KDE Running On A GameCube

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Posted by timothy on Sunday October 31, 2004 @11:18PM from the loony-bin-too-full dept.

Bruno_me writes "Some of the folks at the GameCube Linux project have gotten KDE to run on a GameCube. There's a screenshot of what it actually looks like and what it should look like. This is the first real 'GameKube.' And of course, here is the original frame buffer (dd if=/dev/fb0 of=./kde.fbdump)."

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Wow. by SmithG · 2004-10-31 23:21 · Score: 4, Funny

This seems very useful.
1. Re:Wow. by Gentlewhisper · 2004-10-31 23:25 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  On the keypad there is only A, B, C, and D, what about the rest? How do you type on this?
  
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2. Re:Wow. by gustgr · 2004-10-31 23:32 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Maybe with somthing like this?
3. Re:Wow. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-11-01 00:00 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Well, there's the obvious "like a highscore table entry" method, or the "on-screen keyboard" method, and how about higher-speed methods for advanced users like chording? 4 buttons => 2^4 = 16 chords minus the 0 chord, gives 15 chords. defining each letter as a 2 chord sequence, that gives 15*15 = 225 2-chord combos, enough to cover a standard keyboard.
4. Re:Wow. by morten+poulsen · 2004-11-01 00:19 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Well, you could always:
  
  bc
  cc
  cd
  dc
  dd
  
  That should be enough to do serious work :-)
5. Re:Wow. by WWWWolf · 2004-11-01 00:36 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  No idea. SSHing in? Some weird "use the keyboard of some other host" X11 hack? Wouldn't surprise me the least...
  
  ...or since they need Phantasy Star Online to load Linux in, maybe they have hacked together support for the Phantasy Star Online keyboard (with GameCube stick acting as mouse)... no idea if this is true, this is just extremely hopeful, completely outrageous speculation about the will and capability of the GCLinux people =)
  
  Still, I'd really want to know for sure, too.
6. Re:Wow. by OneHungLo · 2004-11-01 00:55 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  To enter text commands, just do an "ssh -l root 192.168.0.47" from the console on your PC. The default root password is "cube". Once you've done that, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. Use apt-get to install links and BitchX, and you can brag to your friends that you're running a browser and IRC client on your Gamecube and typing through your PC.
  
  It's not really useful for anything but Geek points at the moment, but GC-Linux development is coming along very quickly. There's already a hardware-accelerated video driver, and ALSA is working, as well as SDL and many more things. I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future, some kind of Mplayer-based streaming media client was written for GC-Linux, and it found a practical purpose as a way of playing MP3/Vorbis/Videos from NFS shares on a LAN. All the framework is there, it would just take someone to put it together.
What is this kde.fbdump garbage? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-31 23:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sorry, I don't speak fbdump.
1. Re:What is this kde.fbdump garbage? by vadim_t · 2004-11-01 00:05 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's a dump of the framebuffer console. To view it, you've got to run Linux with vesafb, for example. Just "cat kde.fbdump > /dev/fb0". You need to use the right bit depth and resolution for it to work though, and it's not specified.
2. Re:What is this kde.fbdump garbage? by imroy · 2004-11-01 01:44 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  (I'll post this one further up the chain after my last message was somhow modded "overrated" with no other mods)
  
  Here's the technical details:
  It's 640x480 in 16-bit 5-6-5 format. Big-endian of course (tripped me up initially on my x86 machine). The file is a dump of the whole frame buffer but only half is used.
  Hope that helps.
  
  You might be able to read it with Photoshop or something. I had to write a little C program to convert the packed 16-bit values into 24-bit ones. Then it was simple to pipe that through rawtopnm with some guessed dimensions. It's nothing spectacular, just a blank KDE desktop running with Ktip describing how you can minimize all windows with the desktop button.
3. Re:What is this kde.fbdump garbage? by Ford+Prefect · 2004-11-01 02:10 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Just open it as a 'raw' image file, 640x480x16bpp. You say you'll have to write a program specifically for this? Sounds like you are a true /. geek! :-)
  
  Oh crap. I win the 'Geek' prize, then.
  
  I wrote a really poor PHP program to do it - and ended up with a fairly uninteresting screenshot.
  
