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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."
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People have had success running Gentoo on the Xbox go to the Gentoo forums under Gentoo on Alternate Architectures and you'll see it.
Direct download link here.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
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
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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
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.
gentoox is the project name for gentoo for x-box
"We can no longer live as rats... we know too much." -Secret of NIMH
There you go. Enjoy.
Note: The VGA cable requires a SoG (Sync on Green) monitor. Non-SoG monitors won't work with it.
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.
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 !
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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
Yup, there's now several distributions:
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.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.