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.

Why?

I don't see ANY possible use for this other than to earn geek points to spent at the next LARPG meeting...

What?

What, you play GAMES on your Game Cube?
That is sooooo passe...

Re:Why?

Granted there isn't much use, but there is some.

The PostgreSQL port to the PS2 (quite a while back) made a performance issue on certain platforms very obvious. I believe as a result the Itanium port recieved a bit of a speed boost (common issue).

Simply put, looking at something from a new angle doesn't hurt any of the currently existing platforms, and often it will help.

It's the same reason many developers like to use more than one compiler. One will sometimes warn about things the other doesn't catch.

don't it?

"it says something that the GameCube was easier to convert to than Windows, don't it?"

Yes, it says your command of English is poor.

linux is unstoppable ...

... i just spent my sunday morning putting it on my ipod, which now has a whole new lease on life.

samba/nfs?

wouldn't that make a good priority, given the limited amount of storage on the gc?

full tcp/ip root-boot over nfs is done.

it works already. you boot gc-linux over nfs.

i just found a reason, finally, to by myself a gamecube. ;)

Relevance?

I suppose that this is interesting, in a geeky/hacker way, but I really don't think it belongs in the games section. Just because they used game console hardware for an OSS/Linux port story doesn't make it gaming news....

Now Postgres will be known as a toy database

Just as it is beginning to shake its reputation!

Needs a Hard drive hack.

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!

Reminds me of Oracle.

I once visited a friend on the Oracle campus in the 90's, and noticed that in a whole slew of cubicles, programmers had Nintendo 64 setups. It seems they were porting Netscape to N64 back then, and I always wondered how weird it was for Oracle to be involved in that at first.

I wonder whatever happened to that project. Clearly it never saw the light of day, but they did have Netscape up and running on those boxes.

Now it seems things have come full circle, in a sort of twisty klein bottle kind of way ...

Easier?

> it says something that the GameCube was easier to convert to than Windows

Was it really easier, or did it get done first for some other reason, such as
because it was more compelling? I mean, we're accustomed to the idea of using
Linux on low-end hardware as a server platform, so porting an RDBMS to it makes
a sort of (weird) sense, but Windows is inherently a desktop platform; the only
people who use Windows on servers are people who are so MS-only that they'll
also use MS SQL Server. There's very little niche there for an OSS RDBMS.
Okay, sure, there are people who use a desktop system to test and develop stuff
that will end up on a server, but they can usually get by with MySQL. I'm not
sure I really see the need to port PostgreSQL to Windows; they're pretty much
used in completely different scenerios.

I don't understand...

Why is it that these people always feel inclined to port OS software to game consoles? I mean, sure, it's an interesting challenge, and it has some uses, but really, the hassle of the project usually outweighs the results. You have to wonder what kinds of great things these people could do if they put their skills elsewhere, rather than simply making Linux and windows available on every video game console. I'm not saying that they're wasting their talent, but why not do something new, rather than the same "Port Linux to your video game console!" project that we tend to see? These people obviously have the skills to make great things out of the consoles: Why not put them to use, and find new and innovative ways to use the consoles?
But, whatever floats your boat....

Reminds me of a quote...

PostgreSQL on a game console: "My pistol will perform a SELECT query on a bullet and then use it to perform an INSERT INTO query on your head and truncate your life, you denormalized villain!"
(from a SA game review [somethingawful.com])

Why this is useful

There's a lot of comments about whther or not his is useful or just stupid. While you probably wouldn't be running a database on your gamecube (unless they port apache and python as well, for a very cheap web server), this ensures postgresql is platform independent which makes it easier to port to other more useful systems.

Damn

And here I had trouble getting it to work on my Sun Blade. Damn missing libraries.

PostgreSQL and windows

And before anyone asks... the Windows port is coming real soon now, so be patient

You can run PostgreSQL under Windows using Cygwin. This has been available for quite some time.