“Sony says it will begin selling disks to install Linux on PlayStation 2 and tools to develop Linux applications. Kits will include a 40GB hard drive, keyboard and mouse.” Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.
Sony Signs up Linux for PlayStation 2
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Eugenia Loli
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Looks like another victory for the Linux folks! So maybe Linux will take gaming seriously now?!
… I wonder if Sony will throw in libraries for accessing the graphics chips, and special features of the overall system? That could be very cool…
Heh, now you can port all those great SDL games, like Circus Linux.
MAME might be a fine project though.
– chrish
Does the ps2 have firewire or is it just USB 1.x? if so that accessing that disk at 2M/s will be a hit to the performance.
I remember when they were releasing the specs on the ps2 how people were saying the graphics chip in there was so good that rendering companies would get a few of them make them into linux boxes with a boot cd (similar to what Sony is now selling) and use them as a reder farm. Now that this kit exists I wonder how much longer till we start seeing ps2s being used in that sort of application.
I wonder if Sony will distribute the Linux cd for free in the UK, I remember reading somewhere that in order to distribute the ps2s there they had to include a BASIC interpreter, which somehow classified it as a computer and therefore it fell into a different import category.
> Does the ps2 have firewire or is it just USB 1.x?
AFAIK, the PS2 has both.
> Looks like another victory for the Linux folks!
No. A victory would be, if PS2-Linux (including boot loader and stuff – without hardware) was free.
said somehwere in the article the hard drives internal so it should i doubt it ill be on a usb bus.
Well, they seem to have removed some of the info that used to be a ps2linux.com (jalanese). They used to have screenshots (WindowMaker!
and running gimp.
The harddrive is internal. The firewire port is an iLink (1394i). There is also a ethernet port, which the article did not mention. I think the ps2 only has about 32m of memory, though.
It makes me feel like I want to go out and get a PS2 myself.
That’s a nice deal for $200.
>>I wonder if Sony will throw in libraries for accessing the graphics chips, and special features of the overall system?
Seams like the logical thing to do. (At least the graphics and Audio.)
The PS/2 could be used as a cool media server…
ciao
yc
great! now i wonder how long it will hbe until some one figures out how to get beos/atheos/qnx on it! that would rock!
The OpenBeOS kernel already boots PS2 afaik
OpenBeOS boot on Dreamcast too …
AOL for PlayStation and XBox to game museum.
As a Linux fan i think this is really cool, but as a Nintendo fan I’m starting to hope that Nintendo would start a similar projekt! Thinking QNX or Linux…
The GameCube is based on the Gekko cpu, from IBM. The Gekko is a modded G3 PowerPC, så wouldn’t it be more easy than creating a Linux for the weird PS2 cpu? The QNX and Linux both runs on a PowerPC…
There is a new web site http://www.playstation2-linux.com/ There is a really great FAQ there.
The system manuel will include detailed specifications for the graphics hardware, so you can code to it to your hearts delight. Other parts of the hardware (DVD,HDD,USB,i.Link and others) will have a runtime environment layer between the hardware and Linux, and hardware specifications for those will not be disclosed.
What is the friggin POINT?!
This has nothing to do with games. This is just a slow-ass PC running Linux on a XGA monitor!!!
You call that a good deal for $200? Surely you JEST
The Japanese kit has been out for a long time now, and nothing interesting has come from it.
As for stupid comments on this forum:
CattBeMac: The answer is NO
KAMiKAZOW: the ps2 linux kernel does NOT have access to either the DVD drive (which would need to be chipped anyway) or the firewire port.
Everybody else: This is as useful as ascii graphics display mode on Quake. Get over yourselves.
Well, I’ve always thought the consoles will be the next desktop computers…
I guess this is a logical step. Except for the OS
*boots BeOS*
Strobe said: What is the friggin POINT?!
I’ll tell why I would:
I have a PS/2. It’s already connected to my tv. With the linux kit, I can connect it to my network, and surf the web from my couch, on TV. $200 for that is cheaper, since I have the hardware already, than building a machine, with TV outs for rca/svideo/composite or whatever.
