Slashdot Mirror
PostgreSQL Ported to GameCube, Linux Progressing
TheFuzzy writes "Hey folks, thought you'd like to know that the guys at Cybertec.at have succeeded in porting PostgreSQL 7.4.1 to the Nintendo GameCube. Now you, too, can turn your former video console into the world's most underpowered database server. And before anyone asks... the Windows port is coming real soon now, so be patient - it says something that the GameCube was easier to convert to than Windows, don't it?" Elsewhere in GameCube homebrew development, it looks like the GameCube Linux project is moving along quite swiftly, with "a 22 MB Debian base system image" now available, and an "ARAM block device driver" also created, now allowing 40mb of space for Linux to run in.
I loved the first 2 Thief games on the PC. They inspired the current generation of Sneak-em-ups.
I am waiting for the demo!
RM
I have no sig yet I must scream.
It's stupid to get wrapped up in a franchise so much that when it goes a different direction, you get enraged.
I'd agree in general, but Thief is a little.. different. Part of the point behind it was to get the player wrapped up in it: a lot of its atmosphere depended on it. And it worked, it worked so well that when LGS died the community mourned but carried on. Not only are there still a large number of people making missions for it, in many cases of better quality than the original missions, and several immensely ambitious projects are effectively creating new Thief games in the Dark engine. The fans of the game know how it works, what makes it work well and how to improve the game to make the final part of the trilogy the best of the series. These are people who know Thief as well or better than most, if not all, of the team working on T3. If T3 ends up in the same mess as DX2, with dodgy graphics quality, painful framerate, tiny areas, rediculous level mechanics and all the other criticisms that were leveled at Dx2 (and, so far, very little has been released that would seem to suggest it won't) there will be a lot of very angry Thief fans, because that wouldn't be taking the franchise in a different direction, it would be gutting it.
They got me with DX:IW - I bought it at full price even after playing the demo and seeing the drastic changes they made to the game, in the hopes that there would still be something there. Ten hours later, I finished the game, watched all the endings, and uninstalled it. The experience was thoroughly mediocre. The odds are very good I'll never play that game again.
Thief: Deadly Shadows is using the exact same engine and was designed in the exact same way - as an Xbox game first. It's going to suffer from the same problems DX:IW did - small areas, limited interaction, difficult to use interface. And what the hell was wrong with the name Thief III?
Fool me twice, shame on me.
I don't argue any of that. I'm EXTREMELY dubious about the new Thief, and frankly, I have been ever since Looking Glass went away, but I can still keep playing the old stuff and just not bother with Thief 3. Voting with my wallet.
I still play Thief 1 and 2 pretty regularly, and if people just make more missions for it, I don't see, in the end, a real problem. Sure I'd like to have a better graphicsed version of 1 and 2, but I'll still take what I have with people making new stuff for it. Hell, I've played Half Life mods for as long as I've played Thief. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I'll be angry if the new one sucks, but angry isn't near the kind of bile that people lately seem to be heaping on stuff lately. They didn't slit your brother's throat, they made a crappy sequel.
Really liked Thief 1 and 2 and DeusEx. I heard all these good things about the Xbox Halo, tried it for the first time on PC and it was mediocre at best. Poor graphics and poor frame rate. The same textures over and over again, the same rooms over and over again. I am not hearing good things about DeusExIW ... but I have not tried it yet.
XBox+PC games seem to inherit the problems of each platform and lack any benefits one could releaize if the game was developed for a single platform.
Just some thoughts ... I really hope Thief III is a great game but I will likely wait for the reviews.
dude, the gamecube is a $99 computing device. it is about on par with the $20,000 computing device i once had to use, in the 80's, in terms of processing power and capabilities.
...
why -shouldn't- this be done?
i never had a reason to get into game consoles before, but now that i can build a $150 database server and stick it on my network, i've got a whole new platform for the home, knowing that the hardware is pretty much rock-solid, dependable.
PC's might be 'better', but you can't beat game-console economics when it comes to computing
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Naturally I think this is a cool project. I have the Linux kit from Sony for my PS2, its fun to tinker with, the 40gb hard drive is a nice addition. It would be nice if "somehow" , someone found a way of attaching a harddrive to a game cube. It would make such, a tiny and cute little box, but free it from the reigns of having to use the network to boot and load applications from a remote machine! GC's are soo cheap these day's id be tempted to get one just for some G3-Linux goodness!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Well, I'm excited about the possibility of using the Gamecube's very good TV output to watch my TV show DivX's on. I have a dedicated computer for it in the living room, but its TV-out port is very touchy, and doesn't look very good anyway.