  Okay, so KDE on a Gamecube is pretty useless, but it does show that the cross-compiler is working on complex software (even if it is just for a PowerPC), and that pretty resource-intensive software will work on the machine. Plus, I bet the people doing it have learned a lot in porting this stuff to work on an unfamiliar, undocumented hardware platform.
  
  Now, port Linux to run on any generic Postscript printer! :-)
  
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KDE is heavy by gustgr · 2004-10-31 23:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Does KDE run smoothly on a 486Mhz PowerPC with 40mb of RAM?
1. Re:KDE is heavy by Acidic_Diarrhea · 2004-11-01 01:16 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Oh okay, let me just call up Nintendo and tell them I need some RAM for my Gamecube.
  
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Screenshots by rudib · 2004-10-31 23:23 · Score: 5, Funny

So, the first screenshot is when you are sober and the second one is when you are on acid?
1. Re:Screenshots by gustgr · 2004-10-31 23:27 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  when you are on acid?
  
  This is the only way I can tolerate KDE.
2. Re:Screenshots by metlin · 2004-10-31 23:29 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  <flamebait> No, you definitely can't be sober if you're using KDE. </flamebait>
  :-p
3. Re:Screenshots by xxx_Birdman_xxx · 2004-11-01 00:54 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Gee, imagine being KDE, squeezed onto the gamecube and starting up to present the welcome screen.. must feel like a druken waking up in strange location after a heavy night on the turps...
  
  "Ooohhh.. my head.. that was rough... huh? how the hell did I end up in this place? and where are my correctly coloured pants?"
  
  --
  Live in your skin. Keep changing the scenery.
Well by bburton · 2004-10-31 23:24 · Score: 4, Funny

Well I'm convinced... if KDE can run on a gamecube, it must be better than Gnome.

laugh, its a joke

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about the shots by sla291 · 2004-10-31 23:24 · Score: 4, Funny

Well, at least, we can say that KDE runs well on black&white TVs :)
First step by Chuck+Chunder · 2004-10-31 23:28 · Score: 5, Funny

Scratch out the "C" and replace it with a "K"

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Gamecube: pretty hard to hack by phoxix · 2004-10-31 23:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Unlike the Xbox or the PS2, there are no mod-chips for the gamecube. Nintendo did one hell of a job constructing this little machine.

The way to hack the Gamecube is somewhat interesting. Back in the days of the Sega Dreamcast, there was a game known as "Phantasy Star Online", which attempted to connect to a remote server to get and execute whatever code it got from the remote server.... grin :^).

When Sega ported the game to the GameCube, the exploit came with it. So what folks do is they load up Phantasy Star Online 1+11, run a "loader" on their computer (linux or windows). And have the loader on their computer send the gamecube whatever they want (home games, illegal rips, the linux kernel, etc).

This has been over-simplified greatly.

And note: some of you might be thinking about using this to play illegal copies of games. Don't bother. You end up needing to use a bazillion different loaders to load whatever game, and the network port of the Gamecube is limited to 10mbps, which makes many games unplayable.

Sunny Dubey
Correction by tempest303 · 2004-10-31 23:33 · Score: 3, Funny

The story reporter got a link wrong - the screenshot ought to look like this . :-P

(it's funny, laugh.)

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mmmm trippy by D3viL · 2004-10-31 23:35 · Score: 3, Funny

maybe it's just me but I like the fist picture better, or maybe it's just the mushrooms talkin
Re:Gamecube: pretty hard to hack by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-31 23:42 · Score: 3, Informative

Didn't the PSO exploit originate from the Xbox version? Something about the GC and (later) Xbox versions both using the same keys to sign downloads...

Someone got the key from the Xbox game and guessed that the GC version might have used the same one and it did! Sega messed up.
"original frame buffer" by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-31 23:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

probably get modded down or troll for admitting i use IE6, but the FB link crashes it. maybe i'll be using that gamecube for my browsing soon..
Re:Now correct me if i'm wrong.. by Poltras · 2004-10-31 23:51 · Score: 3, Informative

IIRC, they boot on NFS, since there is no real HDD on the gamecube. And it's more useful that way, since they don't have to burn a mini-DVD backwards every time they make a modification. What seems more a problem now is color management. :)

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Re:Enquiring minds want to know by danamania · 2004-11-01 00:12 · Score: 5, Informative

From all reports yes it booted but the color map was broken on the x server so it didn't look really great. Here is what it looks like. I think it took slightly less long than expected, only four and a half days.

nooooo. no no no.

