linux.com sysadmin.

P.S. I would appreciate it if in the future /. could warn me in advance so I know to have lunch delivered to my desk :)

Re:Stop Downloading!

[GigsVT]

Why doesn't he just kill httpd for a few minutes, then start it again when it's ready?

Quite obvious to me

[GodSpiral]

if the software you want to run does not come with (or is updated after distro pressed) the existing distros, then gentoo's portage system could still provide you a straightforward way of installing it.

Re:Quite obvious to me

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the PS2, it takes hours to compile things. That's why projects like Compiled For Your Convenience were created on the PS2Linux site. It provides RPMs with things already compiled as you don't have to take the hours to compile it yourself.

I grant you the portage system on x86 is great (though BSDs ports are better), but this isn't x86. This is a 300MHz MIPS CPU with 32MB of RDRAM.

Re:Quite obvious to me

[CronoCloud]

I own a kit too and you're quite correct in wanting to compile as little as possible. Bout the only things I compile frequently are newer versions of Xchat and Gaim.

I've compiled other things, newer versions of GIMP and Abiword. IIRC I've got a newer xpdf. I've got GTK2 of course, have to have that for Gaim and Xchat.

psshaw

[Anonymous Coward]

port it to the gameboy, and I'll be impressed

Re:psshaw

[dosius]

You would never be able to run Linux on Game Boy. Game Boy Advance maybe, I don't know if its CPU has an MMU in it. Certainly, not even the Sega Genesis looks powerful enough for it. (32X? can someone tell me what CPU it uses? 68030 is minimum, without a separate MMU.)

-uso.

Re:psshaw

[La Temperanza]

The 32X has two Hitachi SH2s running at 23 MHz and 40 MIPS.

The GBA has an ARM32 running at 16.7 MHz.

Kewlies!

[Mnemennth]

Now I can play Vectorman 2 on my PS2!!!

Hmmmm... When the giant snails explode, will it make the controller vibrate?

Oooohhh... vibrating is gooooood...

Mnem
" I'm a little teapot short and stout, here is my handle and here is my.....other handle..... OH GOD I'M A SUGARPOT!!! "

Re:Debian is not including gnome 2.4 until 2004!

[Anonymous Coward]

debian stable is not about the latest software it is about haveing an os that will remain functionally the same for years

if you wan't fairly new stuff without too many problems then use debian testing

This has nothing to do with Gentoo.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In what is yet another testament to the flexibility of the Gentoo^W Linux platform..."

GENTOO IS NOT A PLATFORM

[Anonymous Coward]

its a linux distro.. Linux was ported in the form of the gentoo distro. Picky? perhaps.

Gentoo is....

[gnu-sucks]

If gentoo keeps this up, we'll have to start posting "Gentoo is dying" :D

It's a Trick (get an axe)

[Drakantus]

Terradyn just wants all the bandwidth for himself.

Gentoo ps/2 live cd

[tuanjim_2001]

Now that there is the question. When is that bad MoFo going to be ready?

This is going to a lot of trouble...

[smittyoneeach]

just to play Tetris under Emacs...

For more info:

[MADbull]

http://kumba.drachentekh.net/xml/myguide-print.htm l for more information on using gentoo on the mips architecture

Re:For more info:

[MADbull]

if you truly must click

Mirrored

[qmrq]

There you go. Enjoy.

BLABLABLA

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentoo platform

And what about the Linux platform?

Gentoo Linux: Does it get better than this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it does.

Yippie skippy.

[untaken_name]

Now I can have another useless linux box. Oh, look, the system I used to play games on now just sits there contributing to my distributed.net score just like the 3 or 4 other useless linux boxes I have sitting around. Yay. Here's an idea: spend the 180 bucks it costs to buy a ps2 on a p3 or old AMD box instead and it'll run linux better than the ps2, and then you can play ps2 games on your ps2. Just because something *can* be done does not mean there's any real point to doing it.

