PS2 Linux Kit Roundup

An anonymous reader submits: "Codingstyle.com has posted a PS2 Linux Kit Roundup, with links to several programming guides, tutorials, and development tools. This is timely material, what with the release of the kit in Japan last month, and the pending release this May 22nd in North America."

finally ready for primetime

[tps12]

I just want to give a nod of thanks to everyone involved in bringing this product to market. Thank you, Sony. Thank you, Linux.

I type this from a Playstation 2, one of the later models with the 16MB cache upgrade and ROM revision 3A.2, and it runs great. KDE 3 compiles without a hitch, Quake 3 gives me 130 fps, and even my Palm synched on the first shot! Great work, all involved!

One dark note is that the kernel is still not updated for proper SMP on the PS2. Most of you probably know that the PS2 is a highly parallel machine, and the Linux SMP algorithms still aren't up to par. A few quick benchmarks showed a 50% speed advantage of the built-in SonyOS over Linux without optimization. But I think we can expect competitive performance in that area fairly soon.

If you haven't tried it, I recommend it. It is available from the usual sources and well worth the extravagant price tag.

Re:finally ready for primetime

[flewp]

Dude, what are you talking about? I got Quake3 to 130 FPS in my PS2 Linux kit. The key is to use my custom-hacked WindowsXP that will load under WINE, and then running Quake3 through WinXP through WINE.

Q3A has been ported native

[yerricde]

Quake 3? 130 fps? That's AFTER the x86 emulation you'd need to get Quake3 to run on that? Not likely.

You don't need to emulate an Intel x86 architecture microprocessor to run Quake III Arena. If you work for id Software or have a source license from id Software, you can port Q3A natively to the PS2 Linux platform. If they could port q3a to the Dreamcast [sega.com], surely it must be possible on the PlayStation 2. In fact, EA has done it [primagames.com], packaging it with a substantial single-player mod.

Unfortunately, you can't use your l33t PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse with PS2 Quake III Arena.

Facinating, but limited.

[Godeke]

It's a shame that this kit can't make self running CDs. Only others with the kit can see the work done by the PS2-Linux community, and that's a shame, because the demo scene for this could have been huge.

I doubt anything homegrown would have *impared* sales of commercial games, but the control over the distribution of works created with Linux (of all things) is draconian.

(Apparently with a mod chip you can boot, but that's even fuzzier legal waters...)