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Games Entertainment

A More In Depth Look at PS/2 Linux 125

Posted by CmdrTaco from the select-start-b-a-start-ctrl-alt-del dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I have yet to see a GOOD review of the Linux (for Playstation 2) kit... until now... " The article takes awhile to get to the point, but covers a lot of information about what you can and can't do w/ the kit, and more interestingly what the author thinks the kit is intended to accomplish.
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A More In Depth Look at PS/2 Linux More

A More In Depth Look at PS/2 Linux

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  • Huh? PS/2 has had linux forever.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by deathcow ( 455995 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @06:55AM (#3821347)
    PS/2 Linux [ic.ac.uk]

  • Programming the PS2 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SpatchMonkey ( 300000 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @06:59AM (#3821359) Journal
    What disappointed me in that article was the lack of emphasis on actually using the thing to write software. What tools are available? Is there any additional libraries for using the custom PS2 chips?

    Another thing is, some PS2s come with a copy of yabasic [google.com], giving it the feel of the the old 8 bit micro days where you could write your own BASIC programs, and save them onto the memory cards. You can use any USB keyboard for input to this. It seems to me, if you want to program the PS/2, this is a much more accessible choice!

    • Re:Programming the PS2 (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      a friend of mine has yabasic on his ps2. it's pretty neat but the syntax is a bit limited with audio, and it is slow to process strings. what i find really odd though is that yabasic is open source! werd to sony for that one eh.
    • Except I realise, shortly after posting this, that yabasic isn't available in the US because they use NTSC [playstation-basic.com], and we (in Europe) use PAL.

    • Re:Programming the PS2 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @08:28AM (#3821624) Journal
      It's a standard Linux distribution - you can treat it as a (slow, 300MHz) MIPS machine if you want. You get gcc/g++ and everything else you might find in a modern(ish) distribution.

      The gcc port understands the VU assember syntax, so you can embed asm() blocks and have the code for the VU run on the VU via the direct link, and code for the mips chip run there.

      It also comes with vcl. This is a godsend - it takes your crap linear vector-unit assembly code and parellelises it onto the vector units as best it can, re-ordering etc. to get the most out of the units.

      There are a couple of rather nice libraries (ps2stuff, ps2gl) which provide base-level things (ps2stuff) and an openGL-like layer (ps2gl). To the extent that I could prove a bug in ps2gl by taking the same source code and compiling on my (i386) linux pc with 'g++ stars.cpp -o stars -L/usr/X11R6/lib -LGL -lglut'. Fantastic :-)

      Ps2gl allows you to code renderers in VU assembly, and associate a new primitive type that can be placed in the DMA stream, which will call your new rendered automatically. There's an example of this shipped with the kit.

      The only fly in the ointment is that the gcc shipped is only 32-bit, which means all the 128-bit registers get stomped on if they're passed as function arguments. There is apparently a patch in SCEE that will help this, although it'll lead to static binaries until everything is compiled with it (I don't care!). This will finally allow the VU's to do all the matrix and quaternion algebra they're really good at, and the system will fly :-)

      Simon

  • Of course ... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by dago ( 25724 )
    It's already there for a long time and works pretty well...

    probably the best ps/2 linux website [dgmicro.com]

  • The guy speaks favorably of Ruby. I would like to comment that while Ruby is big in Japan, more western minded people might do better investigating Python, which gives all the perks of ruby, and more (maturity, lotsa available libraries...).

    I think someone also gave a speak about game programming on Python & PS2 at Europython, just to be more on topic.

    • Re:Ruby (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kmellis ( 442405 )
      "I would like to comment that while Ruby is big in Japan, more western minded people might do better investigating Python, which gives all the perks of ruby, and more..."
      Ruby [io.com] was written specifically to answer perceived deficiencies in Python [python.org], not to mention Perl. It's more than a little misleading to represent Python as "Ruby with more". It's debatable whether Ruby is better than Python, but someone interested should do some research and decide for themselves. It's thought of very highly by a lot of people, and I suspect that the mention of it here by a US developer is an indication of its burgeoning popularity in the US.
      • Ruby [io.com] was written specifically to answer perceived deficiencies in Python [python.org], not to mention Perl.

        I dunno, the Ruby docs mostly talk about Perl, and as little about Python as possible. It kinda shows that they don't *want* to talk about Python, because investigating python would lead prospective rubyers to go that way instead.