Re:Yippie skippy.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of it being that it was *simmilar to* the kit Sony is selling, and has been for some time, for developing purposes.

Besides, its just fun for some to push normal objects to do more than they were supposed to do.

Gives people Ideas on what to create next sometimes.

Re:Yippie skippy.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I don't take kindly to being besmirked as "Yippie."

Re:Yippie skippy.

[liquidsin]

Just because something *can* be done does not mean there's any real point to doing it.

Actually, just because it *can* be done IS the reason to do it. How many great inventions would we be without today if it weren't for that exact line of reasoning? And even so, what's so wrong with doing something just to prove that you can? Or do you feel that since it has no immediate value to you personally that it must be useless? If you don't like it, fine. But you don't need to bitch about someone else doing it. Go sit in your basement and play video games while the rest of us enrich ourselves by actually learning things. There's much to be said for learning the ins and outs of a new system and porting an OS to it. Kudos to the team that did it, and shame on you for slagging on their hard work.

Re:Yippie skippy.

[IM6100]

Just because it CAN be done is a cool enough reason to do it for some of us.

I run NetBSD and X11 on a Macintosh SE/30. With it's tiny little black and white screen. It's so cramped that I have to run the Tab Window Manager (TWM) because FVWM has too much 'eye candy' and crowds the windows.

I could go to an auction here and get a Pentium 100 box for one buck (sometimes that price for a whole pallet of Pentium 100s) if I wanted to just run a freenix on cheap hardware (a Mac SE/30 isn't even particularly cheap, with all the motherfuckers who are stripping the hardware out to make fricking aquariums out of the cases).

Re:Yippie skippy.

[Tet]

FVWM has too much 'eye candy' and crowds the windows.

So turn it off. Fvwm is almost infinitely configurable. It's why I still use it. I've tried some of the newer window managers, and always end up returning to fvwm2. Nothing else has the flexibility I need.

Style "*" BorderWidth 1, HandleWidth 1

Incidentally, I also use fvwm2 on my PS2 Linux box, and on that I use narrower borders than I do on my main desktop machine, purely to save valuable screen real estate due to the lower resolution.

Re:Yippie skippy.

[ipjohnson]

Actually I liked the Mac bong ... rip it out the hardware and put a nice chamber in and make the disk drive the slot for the pipe :)

Re:Yippie skippy.

[CronoCloud]

I use fvwm2 on my PS2 linux kit too. It seems to be one of the more popular wm's on it along with Icebox, Blackbox, Fluxbox, Windowmaker and the included version of KDE1.

I haven't played around with the settings much though. I'm running with the updated version of Xgsx so I have a 640x448 screen. Which is a heck of a lot better than the standard 610x404

Re:Yippie skippy.

[untaken_name]

Actually, just because it *can* be done IS the reason to do it.

Notice I didn't say 'just because it can be done doesn't mean it shouldn't ever'. If you use your reasoning to explain the first ever climb of everest, fine. But using it to explain why people put linux on a ps2, which we all know is basically a dedicated computer, is ridiculous. Doing something completely new is one thing, rehashing a tired concept for no purpose is another. There's no point, as making linux run on a computer has, to put it bluntly, been done before. Turning a good game console into a poor linux box is dumb. Sorry. I don't give kudos to people just because they work hard. We all work hard, and I don't see you giving props to the people working very hard to make the world's biggest ball of tin foil. (at least I don't. I save my props for people doing original stuff, or at least useful stuff.) Again, just because it's effort doesn't mean it's praiseworthy. Just because it's doable doesn't mean it should be done. Get linux running on one of those handheld football games from the 60s if you want my respect.

Re:Yippie skippy.

[untaken_name]

I don't take kindly to being besmirked as "Yippie."

Whew, glad I wasn't making a reference to Family Ties!

Re:Yippie skippy.

[untaken_name]

The point of it being that it was *simmilar to* the kit Sony is selling, and has been for some time, for developing purposes.

Besides, its just fun for some to push normal objects to do more than they were supposed to do.

