> "Zane H. Healy" wrote:
> >
> > >Um. I thought, given the context, that this person was talking about the
> > >Sony Play Station 2, which is also frequently refered to as the PS/2.
> >
> > Exactly! PS2 .eq. Playstation 2. OTOH the PS/2 is a failed computer
> > platfrom from IBM. Even the Playstation two box says PS2.
>
> Ah, well if we're talking about the PS2, I can say with some authority
> that at least LInux ran on it before the TX5900 core ever hit fab. It was
> part of the verification suite we ran on the behavioral and gate level
> simulators as well as on the god-awful Quickturn...
>
The PS2 development system runs Linux, but the PS2 itself doesn't,
at least at the present time. By the way, some of the development
software was produced by Red Hat.
There are two problems with porting Linux to the PS2:
1) Actually getting Linux on the PS2. Currently the only way
to get software on the PS2 is by DVD, and Sony uses its own
format. Apparently the format is rather difficult to break, but
I wouldn't be surprised if someone does crack it in the future.
2) The real killer is the highly non-standard peripherals. The
graphics hardware is totally non-standard. It would be quite
difficult to produce graphics drivers for it, and and X server
would be a real pain. I'm not sure X would perform well on this
configuration.
I think the Microsoft Xbox would be a better choice for Linux, at
least it has a standard graphics chip.
--
Dr. Mark Green mark_at_cs.ualberta.ca
McCalla Professor (780) 492-4584
Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX)
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada
Received on Sun Jan 14 2001 - 02:58:28 GMT