        And about the perceived deficiencies - it would have been more sensible to try to suggest the fixes to python developers, instead of reinventing the wheel. Python has fixed the deficiencies it had at the time of conception of ruby, making ruby mostly redundant. It is a good language, much better than Perl, but not better than Python. Which is what counts.

    • Re:Ruby (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BJH ( 11355 )
      One of the reasons Ruby is so popular in Japan is that it was written by default to handle multi-byte characters.

      Sure, you can do the same in Perl and Python, but in Ruby it really is painless.

  • Crappy article (Score:3, Funny)

    by Aceticon ( 140883 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @07:26AM (#3821437)
    Where is the human side in this story?

    Where is the tale of long nights hacking way, man against machine?

    Or the vivid descriptions of cafeine induced allucinations?

    The joys of finnaling figuring out the function of that last pin in the Sound Synthesis Chip?

    The humble confession - "After 5 days straight hacking i fell asleep on my keyboard ..."?

    But NO!!! The author does use half the article to tell us about his phylosophical doubts in relation to Sony's posture, but that is a far cry from the moving story of A Man And His Penguin Against The Machine.

    The children! Please think of the little children!!!

  • Increadable! (Score:1, Redundant)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 )
    If they can get linux running on an old IBM platform like PS/2 then I will get my old computer out the attic.

    PS/2 = Old IBM PC standard (we still have the keyboard and mouse connectors as a legacy)
    PS2 = Sony games machine
    • Don't hold your luck. It is quite possible to get a very lite version of linux running on a PS/2. Heck I bet it would even work on a PS/1 given enough RAM and Hard Drive space. I mean if an apple][gs can have a tcp/ip stack and play wolfenstein 3d with gs/os then a ps/2 can sure run linux.
      • [quote]Heck I bet it would even work on a PS/1 [/quote] not it wouldn't - because there was no PS/1. the first IBM PC was called - hold on for that one - IBM PC.
      • Uh-oh, you shouldn't have told me that. I better take the full-blown Debian 2.2 with Xwindows off my PS/2 Server 500. It can't possibly run. Look here: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?nu0c* -1 and -15 are both IBM PS/2 Debian boxen. I really wanna see a playstation do that.

  • For XBox (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hey, can someone quickly write a PS2 emulator for XBox so I can then run Linux on it and collect my $200 Grand. Thanx!
  • "Next was the USB Keyboard. This was packaged in a yellow cardboard box. Upon opening it, it appears as a standard black keyboard, but on closer inspection you find that the Windows keys are missing."

    Let us not forget that all things Windows are PROPRIETARY!! MS Keys have nothing to do with a "standard" keyboard!! I'd hoped that a 27 year old guy who is installing Linux on his PS2 would have known that!!

    blakespot
    • And equally interesting is what did he think he was going to use them for?

      People who should know better should know that there is no standard keyboard

    • a few lines futher in the article:

      I plugged the USB keyboard and mouse into my Windows box........It loaded the USB keyboard/mouse drivers and worked fine. The diamond keys were interpreted as windows keys by windows.

      Well, they are the same thing after all. Just not a windows logo.
    • The full quote:
      Next was the USB Keyboard. This was packaged in a yellow cardboard box. Upon opening it, it appears as a standard black keyboard, but on closer inspection you find that the Windows keys are missing. In their place were keys with diamonds on them. I guess Sony is making a point that Microsoft is not their friend. Also diamonds kind of go with the schema of circle, square, triangle, and cross that's found on the Playstation controller.

      This is tiny, irrelivant, and unimportant, but i just thought everyone might want to know: the choice of diamonds was not arbitrary. The diamond keys are standard for Sun keyboards-- they have a bunch of Sun hardware up at my college, and they all have little diamond keys on them. They act kind of like the command key on a macintosh, for example Netscape4/Solaris is wired so that diamond-N opens a new window instead of alt-N or whatever it is in linux.
      ((I can't remember, it's been awhile since i've used X in linux except remotely or in my incorrectly-xmodmapped linux/PPC install ::grin:: stupid delete key..))

      According to this page [hawaii.edu], the diamond keys also act as "meta" keys-- that is to say, every time in EMACS that you have one of those special commands that you have to call by pressing ESC and then another key, you can just hold down "meta" and press the key instead. Useful ((If you like EMACS, that is... ^_^))

      So this was actually a consious choice by Sony to be more UNIXy, not just Sony being anti-MS.

      Does anyone know, if you plug a Sun/Playstation keyboard into a macintosh, does the diamond key act as a command key?