Gives people Ideas on what to create next sometimes.

Wow. So some people 'innovated' and copied sony. Yay for them. I'm all for people's right to do whatever stupid thing they want with linux, as long as I'm not expected to praise them, like it's some noteworthy accomplishment. 'Look! We did what sony did, only very slightly differently!' (Please, no 'direct hardware acces is so much totally cooler', it's the same basic thing, and it's useless either way.)
How is getting a ps2 to run linux pushing it harder than it was supposed to be pushed? It is a computer. linux has run on computers since, well, it came out. Wow! You got 'linux' to run on a 'computer'! You're a genius!

Gives people Ideas on what to create next sometimes.

What? A game console that can run xclock? Yay! Where do I sign up? Please. Besides, sony did this already. I guess now people can 'innovate' and get turbolinux running on the ps2, and we can see another story about it here. Whee.

Re:Yippie skippy.

[IM6100]

Please use a Mac Plus or a plain SE for that. The case on the Mac Plus is actually better, it's got less slots and openings to seal than an SE or SE/30.

And there seem to be more Mac Pluses on the market anyway, for almost free.

But I got four Power Macs (the all-in-one with screen kind) yesterday for five dollars at a school auction. The case is too big for a bong, but it would make a nice big aquarium.

Already happened

[Palshife]

Linux has been on the PS2 for more than a year now. Sony released the distro themselves. They sell a kit with everything you need to get up and running with a RedHat-like distro.

Re:Already happened

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and this guy ported everything you need to run a Gentoo-like distro on it. The article is called 'Gentoo Ported to PS2', not 'Linux Ported to PS2'.

Re:You are ghey.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not nearly as lame as using the word "ghey." What are you, fourteen years old?

emerge beowulf

[JoeD]

I'm sorry, I just can't go through with the remainder of this post.

portage diff mirror

[ninedigitbandit]

http://www.mysharedstuff.com/portage-20030801.diff .bz2 A friend had some space, it doesn't matter to me if its hosted on apache or iis. ndb

Now I can play Angband on my PS2!!!!

[GoofyBoy]

Just need to map keys to the game pad!

HAWT!!!!!

Re:Now I can play Angband on my PS2!!!!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

• Triangle - R
• Circle - M
• Square - F
• X - Dash
• Right - Space
• Down - CR

To unlock the whole hard drive use the combo TRIANGLE - CIRCLE - RIGHT - X - TRIANGLE - SQUARE - DOWN

Re:Now I can play Angband on my PS2!!!!

[CronoCloud]

I don't know whether Angband will work on PS2 Linux. Nethack does (very well), Falcon's Eye (just a tad slow) and noeGNUd (so slow it'a slmost impossible to play.)

Krogue for KDE1 does too.

You probably could work out a way to get the control pad to control the game. It works in X of course, once you enable it.

Not a good idea...

[eniu!uine]

I have nothing against gentoo, but it really sucks as a game. It has no plot whatsoever. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do with it?!?

Re:Not a good idea...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

It's kind of like the Hacking sequence of "Enter the matrix".

When you start running out of space, use the compression command rm -rf

Re:Not a good idea...

[Pionar]

Yeah, and what the hell kinda title screen is boot:

Re:Not a good idea...

[drinkypoo]

It has the same goal as Uplink but it's much more realistic.

Re:Not a good idea...

[addaon]

Stick with it! It took me a while, but I rescued the princess in the end.

Re:Not a good idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, it's an adventure game. It's not supposed to be readily apparent what you're supposed to do.

Imagine a Beowulf clust... ah crap.

[Fammy2000]

I too was tempted.

Imagine a Beowulf cluser of... wait
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re:You are ghey.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with being fourteen years old?

Thats how old I was when I knocked up your momma.

Go Lunix!

[Anonymous Coward]

see subject! I love that lunix.

PS/2?

[semanticgap]

And I thought IBM discontinued those years ago!

Re:PS/2?

