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PlayStation 4 Will Be Running Modified FreeBSD

Posted by samzenpus on from the under-the-hood dept.

jones_supa writes "This discovery comes nicely alongside the celebration of FreeBSD's 20th birthday, for all the UNIX nerds. The operating system powering the PlayStation 4 is Orbis OS, which is a Sony spin of FreeBSD 9.0. It's not a huge surprise FreeBSD is being used over Linux, in part due to the more liberal licensing. The PlayStation 4 is x86-64 based now rather than Cell-based, which makes it easier to use FreeBSD. BSDs in general currently lack manufacturer supported full-feature AMD graphics driver, which leads to the conclusion that Sony and AMD have likely co-developed a discrete driver for the PS4. Some pictures of the development kit boot loader (GRUB) have been published too."

13 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. War of the Operating Systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    PS4 is on FreeBSD, X1 is on a Windows-kernel abomination, and the Steam box is going to be Linux. Interesting. Any chance the WiiU has secret Mac lineage to complete this?

    1. Re:War of the Operating Systems by lxs · · Score: 4, Funny

      Unrouted wii ends up splattering all over the floor and on your shoes.

  2. Re:License war commencing... by Yoda222 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This has been disputed over and over again. I think that after 42 years of trolling, we now all agree on which one is the best and why, no ?

  3. Microsoft should go with Xenix by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

    After the IBM vs SCO fiasco, maybe Xenix can be put to good use.

  4. Confirm THAT, Netcraft by jgaynor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.

  5. Re:License war commencing... by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm not biting. ;D

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  6. Re:A great win for FreeBSD by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Funny

    This man is in denial.

    Well, to be fair, maybe they'll kick up the source code to github for a rootkit?

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  7. Re:License war commencing... by Zynder · · Score: 5, Funny

    Emacs the answer is.

  8. Re:License war commencing... by Nutria · · Score: 5, Funny

    There aren't even many Linux Zealots left.

    No need to gloat when you've conquered the world.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  9. Re:License war commencing... by fireman+sam · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard on the internets that version 6 of Emacs was going to be called VI

    --
    it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
  10. Re:License war commencing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard that Steve Jobs used to use VI. He switched to EMACS couldn't kick the habit of hitting the i key before typing.

  11. Re:License war commencing... by robthebloke · · Score: 3, Funny

    A little known fact: Windows notepad is actually a full clone of vi, albeit with some of the features disabled.

  12. Re:A great win for FreeBSD by cas2000 · · Score: 1, Funny

    let H_M be the set of idiots who think that freedom in particular and/or ethics in general are a subset of mathematics.