      • Does anyone know, if you plug a Sun/Playstation keyboard into a macintosh, does the diamond key act as a command key?

        Yes, it will. I can't specifically speak for the Sun/Playstation->Mac arrangement, but if you plug a Mac keyboard into a PC (or a Sparc), the command key acts as a Meta/Windows key. Isn't USB great?

  • Distro (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @07:41AM (#3821483)

    Interestingly enough, the distribution chosen by Sony for the PS2 kit (Kondara Linux, not Kondora as the article states) is about to shut down.

    There hasn't been an English announcement yet, but their Japanese site says that the Kondara Project servers (the free development group behind the Kondara distribution, which was retailed by Digital Factory, a commercial enterprise) will be closed down on July 15.

    The reason for this is that Digital Factory, which owns the Kondara trademark, has sold its distribution business to another company, and the project was forced to quit using the name Kondara.

    Luckily for fans of the distribution, a new group, which looks suspiciously like the old Kondara group, has just kicked off the Momonga Project [momonga-linux.org] (momonga is Japanese for flying squirrel).

    It'll be interesting to see what Sony do, if anything, in the way of providing an upgrade path for PS2/Linux users.

    • Who's to say that "another company" isn't Sony?

      Conspiracies abound!

      • Nah, it's a tiny little company from Fukuoka (on Kyushu, the westernmost of the four main islands of Japan) called SP, Inc. [splss.co.jp] They've got a grand total of six employees.
    • (momonga is Japanese for flying squirrel).

      The Japanese have a word for 'flying squirrel', disturbing.


    • Hmmm, I thought it was a rather old variant of Red Hat. We're basing that on the kernel and RPM versions.

      We're running a production DNS server for our main domain [sdsc.edu] on our PS2 [sdsc.edu]. There's also a baby web server. "The Effect" will probably knock it over, so please be gentle with it.

      Why the DNS server? Because I bet someone they couldn't get it all running in less than 2 hours. I lost :-)

      We have a computational chemist who is really contemplating a Beowulf cluster of PS2s, if he can get to the floating point on the graphics chips. The only drawback is the limited (32MB) of RAM. But for *small*-memory, FLOP-intensive jobs it might be cost-effective.

  • Sad endings to happy movies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @07:56AM (#3821528)
    I think the conslusion to this rather informative diddy is spot on, Sony is out to create a network of experienced PS2 programmers. Sony gets oodles of noodles for this move. The PS2 is probably the most popular video game system ever marketed to date, it makes Sony bunches of money. The only problem with the money making aspect is they need a constant stream of games for a system to be popular. Programmers are needed and plenty are interested but as the article says, experience with the platform is not as abundant as people willing to program for it. Sony distributes a system that allows people to poke around the platform and make their own amateur games in their spare time and get 2D6 bonus to their PS2 Programming skill.

    Linux is the obvious choice for Sony to pick, not because Linux rox0rz d00dz but because it is a familiar environment for many developers and requires no licensing fee to distribute. The last thing Sony wants is their HDD/eth0 expansion system to cost them more money than it has the potential to make back for them. Paying a $20 or $50 royalty on some commercial OS (pick one, any one) per unit sold will end up costing them in terms of margins. Drives and ethernet adapters that only go down in price as time goes by and shipment volumes increase lead to high margins and eventually profits.

    I've thought for a while Sony wants to migrate their computer division from being high priced IBM clone systems to being something proprietary and different. In many of their markets this is an easy sell because there is a shitload of brand loyalty. It might not be terribly difficult in the US either. Sony might pretty easily merge their VAIO desktop computers with future PlayStations. A wide availability of games and media designed specifically for Sony systems could make them a powerful player in the PC market. They already produce a ton of software for their VAIO systems, they could port a good deal of that to whatever OS they might use besides Windows on their new VAIO Stations.