[Anonymous Coward]

can it emulate the PS/1

Yes, Microchannel is supported

[FreeUser]

You should recompile your kernel sometime. Under "General setup" you can enable MCA support if you are so unfortunate as to have a Microchannel computer (I used to back in the day, I feel your pain).

CONFIG_MCA:

MicroChannel Architecture is found in some IBM PS/2 machines and laptops. It is a bus system similar to PCI or ISA. See Documentation/mca.txt (and especially the web page given there) before attempting to build an MCA bus kernel.

Pretty easy to tell the age of some people...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty easy to tell the age range of people that are posting replies here.

Young: Cool, I can use my dual shock controller with it!
Think they're old: Cool, no more serial mouse!
Old: Cool, but does it support microchannel?!

Personally, I'm waiting for the PDP-11 port of linux :)

Re:Pretty easy to tell the age of some people...

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG STFU you turd.

Re:Pretty easy to tell the age of some people...

[Firehawke]

I think you have that backwards. Serial mice predate microchannel by more than a few years.

Correction

[ShadeARG]

The PS2 Linux kit comes with version 2.2.1 of the kernel modified for mipsel use. I diff'd the vanilla 2.2.1 source tree against the ps2-linux 2.2.1 source tree--and quite a lot has been added/modified--but it's not open source. It has several people wondering how 2.4.x is going to be ported to PS2 because of the radical changes.

Re:Correction

[EvilTwinSkippy]

It has several people wondering how 2.4.x is going to be ported to PS2 because of the radical changes.

Duh, it's a hazing ritual for new Sony engineers. They have to drink beer on a block of Ice and port the latest Linux kernel to either the PS2 or the gameboy advance.

Re:Correction

[GweeDo]

How can it be not open source? If they are distributing the binary kernel with the toolkit they have to give the source to those people they distribute it to as well...

Re:Correction

[ShadeARG]

You're right, I have to be mistaken. Several conversations took place on the PS2 Linux community forums, and I don't remember what the deal was with it exactly. I was in haste when I submitted the parent. All of the modified code is included, so I assume it would have to be open. I'll have to dig around and find the context on the forums.

Re:Linux on PS2 NOT really crippled

[polyp2000]

Actually its surprisingly not crippled Sony have pretty much opened up most of the hardware , infact they supply a lot of sourcecode and examples on how to program the VU unit and other bits of hardware, There are even complete developer kit reference manuals in pdf's on the CD's that come with the thing. The PS2 Linux kit is the closest you are going to get to a professional PS2 Development kit, only it costs under 200 quid as oppose to the 20,000 odd it will cost you for the kind of thing a software house gets.

The only thing that Sony dont provide is documentation on the encryption stuff and / or reading the CDROM drive.

It is possible to get around this by using an USB cdrom drive. And there are also ways to bypass the linux kernel by writing code that will boot directly from the Memory Card.

All in all I think Sony have done a sterling job in serving the Linux and open source community in this way. I have one of these linux kits and I have been very happy with it.

I for one have more respect for Sony for doing this, and there continuing enthusiasm for linux.

Well done Sony ! Lets show Microsoft who rocks !

Re:You are ghey.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, I am 14.

*grin*

Thank god they have GRP binaries

[gilesjuk]

Wouldn't like to compile KDE and XFree86 on a PS2 :)

Re:Thank god they have GRP binaries

[pyr0]

I hate to break it to you but I seriously doubt there are GRP binaries for PS2. The gentoo-mips port (gentoo PS2 is really just gentoo-mipsel) doesn't even have GRP binaries yet. I compiled *everything* including X on my SGI Indy (with the help of distcc and cross-compilers!).

Re:Thank god they have GRP binaries

[CronoCloud]

A version of KDE1 is included with the standard PS2 Linux distro. It's possible to compile KDE2 but the compiles take a looooong time and the extra eye candy of KDE2 makes it runs slower on the PS2 than KDE1. (But it's still faster than the Gnome version included with the kit)

KDE3 will not compile on the kit because QT3 will not compile.

