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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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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)
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
NetBSD runs on the PS2 and has for some time. Too bad it's dying.
Trolling is a art,
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?
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.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
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
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.
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
its a linux distro.. Linux was ported in the form of the gentoo distro. Picky? perhaps.
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)
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
free ipod and free gmail!
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.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
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
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
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.'
A Good Intro to NetBS