    This of course goes back to engendering developer support for the platform. By seeding PS2/3 platform developers early (now) they can set themselves up with a relatively large developer base, independant and otherwise, as long as they can keep their interest. Sony looks like they're intending to paint several markets with one broad brush. Derivitive systems based off the PlayStation architecture; from the dedicated console at $100 for playing games to the $2000 audio video workstation which happens to share 70% of the same parts or interfaces. Maybe Sony is looking to make a new Microsoft-free PC market. Can you forgive them for killing Napster? Tough choice.
    • A $200 gnutella box. Maybe I can forgive them for killing Napster. Maybe.
      • That's $200 for the ps2 kit, plus PS2 ($200), $30 for a new memory card, Monitor w/ sync on green ($300/400?), or a TV. Not that cheap huh? My friend has one - its a really cool idea but it's not a machine that you could use for day to day tasks - Mozilla won't run properly due to the lack of memory (so you're stuck with konquerer), font rendering is a bit naff, and it's really slow... (compiling large apps is a bitch, takes about a day(!!) to compile mozilla) Also, as the article mentions you have NO control over the IO chip, which really really limits what you can do with the machine. However, I'd get one to use as an mp3/mame box in my living room, connect it to the sound system and network and write a nice front end shell to use mame/play mp3s, that would be usefull :P
    • Yes, I think Sony is often cleverer than people realise. Everybody sees Microsoft attempting to muscle in on Sony's territory with the X-Box, but what few can see is that Sony is actually in a very good position to own the future of the what we call "personal computing".

      I think the reason people can't see it is that they expect there to be an evolution of the desktop. However, mobile devices are increasingly where it's at, and it's an area in which Microsoft are much weaker than the desktop. I believe Sony's partnership with Ericsson [sonyericsson.com] points to the future, and it's a future that doesn't include MS.

      With Sony's strengths in electronics and global distribution, the PlayStation, their partnership with Ericsson in the mobile world, the fact that they are also a massive content provider, their strong Vaio laptop range - Microsoft have a lot to worry about with Sony. It wouldn't really suprise me at all if Sony's ten year plan involves small and neat laptop style communication devices which don't include any MS software. If I had to place bets on the future of computing, my money's with Sony, not Microsoft.
      • One other huge motivating factor for Sony is that they have a huge NIH complex. By driving the hardware and software ends it is all Sony. The only reason they picked Linux and not NeWS is that nobody knows anything about NeWS!
    • Maybe so, or maybe they intend to set up a series of competitions like that Roleplaying company has recently. Collect some new game ideas and either buy them off their creators or offer them a contract.
      There has been a lack of really innovative games out recently, there's definetly money in producing something to keep the easily jaded game-buyers forking out their cash.
  • I would really like to know the answer to this.

    Has anyone got wireless networking going with a Linux-based Playstation 2? A USB adaptor perhaps?

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • I was wondering that myself, given that it would neatly solve the problem something in the lounge that hooks up to the MP3 server, with neither a clumsy PC nor lots of nasty cabling. I found this [airstation.com], but can't actually seem to find it on sale, or get a guide price. I know it's not exactly a wireless adaptor for the PS2, but it solves the same problem, and without needing anyone to actually port anything.
    • I've had a PSX since about a year after it came out and got a PS2 the very day it came out, so I have also had a PS Underground subscription for close to that time for the regular demo discs it comes with. Recently, it started being bundled with the Playstation Magazine. They are doing a PS2 Broadband thing as that's due out soon, and listed configurations of how to hook up a PS2 to the Internet.

      The one that may interest you is using a Linksys Wireless Ethernet Bridge here [linksys.com]
  • Very informative.
    I've been considering a kit myself. Based on this I might just place my order shortly.

    Although the reviewer was slightly suspicious of the product, he didn't let it affect his judgement.
  • halkun again? Well...
    Once upon a time when standard Compact Disc did
    not exist yet, Sony and Philips had separated
    their opinions on the size of CD. But Herbert
    von Karajan wanted longer time to store
    Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 in one disk, then
    Sony's proposal, today's standard 12cm CD, was
    fixed.
    Today, on DVD, U.S. Hollywood cinema industry
    had insisted region lock to secure their profit
    around the world, so Japanese DVD makers just
    followed the decision and offered the best
    solution.
    They just design and offer the best container
    to be filled with any contents, so you
    should blame contents holders and software
    makers in the case of DVD region lock.
    About PS2 Linux kit? If you don't want it,
    then don't buy it.
    • ...Herbert von Karajan wanted longer time to store Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 in one disk, then Sony's proposal, today's standard 12cm CD, was fixed.

      Hmm.. it's an interesting theory, but it's got a bit of urban legend feel to it. Not only because of it's simplicity (ie, "Yeah, didn't you know, a CD is 76 minutes because that's how long Nr. 9 is.") but also because I've got a Deutsche Grammophone CD of Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic's performance of Beethoven's 9th. And guess what? There's more on there than just the symphony.. there's also a 9 minute performance of the Coriolan Overture. It's unlikely that Karajan (a big fan of subtlety) decided to go 10% faster that day.

