I'm bored so I wanna make a semi modern linux distro for a Playstation 2

ShadowTech01 · April 5, 2020

I know what you guys are thinking... why? Well I'm in quarantine, it's gonna be like that for a few more months, and I have a weird fascination for making things do cool stuff that they weren't designed to do. I have a couple Playstation 2s(both phat and slim) that I got cheap that I'm fixing up and plan to upgrade a few(new optical lens, sata hdd and maybe even ssd if it's worth it). I don't know why but I just had the thought, "wouldn't it be cool if I can use this as a lite pc where I can manage files, do some coding, surf the web, and maybe even watch a few Linus vids on Youtube?" I know that Sony officially launched a Linux kit for these consoles, but I want to make or modify something a bit more modern, efficient, have a lite yet clean GUI, and maybe even faster than what is available for it.

My experience with development though is literally 0. I don't have a clue what to do but I want to make this project to further my skills.

I do know a little bit about the PS2 and certain modding techniques. The way I think would be best to run the OS is through a dvd in the optical bay, that way both sizes can use this software. Of course with phat systems with hard drives, there could be a option to install it to the drive. I have a few Free MCBoot cards that would be used to launch the OS. With Free HDBoot, the phat systems can install and launch the OS without a card, however a spare card in the second slot or even in a MultiTap might not be a bad idea for extra storage. The front USB is only 1.1 so it would not be worth it for storage but it should be good enough for mice and keyboards.

Thoughts? Is this a lost cause, is there already something out there that already does what I want to do? Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

Sauron · April 5, 2020

14 minutes ago, ShadowTech01 said:

My experience with development though is literally 0.

I strongly recommend you start with something much simpler.

15 minutes ago, ShadowTech01 said:

is there already something out there that already does what I want to do?

There is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2

but obviously it's very old.

igormp · April 6, 2020

17 hours ago, ShadowTech01 said:

I know what you guys are thinking... why? Well I'm in quarantine, it's gonna be like that for a few more months, and I have a weird fascination for making things do cool stuff that they weren't designed to do. I have a couple Playstation 2s(both phat and slim) that I got cheap that I'm fixing up and plan to upgrade a few(new optical lens, sata hdd and maybe even ssd if it's worth it). I don't know why but I just had the thought, "wouldn't it be cool if I can use this as a lite pc where I can manage files, do some coding, surf the web, and maybe even watch a few Linus vids on Youtube?" I know that Sony officially launched a Linux kit for these consoles, but I want to make or modify something a bit more modern, efficient, have a lite yet clean GUI, and maybe even faster than what is available for it.

My experience with development though is literally 0. I don't have a clue what to do but I want to make this project to further my skills.

I do know a little bit about the PS2 and certain modding techniques. The way I think would be best to run the OS is through a dvd in the optical bay, that way both sizes can use this software. Of course with phat systems with hard drives, there could be a option to install it to the drive. I have a few Free MCBoot cards that would be used to launch the OS. With Free HDBoot, the phat systems can install and launch the OS without a card, however a spare card in the second slot or even in a MultiTap might not be a bad idea for extra storage. The front USB is only 1.1 so it would not be worth it for storage but it should be good enough for mice and keyboards.

Thoughts? Is this a lost cause, is there already something out there that already does what I want to do? Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

Seems like you're lucky, Debian 8.11 still had support for a CPU that has a ISA quite similar to the one on the PS2, so it shouldn't be that to port it over.

If I were you, I'd start by going through LFS and learning how a linux distro works before trying to port it to an older architecture.

Raptor_Fawr · April 6, 2020

You'd better put a raspberry or another pico motherboard inside the playstation, rather than to design an OS that works with playstation hardware.

It's a 20 year old console so you will get better computing performance out of a Raspberry Pi 4, the only issue being netflix-like streaming services and authored dvds that require additional software to play