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Linux for Playstation 2

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Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#21

Post by coldpie »

badsectoracula wrote: post #19
pjmlp wrote: post #2

It was a great indie development community, gaining experience on what it meant a console like dev experience, sadly spoiled by tons of folks porting emulators instead of being creative. Most like the reasoning behind PS3 Linux no longer having GPU libraries like the PS2Linux, only 2D acceleration, and eventually migration to FreeBSD as basis for PlayStation OS from PS4 onwards. Still have my PS2Linux kit.

> tons of folks porting emulators instead of being creative On one hand this is something that annoys me a bit to this day - i am into original xbox homebrew games (bought a modded one last year specifically for this) and pretty much 99.999% of the homebrew software is emulators. While i can see the point until around mid-2000s due to the available hardware back then, emulators are by far the main target for any jail…

> and i fail to see the point for that considering the availability and TV connectivity of cheap PCs

It's a fair point. I think part of the appeal is, after you've finished the hack, you get both the emulators and the "just works" experience of a console. The controllers are high quality, sync correctly, and don't get disconnected; the UI is sane and just works out of the box; it will negotiate with any TV and audio setup correctly; you don't have to deal with OS updates breaking your setup or fiddle with any CLI-commands.

> everyone else who isn't interested into emulators (e.g. me)

You might get a kick out of this, I made two homebrew games for PSP back in high school. They run well in PPSSPP, if you don't have the original hardware handy. I'm still quite proud of them. https://coldpie.itch.io/

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#22

Post by badsectoracula »

coldpie wrote: post #21
badsectoracula wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tons of folks porting emulators instead of being creative On one hand this is something that annoys me a bit to this day - i am into original xbox homebrew games (bought a modded one last year specifically for this) and pretty much 99.999% of the homebrew software is emulators. While i can see the point until around mid-2000s due to the available hardware back then, emulators are by far the main target for any jail…

> and i fail to see the point for that considering the availability and TV connectivity of cheap PCs It's a fair point. I think part of the appeal is, after you've finished the hack, you get both the emulators and the "just works" experience of a console. The controllers are high quality, sync correctly, and don't get disconnected; the UI is sane and just works out of the box; it will negotiate with any TV and audio…

I think most jailbroken consoles these days are more of a PITA to get working though - e.g. updates will either have stopped anyway or if they're still been released, they may stop the jailbreak from working. Older consoles' gamepads also tend to not be in a great quality after deteriorating over the years (in fact the gamepad i got with my og xbox was in terrible condition with a non-working left trigger, though fortunately RetroFighters made a new one which i preordered), etc. Personally i think an emulator running on a tiny PC or Raspberry Pi connected to a TV with HDMI is going to be much easier and viable long term.

Though if you already have the console sitting there anyway might as well use it, but i think even the "easiest" option - Xbox Series X/S (which officially allows you to install your own programs) - is still not that seamless.

> You might get a kick out of this, I made two homebrew games for PSP back in high school. They run well in PPSSPP, if you don't have the original hardware handy.

Neat, i downloaded them and i'll check them out. Note BTW that the dev diary links seem to be broken for both games.

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#23

Post by chasil »

ppseafield wrote: post #17
Jasper_ wrote: post #14

If you didn't know, this was primarily a tax dodge for the EU. Since it ran Linux, they felt they could classify the PlayStation 2 as a general-purpose computer, which receives a lower tariff rate than game consoles. PlayStation 3 had OtherOS for the same purpose, until the EU rejected the claim and reclassified it as a game console, and then Sony pulled support for OtherOS (it also being primarily a vehicle for pira…

For the PlayStation 3, another thing driving Linux's removal was that organizations were buying PS3s to use in data centers. But Sony sold them at a loss (IIRC over $100/unit loss, even being sold at $600 twenty years ago) and intended to make it up on revenue from games sold. They also didn't have nearly enough at launch because they were using a brand new processor (designed with help from IBM) and a brand new Blu-…

They should have sold a datacenter version, without the optical disc, with a copy of AIX and/or BSD, with an OS license of $200 (or at least under $1,000).

It doesn't look like a workstation was ever produced, just blades and embedded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor)

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#24

Post by coldpie »

badsectoracula wrote: post #22
coldpie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and i fail to see the point for that considering the availability and TV connectivity of cheap PCs It's a fair point. I think part of the appeal is, after you've finished the hack, you get both the emulators and the "just works" experience of a console. The controllers are high quality, sync correctly, and don't get disconnected; the UI is sane and just works out of the box; it will negotiate with any TV and audio…

I think most jailbroken consoles these days are more of a PITA to get working though - e.g. updates will either have stopped anyway or if they're still been released, they may stop the jailbreak from working. Older consoles' gamepads also tend to not be in a great quality after deteriorating over the years (in fact the gamepad i got with my og xbox was in terrible condition with a non-working left trigger, though for…

> Note BTW that the dev diary links seem to be broken for both games.

Ha! Yeah they were hosted on the website I set up in the mid-2000s and finally let expire. I wonder if they're on the Internet Archive, I'll update the links sometime.