  • Linux Kit now available in europe (Score:3, Informative)

    by codexus ( 538087 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @08:33AM (#3821637)
    Thanks to this article, I've noticed that the kit is now available for order in europe [playstation2-linux.com]. w00t! I'll be doing some serious PS2 coding soon :)
  • then you can't have sound, or access the controllers. How can you make a game like this?
    • they gave you a library to call. When the article said no access, what he really means is no direct access, nor documentation. The Pro PS2 developer kit comes with 7 manuals, PS2 Linux comes with the first 6. The 7th one is the IOP stuff.

  • Sony's Interesting Relationship (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <petedaly&ix,netcom,com> on Thursday July 04, 2002 @08:55AM (#3821715)
    I talked with a representitive from Sony a few months ago about this kit, which I don't own, for the PS@, which I don't own. I didn't like the answers to the questions I posed, but I at least understand their reasoning.

    Basically what you are buying is an XBox, without the major loss for the manufacturer. The PS 2 is $199 [amazon.com] and the kit is another $200. That's about that it cost to make an XBox, if you put two and two together. Quite interesting, but off topic, so...moving on...

    The biggest disadvantage I see is the inability to create anything that will work on another PS2 with it also having the linux kit installed. No taking your home built games (or MIME, etc.) over to your non-super geek friends' house to show them off. This is probably the biggest stumbling block for me. It makes sense in a way, Sony makes a lot of their money off of disk licensing fees.

    In comes my suggestion to Sony. Create a service where I can pay whatever the standard volume licensing fee is to get a bootable version of my Linux software. It would not be difficult to create an automated system to handle the disk creation. If I could pay $10 for a bootable copy of something I made, I probably would. The person from I was talking to did not seem very receptive to the idea. Seems to be this would be the smart compromise to take up.

    They expect people to really dive into this, and not have the ability to share their creations in any way with others, unless they are another geek with the $200 kit. I would never suggest to most of the people I know with a PS2 they should get the Linux kit. They are severly limiting my incentive to get the kits and spend my time learning to use it.

    -Pete
    (above PS2 link is an affilate link)
    • Sony makes a lot of their money off of disk licensing fees.

      Correction, they make all of their money off licensing fees. The consoles are sold at a loss.

    • Re:Sony's Interesting Relationship (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In comes my suggestion to Sony. Create a service where I can pay whatever the standard volume licensing fee is to get a bootable version of my Linux software. It would not be difficult to create an automated system to handle the disk creation. If I could pay $10 for a bootable copy of something I made, I probably would. The person from I was talking to did not seem very receptive to the idea. Seems to be this would be the smart compromise to take up.

      This is an excellent idea. Why is this post moderated as troll, exactly? Its points are important. If we are going to have Sony releasing this thing for the purpose of getting large numbers of people experienced with development for the Playstation 2, they have to realize that eventually they're going to have to figure out what the "upgrade path", so to speak, for those experienced PS2 programmers to become professional PS2 programmers will be.

      Anyway, Sony nonwithstanding, i think it would be really neat if one of the people that already volume-license nonlinux Playstation2 were to buy up some Print-On-Demand hardware, and start a service where people send in their linux games, the games get stored, and you can come by and request shipped to you printings of the linux games in the database. Like that website that does that with t-shirts.

      At the least, i have to say, be careful if you GPL your Playstation Linux games, if you do there's nothing to stop a big playstation game house from taking your GPL game, licensing the propeitary bootloader from Sony, and printing up and shipping out your game without paying you a cent... of course they'd manufacture no end of community ill-will, but considering their creation cost for that game was zero, it would still be hard to not make a profit even if no one who knew the truth about where that game came from bought one.

      -- super ugly ultraman
    • First of all it is possiable to take a game over to a friends house. There are multiple ways to do this, first is to take the HD and all with you. Secondly (and easier) you can write a game that runs only off the memeory card. And just take the linux DVD and your memeory card.

      Sony does not want to start publishing crappy games at $10 a pop. They would make no money from this and worst of all it could mess up the playstation brand. All the games published today go through a process, that every game must meet certain minimum requirements. You know, like not trashing your memory card, not crashing every 5 minutes, etc. If they just let you publish a disc that process could be totatly circumvented. Not to mention that you could just turn around and start selling your 'hobby' games for 30+ dollars, cutting them out of profits. Don't forget that it costs a lot more per disc to make one disc then a thousand.

