I just acquired a second generation American PS2 (still the fat console) with the Sony HDD and Network Adapter already installed.
I want to install Linux on this hard drive and use it to host media for use on my TV in addition to loading game emulators on top of Linux (such as ZSNES) for play through the PS2 console. Is this possible and if so, what are the steps to take to accomplish such a task.
I don't have time to look at it right now, but please report progress.. it's fascinating.
If you get installed and running (or not) I'm sure our linux "hard in there" gurus will point you in the right direction... many brains make confusion.. oops.errr... many hands make light work.. that's it ;)
The slim PS2's are still a work in progress, but the fat PS2's work great. I use the PS2 for web browsing (dillo) and music (xmms) mostly in X-Windows, and it works great (reducing memory use is very important due to the low 32MB RAM of the PS2).
You are very brave using dillo.. What an antique, unfortunately there isn't a small nice css enabled browser. Maybe some of us could get together and try building a small full featured browser from kazehakase base or similar. I had a root around for a dillo alternative and came across a browser I haven't heard of before.. http://siag.nu/kylie/ Again it doesn't do frames or css.. so pages will look bad, and some won't work at all. Just maybe the firefox that comes with xebian will do the trick. I will look into which version it is. Built I believe with the swiftfox methodology..
Dunno.. I think running anything in 32 ram is just going to give a bad impression of linux... especially for somebody who has probably never seen it before.
Keep us updated.. installing on alien hardware is still of great interest from purely nosey old mofo schemes.
Actually, I compiled a branch from the 0.8.6 of dillo which has frames, ssl, internationalization, etc. support. I used a newer (but not newest) openssl library. Here's the link:
I turned off the Xft (anti-aliasing and scaled fonts) support in this dillo because of problems with my shared lib compile of Xft, but otherwise it is very quick and handles most web pages (minus scripting, which is probably a good thing). The adblock feature in this version of dillo reduces memory use for ads too ;-)
If you are dead-set on using Firefox you'll have to wait for the playstation2-linux.com page to come back online. ppietro (also on yellowdog-board.com) keeps the tarballs of 2.0.0.x up to the latest. It is really slow, but works when you absolutely have to get the page loaded. I'm hopeful that he will roll out a 3.01 build on the PS2, but it is a long shot that it will work good enough on the PS2 to use regularly.
You are dead-on the memory issue. However, I just moved my /etc/init.d scripts to avoid starting them for all except my shell, X-Windows, usually WindowMaker on X, and sometimes sshd. Once you are running fully in memory with a little breathing room for dillo and/or xmms and webpages with no swapping, it is actually really fast. I use it when I'm at my girlfriend's house because I don't have a PC handy and it works fine for my yahoo webmail, fark, slashdot, psx-scene, afterdawn, etc. right on the TV.
And yes, it would have been tremendously easier to do the same thing with an old PC, but the geek value in getting the latest version of pidgin, pysol, and xmame to work on the PS2-Linux is worth it for me :-)
