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...

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...

[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.

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.

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?

[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.

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.

[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.

[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?

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

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: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.

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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

PCJr.

[yonex737]

So when's the port to PCJr?

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.'

perhaps also ...

[Anonymous Coward]

their webserver is running on a PS2.

Google cache

[The Old Burke]

Google cache of the release notes here.

Direct download link here.

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.

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:Gentoo Port

[Sir_Stinksalot]

gentoox is the project name for gentoo for x-box

psshaw

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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!!! "

It's a Trick (get an axe)

[Drakantus]

Terradyn just wants all the bandwidth for himself.

This is going to a lot of trouble...

[smittyoneeach]

just to play Tetris under Emacs...

Mirrored

[qmrq]

There you go. Enjoy.

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.

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.

[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: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.)

emerge beowulf

[JoeD]

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

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?!?

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: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: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

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: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.

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

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

[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.