      I agree that it would be cool, but this is their platform. It is not open and expecting them to open it is silly.
  • And you thought you could avoid this [trustedcomputing.org] with a GPL'd environment? Well, I did, until today.

    Bye bye, Freedom. Hello, Sony.

  • I bet all the kids are gonna go for that cool came the FSF has come up with. It has a name that conjures up images of action and fighting.

    Unfortunately the glamor will wear off fast, probably after a few minutes of staring at the prompt blinking at them.

  • What's a PS/2(tm)? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When did PS/2(tm) start to mean Playstation 2(tm), and not Personal System 2(tm)?

    It's so confusing. I tried to play a Playstation 2(tm) game on my IBM(tm) 286 machine, and it didn't work! I just don't understand it. Maybe the disc is scratched, or something. It fitted in the 5.25 inch disk drive OK, but I think the hole in the middle was too small, because it made a funny noise when I shut the drive door. Now the 5.25 inch disk drive doesn't operate, and small pieces of shrapnell fell out when I tried to put a floppy disk in it. Admittedly I had to cut a bit off of the 8" disk, but I thought it would still work.

  • Another personal experience... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrIcee ( 550834 ) on Thursday July 04, 2002 @10:48AM (#3822284) Homepage
    The only reason I purchased a PS2 last month was because of the LINUX kit. When the package arrive I was DELIGHTED at what I found.

    The article is extremely accurate as to the packaging. I had expected a small box with a CD and a drive... but it was a large box that was well-crammed with packages. Sorta like xmas.

    Like the author, of all the monitors I had none that were sync-on-green (www.playstation2-linux.com has a compatible monitor database so you can check before you try to see if you have a proper monitor). Like the author, I did the blind install (instructions also available at the above URL).

    The blind install worked flawlessly for me and took about an hour (45 minutes of which it simply rattled away on it's own doing the install).

    So... what do I do with it? Well, I have a number of uses. First... it is a wonderfully inexpensive full *NIX workstation. Because I am in Hawaii and my servers are in the mainland, I use computers in my house to monitor my remote servers on a full-time basis... the PS2 allows me to check my servers from the living room (instead of having to go up to the office constantly). Towards this end, I am designing 3D remote monitor software (that will monitor servers and display load, disk space, users, mail, dns health, etc... in a nice 3D graphical environment).

    We also run the game 'tranquility' (www.TQworld.com), and are looking at rewriting it for the PS2 under Linux (I don't know if there is a market yet for Linux based PS2 games, but we'll give it a shot anyway).

    The bottom line? Very very very impressive packaging. Good attention to detail - but yes, it's a geek thing because you have to be innovative and a digger to find all the info you want.

    A very nice design... and also... price-wise pretty good. I can certainly envision a rack of PS2's humming along. According to the www.playstation2-linux.com website, a number of people have had them up and running as web servers for quite some time... and report great stability.

    I have seen only one problem so far. When I ssh to remote servers and run 'top' for 5 days straight, upon stopping the remote connection and trying to do something else I have now twice seen ethernet errors of *no more space* (no more space on ethernet???? what gives with that)... so there are some caveats - but all in all, very very impressive.

    The author, however, is 100% correct when he says it will be 6 months learning to fully understand/use the device. The manuals are complex and somewhat confusing (even though I have 25+ years of assembly and graphics coding on SGI etc..) it WILL take a while to understand and experiment with.

    The only thing I need now is a MUCH longer keyboard cable so I can program from the sofa ;)) Aloha Nui Loa

    • Say, nice job on tranquility -- it's quite soothing.

      Regarding the ethernet thing, I've had mine running for as long as a week without trouble, but then again, I'm probably not doing anything particularly network intensive. You might want to check the forums [playstation2-linux.com] to see if anyone else is experiencing something similar.

      Regarding the keyboard cable -- I hear folks have had success using Logitech's wireless keyboard, although their mouse may need GSConfig changes to work properly. Again, the forums have more details on this.
    • how do you get it to use a TV for output instead of a monitor?
  • Maybe slightly off-topic, but whatever happened to the Runix linux port for PS1 and PS2?

    [slashdot.org]
    Linux for the PlayStation 1

    There website is no longer accessible and I couldn't find anything w/ google. Anyone know anything? Did sony wax them?

    There dist had much better hope as it didn't have the RTE, booted from CD, etc.

    jason

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