Yay!

[popo]

Yay! Now I can install my Linux PS2 emulator.

Can we get a Gentoo topic icon already?

[Chuck Bucket]

Here's the one I'm using, /. has topic icons for RedHat/Mandrake/Debian/Corel(?)/etc - please add one for Gentoo. Thanks in advance.

CB

Man, this is a *tough* game...

[popo]

I'm pretty much stuck on the first level of this Gentoo game ...

Anybody know a cheat code?

Re:Man, this is a *tough* game...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try rm -r /

Linux and Gaming (Slightly Offtopic)

[fallen1]

Let me say first off that I am in no way affiliated with these guys. Now, for the good stuff - since most of us here are looking for games on Linux (both mainstream and otherwise) might I suggest taking a look at the demo for Devil Whiskey. Not only is this a tribute to The Bard's Tale series it is also being put out on multiple platforms including Linux! Please go to the download page and get it yourself. Yeah, they have a Bittorrent set up as well. They have tested it with various distros and are keeping a list of 'tested good' distros that the public submits. Enjoy!

Couple tidbits

[activesynapsis]

There's an openGL-ish driver available for PS2 linux. It's a bit of a pain to get installed, but it's possible.

I actually received my PS2 linux kit just two days ago and have been doing a writeup on my experiences at my site. So far I have xmms running, and xine running at 1 fps. =/ Screenshots, copies of /proc files, and pictures of the kit are included.

I have a binary package of xmame which will be tested soon. The memory cards and controllers are all accessable via /dev files, so I should be able to link up my controllers directly to mame and get some heavy Asteroids gaming going on.

D'oh, I just realized I might've /.'ed myself. 8I

Re:Couple tidbits

[CronoCloud]

Just visited your site, still up. :-)

You should have installed everything, trust me, you're going to want something you didn't install someday. Especially KDE. Gnome has performance issues on the kit and KDE runs much better.

why is this insightful?

[bodrell]

Yeah, linux is portable--we all know that. So is BSD, esp. NetBSD (how many platforms does that run on? They pride themselves on portability.)

But Sony beat everyone to the punch. Their version of linux (Kondara, based on Red Hat, acc. to this article) has been out for awhile, over a year. The code is out there to be tweaked however you want. And since the hard work has been done, it shouldn't be difficult to port any distribution, as long as you have the endurance to add the proper flags to all relevant files. But you don't have to take my word for it. Straight from the linked article:

As for the portability of code from Linux on a PC system to the PS2, most applications written on a PC will compile on the PlayStation 2 with little or no modification. The significant difference is having to pass the --host option to the configure script. The kit supports languages typical to a Linux distribution, like C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl. The only one missing is Java, although Kaffe has been ported by others in the Linux PS2 community.

Mod parent down as "Obvious." I don't need anyone to tell me it was inevitable that linux be ported to PS2, because it happened over a year ago. What is news is that a new distribution is available in addition to Sony's.

PS2 Porting is a great idea

[Dark Paladin]

Just take a look at this vision:

You already own a PS2 as "Joe Homeguy". You could go out and buy a new computer, but the guy at the store says "Well, just buy this Hard Drive upgrade for $200 for your PS2, and stick in this CD with Linux on it, and off you go".

So you take it home, and do that. You can surf the web, get your email, write up documents, and you're good. Want to play your games? Just shut it off (and you don't know it's using a journaled filesystem, so all of your files aren't ruined - and besides, it just stores the data on the hard drive, the OS "lives" on the CD you stick in).

Remove the Linux CD, stick in Metal Gear Solid 3/Kingdom Hearts/Disgaea (which is probably one of the best games this year) - and you're playing. You can even play online with the Broadband adapter in the back if you want.

Want to use the TV? No problem. You don't worry about upgrades - when the Linux Service, they send you a new disk every month, and it only costs $10 a year, and it includes demos of new games. Just stick in the disk, and you can do more 'stuff'.