That would be my one and only reason. I don’t need to play DVDs under linux, the PS2 does that already. This is way more useful that graphics display mode on Quake. Who gives a flying f*#@ about access to the hardware, as long as I can surf the net!
-paul
Have fun surfing the net if programmers cant have access to documentation to make drivers. I’m not saying that they arent giving away documentation (i havent checked it out), but thats what would be the important thing for linux users. Without docs, its useless.
As far as making linux more game-friendly, sorry folks, but i highly doubt that this is the answer. The problem isnt the limited graphics hardware for linux (there are drivers for almost all modern video cards), the problem is X.
“Looks like another victory for the Linux folks! So maybe Linux will take gaming seriously now?!”
Well, no actually. Writing PS2 games isn’t just a matter of opening up a few libraries and getting stuff done. The machine has one of the most complex architectures that you will ever see. A MIPS core with two VLIW/SIMD co-processors. A graphics rasterizer and a 20 channel DMA controller which needs to be programmed to get everything talking to eachother. You’ve got to drive this manually unless you license something like Rendware and believe me, you can’t afford it
The vector units must be programmed in assembly language and it’s a very odd and very hardcore assembly language indeed.
My company is a couple of months from releasing a C++ compiler for the VUs but this is only some of the hard work. And given our tool will be priced in line with professional PS2 development tools, clearly no one would buy it for Linux and DIY games anyhow.
The chances of PS2 Linux spawning any games is pretty darn close to zero. What’s MORE, the harddrive/network adaptor is no good for PS2 games which need the haddrive/network adaptor such as the new online games being developed today. That’s right, you’d need to buy another one for that purpose.
PS2 Linux is such a weird idea and such a nice idea that we’re still left scratching our heads on why Sony did this in the first place. NetYaroze it is not.
Typo, nice = niche.
>>As for stupid comments on this forum:
CattBeMac: The answer is NO<<
Did someone piss in your ‘Wheaties’ today?!
>>PS2 Linux is such a weird idea and such a nice idea that we’re still left scratching our heads on why Sony did this in the first place. NetYaroze it is not.<<
There is an easy answer for this… Sony has a majo dislike for Microsoft and if they can slowly ween themselves from the Evil Empire, the better. As you can see that Palm OS is their choice for their PDA market and I guess Linux for the PS2 and I have heard rumors that they even have been developing their own proprietary OS, but what will they do with it?… nobody knows?!
I went to Linux World at the Javitts Center in NYC Yesterday. My buddy and
I were both shocked when we saw a PS2 running Linux! The first thing that he
said was basically a joke like, “Wow, now I can do something more constuctive
with my PS2 than just playing Grand Theft Auto!” I thought that the thing
was a neat project overall, but not sure what good it was. If you look
back in very early OSNews posts, I had this idea like 2 years ago! The
PS2’s that Sony had on display (2 of them) in a small booth, had what looked
like a box strapped to the bottom of the PS2. This box I overheard had
a 40 Gb HD and Ethernet. One of the guys standing at the booth asked Sony
if the memory was expandable. The guy at Sony said “Its limited to 32 MBs
right now.” I played around with the machine for a few seconds, and noticed
that it was very fast and usuable. I mentioned that this would be a cheap
way to get a PC at work to do some simple tasks. Not sure what Sony is trying
to do with the whole idea, but it looks like there were many developers there
that were firing questions. I heard that Sony is releasing some specs and
other info to program any advanced features the PS2 might offer, but what these
are exactly I could not tell you…Sony claimed that a user’s group in Japan
was the catalyst for the whole project.
Very cool,
Dano.
“There is an easy answer for this…”
Actually, I should have stated we don’t know why they’re releasing this in the West. You are quite correct in stating that Sony has no love for Microsoft. However the PS2 Linux project was created in Japan in order to provide a cheap PS2 dev kit like system for Japanese university students who are interested in entering the games industry.
Linux aside, Sony has a bit of a history in backing turkeys with regards to OS. Anyone remember the failed BeOS powered net appliance thing?
Linux has a lot of backing in Japan but bizarrely Sony don’t really do much with it themselves. They don’t even contribute in a significant way to GCC which they rely on for MIPS code generation on PS2. (And suffer as a result)