Sony releases Linux for Playstation2

Speeds and feeds in the King's Engrish

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 27th April 2001 14:37 GMT

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Sony has released a beta of the long-awaited Linux kit for its PlayStation2 games console.

The kit includes a 40Gb hard disk, which connects through the PC Card adaptor, a VGA adaptor, and mandatory custom USB keyboard and mouse. Or as the website puts it - once munged through Babelfish for a delightful Engrish effect - "mouse of marketing".

The distro, aimed at the Japanese market only, is Red Hat based on 2.2.1 kernel, gcc 2.95.2 and glibc 2.2.2. Linux is no stranger to the PS2 - it provided the development platform for the console - but this is the first time the code has escaped outside the company.

Sony says it hopes to have the release kit on sale in June for 25,000 Yen. But the company begs people to be patient:-

"Concerning the first shipment quantity the demand which has already been moved aside on the net we plan 1,000 units on the basis of after that shipping continuously in accordance with the demand of everyone of the Linux community, we are defeated," notes our translation.

Crumbs.

There's a picture up at http://www.jp.playstation.com/linux/image/main.jpg, but in this case, a dmesg log is worth a thousand pictures, so instead feast your eyes on the bootup sequence. ®