This is the kind of thing that Linux in the home could be great for. And since there are 60,000,000 PS2's in the world, all with 99% similiar hardware, the Linux distribution wouldn't worry too much about compatibility - if you want something else to work, like a USB hard drive or a USB keychain storage media to transmit files between work/home (or that stores your basic settings, so you could go to a friends house and use their "computer" - I mean, PS2 to check your mail and 'stuff' if you like.

So I'd say Linux on the PS2 is just as important as working to make Gnome and KDE better. It gives a possible leverage that could avoid the desktop computer monopoly, by bypassing it altogether

Re:PS2 Porting is a great idea

[reverendslappy]

I guess that's not a bad idea. But at the same time, look at how set-top devices have done in the past... not good. Then again, sold as an add-on to a gaming console... could work.

Re:PS2 Porting is a great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Journaling filesystems don't prevent data loss when you don't unmount them correctly. They're just quicker at detecting which data was lost.

Re:PS2 Porting is a great idea

[Yaztromo]

You already own a PS2 as "Joe Homeguy". You could go out and buy a new computer, but the guy at the store says "Well, just buy this Hard Drive upgrade for $200 for your PS2, and stick in this CD with Linux on it, and off you go".

Linux for the PS2 also extends the useful lifetime of the console hardware.

I own the PS2 Linux kit. Admittedly, I don't boot up into it terribly often (I have two other Linux boxes here to work on as well), but it's all installed and setup.

However, as we all know, consoles eventually hit an "end-of-life" after 4 or 5 years, when Sony releases their next console and everyone starts developing for it instead. How many old PS1's are there out there sitting in closets and garages because the gamer of the house now owns a PS2 and no longer needs it?

Linux extends this useful lifetime. When the PS3 does come out, I don't have to relegate my PS2 to the closet. It's already running Linux. I can simply put it into a closet and let it run a mail server, a file server, a media server (having the digital optical audio out on it makes it a lovely Ogg Vorbis/MP3 jukebox), or any one of a number of other useful tasks.

Yaz.

Re:PS2 Porting is a great idea

[CronoCloud]

Great post Yaz

I'm not a programmer but the PS2 Linux kit was the best 200 bucks I've spent in a looong time.I boot the thing up every day.

See you on the PS2 Linux forums.

Re:Can we get a Gentoo topic icon already? - MODS!

[Anonymous Coward]

i second that, it's a good graphic too, already cleaned up - mods, please mod up!

woohoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can run a non-gaming operating system on a system that was designed to play games! Oh happy day!

hahah cool

[Daath]

Don't think I'll be trying this. Gentoo is a source distro - Granted it's really really cool! I run it on one of my servers.
It compiled for over 24 hours when I installed it from stage 1 - That was a 450MHz P2 with 396MB RAM - I wonder how long it would take to compile on a PS2!

Sony titles on GBA?

[yerricde]

Does Sony even publish GBA games? I thought Sony's handheld platforms were the Clie and the PSP.

Runtime can't read recordable discs

[yerricde]

you don't have documentation on the IOP (presumably to prevent you from producing software that will boot on any PS2 without a sony liscence) and you have to use the provided runtime enviroment.

The runtime environment prevents the internal drive from reading a CD-R disc, a CD-RW disc, a DVD-R disc, a DVD-RW disc, a DVD+R disc, or a DVD+RW disc. Thus, the USB port is the only way to get mass information into the machine. Most people don't want to pay extra for a USB CD-ROM drive.

Re:Runtime can't read recordable discs

[brandorf]

You're forgetting the network adaptor, it's relativley simple to get the PS2 to access shares on another computer. You also have the internet availiable. Granted it would be nice to be able to use the PS2's drive, I've never really found that to be anything more than a minor annoyance.

Re:Runtime can't read recordable discs

[yerricde]

You're forgetting the network adaptor, it's relativley simple to get the PS2 to access shares on another computer.

