ps2 linux kit

[bpshanks]

Is there any way of obtaining a playstation2 linux kit (or even just the appropriate boot disk) from another region? I would be very interested in trying out linux on the ps2 as I had the original playstation yaroze kit but have an american ps2 and assume that the local version of the kit wouldn't work on it.

Brian

[Tom Salter]

goto http://www.us.playstation.com/purchase/hardware/ for the US one. Was thinking about getting one myself, but was wondering if the Euro one would work on a Messiah'ed US PS2.

Btw, want to sell your Yaroze for a reasonable price? ^_^

[Valken]

The Linux kit is truely great... I've been arsing around with it now and then and I've come to the conclusion that it's THE reason to own a PS2 (My PS2 is the most ignored of my consoles).

Everything is pretty well documented and you can either dive straight into coding complicated vector unit / MIPS parallel stuff or just play with a few demos using GLUT and OpenGL.

Most of the time I use mine as a fileserver though since it comsumes less power than a PC and can be left on all the time and it supports samba and nfs practically out of the box.

Mine's a US kit on a US machine (it's unmodded) so I'm sorry but I can't help you with your question.

[Tom Salter]

Damn, cheers anyway. Btw, where did you get yours from? That site i posted seems to have an error when you try to purchase it.

Glad it uses glut/openGL, I can port a few of my demos over really easily now

[bpshanks]

Hi Electric_Boogaloo

I hadn't considered trying the official playstation site, I just assumed they would refuse to ship outside the usa, but I'll give it a go and se what happens.

It's unlikely I would sell the yaroze kit as I still find this interesting and it allows you to play playstation games from all regions.

There's a way of doing the same thing with an ordinary square grey type of playstation by downloading something called caetla onto an xploder cartridge. The compiling software can be downloaded. If you weren't already aware of this system I could fish out more information for you.

Brian

[Valken]

Damn, cheers anyway. Btw, where did you get yours from? That site i posted seems to have an error when you try to purchase it.

Glad it uses glut/openGL, I can port a few of my demos over really easily now

I was able to get remake most of mine without changing code since they pretty much just contained vanilla C++ and opengl... Glut's a bit restrictive though but it's a nice way to start out and see what the machine can do.

[Tom Salter]

Aye, I'm not keen on this 'Event Driven Programming' lark, and I had to write all my coursework this year in glut, since it had to be cross platform. How's the PS2 graphics API look? And what kind of access do you get to the hardware?

And I'm not too interested in that Xploder thing, I'd rather just have a Yaroze. If you think about selling it, then give me a PM, and I'll maybe trade for a chipped PS1

[Valken]

I was under the impression that most programming, especially in games, was event driven in one way or another... think about the Win32/DirectX API... everythings held together by a function that looks for and handles OS and input message. I guess there's different ways of looking at it though.

Personally I don't like the way you register callbacks using GLUT... it's kinda limited IMO and the functions will only accept function pointers of a certain calling convention so it limits encapsulation somewhat (yes, I'm an OO fan!).

The PS2's graphics API is essentially opengl... I'm still playing with it though so I daresay I'll uncover other ways of doing things after a while... in terms of hardware access. It's almost complete. Every single chip and function is documented and you have access to everything except the IO processor since it manages the booting of games and copy protection etc.

I've played around with writing a few bits and pieces of MIPS asm but haven't been too successful so far, not my strongest point. As far as getting the vector units to do anything meaningful... that's been a serious problem for me. Getting things to work on the PS2 satisfactorily requires a little lateral thinking.

It's not like the XDK where you write your C++ program and a few shader programs... compile it using visual studio and drag and drop onto a connected XBox. They really make things idiot proof for that. The PS2 presents quite a challenge.

I may have access to a Yaroze through a friend. I'll give him a call tonight and see if he's selling. He's not a coder so it's of little use to him besides the fact that the machine "looks good".

[Tom Salter]

Nice one, I've had a play with the XDK and this seems ideal. I wouldn't be willing to pay any more than ?300 though for a Yaroze, see what he says

[Valken]

Nice one, I've had a play with the XDK and this seems ideal. I wouldn't be willing to pay any more than ?300 though for a Yaroze, see what he says

The XDK is fine but it's just too much like coding a PC game. Of course at the end of the day this doesn't matter but as a coder it's nice to get stuck into hardware like you can the PS2 Linux kit.

I'm off to see the fella today... I'll have a price for you later if he's willing to sell.