The boot failed due to a byte-order issue with drive images made on PCs, and failed at the four and a half day mark. I'm not sure where you got the URL for the image, I can only presume once it was pasted on IRC it spreads everywhere :). That image is of the Centris display, but it's my Athlon's PearPC session merely using X11 on the Centris.

I'll have it booting sometime soon, just not this week :).
It's official by Admiral+Justin · 2004-11-01 00:20 · Score: 5, Funny

It's official, Linux does run on everything, toasters, xbox, gamecube, your grandmother, robot cheney...

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Anytime... by BaltikaTroika · 2004-11-01 00:32 · Score: 5, Funny

The first screenshot is what KDE looks like when the Predator is using it.
Re:Gamecube: pretty hard to hack by Anonymous Coward · 2004-11-01 00:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

Unlike the Xbox or the PS2, there are no mod-chips for the gamecube. Nintendo did one hell of a job constructing this little machine.

The problem has never been the mod chips, it's been the fact that Nintendo uses a custom media disc, not the CDs/DVDs that the PS2 uses, or the DVDs that the Xbox uses.

If the GCN could take commodity media, then I'm sure a mod chip would be forthcoming. However, Nintendo stopped you from getting to the point where a mod chip would be useful.

You do have to admire the fact that they, unlike Microsoft or Sony, managed to beat the piracy problem on the cube.
Re:applications? by apanap · 2004-11-01 01:05 · Score: 5, Informative

Mplayer works fine, and you can see some more useless screenshots here. Snes9x has also been ported, as well as a couple other emulators (MAME and some neogeo emulator for example). Other than that I haven't found much use for it except for the geek-factor, the memory is too limited to do anything heavy... But playing SNES games on the cube is pretty sweet though.

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Re:Practical uses? by mausmalone · 2004-11-01 01:31 · Score: 4, Informative

(a) no modding involved, so in that respect it's really easy to get up and running. (b) Well, since they have mplayer running, you could use it as a network media player. I think if someone developed a front end specifically for gclinux that would let you specify a samba/windows file share in a .conf file somewhere, displayed the files in some user-friendly way, and then spawned mplayer when you clicked on one,... well that'd be nice. ... sadly, I don't know how to program squat on linux or I'd be all over that.

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virtual by Anonymous Coward · 2004-11-01 01:44 · Score: 3, Funny

So... when do we have the first person claiming to run KDE on a GameCube emulator on his 486-33 MHz? Or runnning a GameCube emulator in the 486-33MHz emulator on the GameCube?

(Cry, I'm serious ;)
Re:Gamecube: pretty hard to hack by StillAnonymous · 2004-11-01 02:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

"You do have to admire the fact that they, unlike Microsoft or Sony, managed to beat the piracy problem on the cube."

And it answers the age-old argument that gets posed back and forth. You know, the "I wouldn't pirate games if they were cheaper...Games would be cheaper if you didn't pirate them"

Apparently the industry lied and games aren't made any cheaper even when they aren't pirated.
Colour skeme by Nodatadj · 2004-11-01 02:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Now I see where games.slashdot.org got its colour scheme from. Taco was browsing using a gamecube.
Re:Gamecube: pretty hard to hack by tepples · 2004-11-01 03:07 · Score: 3, Interesting

GameCube discs spin the same way (clockwise viewed from label side) as CDs. It's more likely that GameCube discs are stored in the second DVD layer, whose spiral goes from out to in like that of a vinyl record, unlike the spiral of a CD or the first layer of a DVD, which goes from in to out.
Re:Gamecube: pretty hard to hack by bedouin · 2004-11-01 07:45 · Score: 3, Informative

And it answers the age-old argument that gets posed back and forth. You know, the "I wouldn't pirate games if they were cheaper...Games would be cheaper if you didn't pirate them"

If it's of any worth, when I owned my modded PSX about 5-6 of my games were legitimate copies. As a Gamecube owner, with no pirated games, I still only own about six. It's the age old realization most companies never come to: just because one pirated 50 games doesn't mean he/she was going to buy them in the first place.