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#25

Post by swatson741 »

Jasper_ wrote: post #14

If you didn't know, this was primarily a tax dodge for the EU. Since it ran Linux, they felt they could classify the PlayStation 2 as a general-purpose computer, which receives a lower tariff rate than game consoles. PlayStation 3 had OtherOS for the same purpose, until the EU rejected the claim and reclassified it as a game console, and then Sony pulled support for OtherOS (it also being primarily a vehicle for pira…

This isn't quite correct as I understand the situation. It wasn't classified as a computer in Europe because it could run Linux but, because the bundled demo disc included Yabasic (a basic interpreter) in the European regions.[0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXpzczPc38

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#26

Post by ppseafield »

chasil wrote: post #23
ppseafield wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the PlayStation 3, another thing driving Linux's removal was that organizations were buying PS3s to use in data centers. But Sony sold them at a loss (IIRC over $100/unit loss, even being sold at $600 twenty years ago) and intended to make it up on revenue from games sold. They also didn't have nearly enough at launch because they were using a brand new processor (designed with help from IBM) and a brand new Blu-…

They should have sold a datacenter version, without the optical disc, with a copy of AIX and/or BSD, with an OS license of $200 (or at least under $1,000). It doesn't look like a workstation was ever produced, just blades and embedded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor)

A hypothetical Datacenter version might have skipped the optical drive, perhaps cutting down on their losses. At launch I doubt they would have had enough spare processors to build them without cutting into their PS3 production capacity.

Additionally many game studios reported difficulty in writing for the PS3's processor compared to the Xbox, which had gone with a processor pretty similar to most PCs at the time. So by the time they had ramped up the capacity to make enough to meet PS3 demand, there were several years of worse/less performant PS3 versions of games developed for multiple platforms, making Sony's console look worse. It would have been a tough sell internally for the PS4 to use a custom processor architecture again, so they opted not to. This must have soured Sony's opinion of the Cell processor overall.

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#27

Post by sumtechguy »

pjmlp wrote: post #8
incrudible wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it not always about a tax loophole that applied to PCs, that went away during the PS3 era? https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/why-the-ps3-is-a-comp...

PS2Linux was the evolution of Net Yaroze introduced in the PlayStation 1. What PlayStation had into that sense was the demo disc shipped with the Playstation 2, that had a BASIC environment like on the 8 bit home computer days, called Yabasic. Here is a demo about it, "How/Why Sony Classed the PlayStation 2 as a Home Computer - Demo of Yabasic" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXpzczPc38

I have both. I had a lot more fun with the Yaroze. Even splashed out the extra cash to get codewarrior for it.

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#28

Post by rgovostes »

phire wrote: post #18
Jasper_ wrote: post #14

If you didn't know, this was primarily a tax dodge for the EU. Since it ran Linux, they felt they could classify the PlayStation 2 as a general-purpose computer, which receives a lower tariff rate than game consoles. PlayStation 3 had OtherOS for the same purpose, until the EU rejected the claim and reclassified it as a game console, and then Sony pulled support for OtherOS (it also being primarily a vehicle for pira…

> (it also being primarily a vehicle for piracy certainly didn't help). The piracy hacks never used OtherOS. The first piracy hack (the PSJailbreak dongle exploit) simply exploited the GameOS usb stack and wasn't released until after OtherOS had already been removed in a firmware update. The only hack that ever targeted OtherOS was a complex memory glitching attack that was pretty hard to pull off. As far as I'm awar…

Thanks for your work reverse engineering PSJailbreak, by the way. (https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/PSJailbreak_Exploit_Payload_Re...)

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#29

Post by pengaru »

Jasper_ wrote: post #14

If you didn't know, this was primarily a tax dodge for the EU. Since it ran Linux, they felt they could classify the PlayStation 2 as a general-purpose computer, which receives a lower tariff rate than game consoles. PlayStation 3 had OtherOS for the same purpose, until the EU rejected the claim and reclassified it as a game console, and then Sony pulled support for OtherOS (it also being primarily a vehicle for pira…

The linux kit shipped in 2002, the ps2 shipped in 2000.

It came with yabasic on a demo disk, that's what qualified it as a computer for the eu tax break.

ps2linux was chronologically irrelevant to your claim AIUI...

Re: Linux for Playstation 2

#30

Post by teaearlgraycold »

phire wrote: post #18
Jasper_ wrote: post #14

If you didn't know, this was primarily a tax dodge for the EU. Since it ran Linux, they felt they could classify the PlayStation 2 as a general-purpose computer, which receives a lower tariff rate than game consoles. PlayStation 3 had OtherOS for the same purpose, until the EU rejected the claim and reclassified it as a game console, and then Sony pulled support for OtherOS (it also being primarily a vehicle for pira…

> (it also being primarily a vehicle for piracy certainly didn't help). The piracy hacks never used OtherOS. The first piracy hack (the PSJailbreak dongle exploit) simply exploited the GameOS usb stack and wasn't released until after OtherOS had already been removed in a firmware update. The only hack that ever targeted OtherOS was a complex memory glitching attack that was pretty hard to pull off. As far as I'm awar…

I recall there was something involving Other OS and soldering a wire into the motherboard.
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