Which means you have to own another computer and either 1. put it in the game room or 2. drill holes in the wall to pull CAT5 through.

You also have the internet availiable.

At 4.5 KBytes/s down and 2.5 KBytes/s up? Please. And no, not everybody has $200,000 to spare.

Re:Runtime can't read recordable discs

[CronoCloud]

You can always add your PS2 to a network via a wireless connection with a Linksys WET11.

The difference

[Synn]

With Debian you have maintainers for each of the platforms. You have guys putting together debs for sparc, intel, ppc and so on.

Your install disk is arch dependent and so are the packages you download via apt.

With Gentoo your install disc may be arch dependent, but since the packages are downloaded and compiled automatically they don't have to be. The guy on the pcc uses the same ebuilds as the guy on the intel box.

It's not just about speed increases, it's about having the install process completely customized for your system even though you're using universal packages.

The "inherent superiority" is that under Debian when I run WindowMaker it was compiled by someone for me and includes support for a lot of things I may never need(like gnome or kde support). Under Gentoo when I get WindowMaker it's compiled based exactly on what I need from it. If I never use kde or kde apps, why increase the bloat in my window manager to support it?

Of course the downside to the above is that upgrades can take forever. But as computers get faster, that becomes less and less of an issue.

Fast and cheap X/NX terminal

[xint_64]

Use something like NX and you get a very fast and cheap X or Windows RDP terminal.

NX ebuilds for Gentoo have been made available by Stuart Herbert. A NX client version also exists for the original Linux distribution that comes bundled with the Sony Linux Kit.

zealot

[GirTheRobot]

After enduring the install and using the system for more than a few days, you will become a zealot as well. Experience the joy of a bloat-free system, entirely assembled and optimized for your architecture, to your specifications. a single command downloads and compiles an application, and its dependencies as well. i spent many days to no avail attempting to install the maze of applications necessary to rip DVD's on my RedHat install, then Debian. With Gentoo, all it took was ONE command 'ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge dvdrip' Its all about power and ease of use.

Re:zealot

[dosius]

Don't think that Gentoo is the only answer... SourceMage is like Gentoo in the respect that your system is optimized for your arch. And compiling is just as easy with "cast -c" as "emerge".

-uso.

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I beat gentoo, the end boss is hard.

what about the 56kers

[illumina us]

What about the PS2 owners that are still on dial up. emerge sync would really suck :(

Backdoor

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep this on the d/l, but there's a backdoor in PS/2 Gentoo...

To obtain root access: UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START

blood code

[stonedcat]

if you want to access the cheat menu, so you can blood on it's:

DOWN UP LEFT LEFT A RIGHT DOWN

but you'll need to throw together a usb adapter for your old sega controler. :)

shouldn't be too hard with a random pile of shit and a soldering iron, make sure to test it on your eyeball to see if it's hot.

----

but seriously, i'm going to drag my ps2 out of my friend's closet and actually install some linux distro on it.... now if only i can remember how to mount a drive... i think i was 14 when i was actually had time to even touch a system with any linux distro on it. when i was living in my car i didn't have electricity.

i'll be watching this distro especially since it seems to be recent.

oh and can someone hand me a can of troll spray?

Quake 3 on linux on PS2?

[sput-pwk]

Anyone tried to get this working? I've had quake 3 working on several linux distros and freebsd, it'd be cool as hell to play it on ps2 on a big screen over the internet.. let me know.

*Sigh* Some people have no humor....

[vertical_98]

They edited the story, but it used to say PS/2 not PS2.....but thanks for clearing it up for me.

Vertical

Re:*Sigh* Some people have no humor....

[confused one]

My appologies. I didn't know the article was screwed up.

Having been one of the engineering student victims forced to buy (the wrong) PS/2 when they first came out, I'm familiar with the machines, their strenght's and their weeknesses.

I was just getting tired of seeing the same comment over and over and over where some "person" was misidentifying the machines. Linux already runs on the PS/2 (provided it's a 386); but, has had limited availability on the PS2...