this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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Am I doing this right? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 67 points 6 months ago (6 children)

IIRC Sony allowed Linux to be ran on both the PS2 and PS3 so that they could sell the systems as computers in the US instead of video game consoles, since computers have a lower import tax rate compared fo video game systems.

This was, of course, until Sony removed OtherOS support in the PS3 firmware 3.21 on phat models after shipping Slim units without OtherOS and then got sued for it. It was removed because George Hotz found an exploit in OtherOS that allowed for full access to the hardware, as OtherOS did not have full access to the GPU hardware of the PS3. Ironically, this made the PS3 more of a target to hackers, since hackers generally just want to be able to run homebrew on their devices that they bought. This is why the Xbox One and Series consoles were never hacked, since they allow for homebrew via DevMode.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

And that one other time the US goverment built a super computer out of Ps3's (no im not joking)

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/ps3-supercomputer.html

1000015946

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That thing was a price to performance beast back then

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

The tax loophole was a perceived reason, but it was never proven to be true. The closest admission to it was Sony losing a lawsuit related to the situation and Sony admitting that something related to Yabasic was intended to skirt EU tax law, not Linux for PS2. I never heard of Yabasic before today.

Fun fact, Geohot owns a company that jailbreaks cars and their adaptive cruise control systems now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I like this post and find it generally helpful however feel the last line about why Xbox One hasn't been emulated yet is in my opinion both opinion and speculation, which is fine --

I think the community could come up with some robust counter arguments about why this hasnt occured yet, maybe there not being interest due to catalog overlap between Xbox and Windows PC since the OS is basically a custom Windows with a custom Direct X, as is the case for Xbox Y2K, and Xbox 360 and has been put into a virtual machine AFAIK via Xemu and Xenia. Following that legacy, Xbox fans have always seemed slower than other fans to emulate their consoles -- for whatever reason.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I'm not talking about emulating the consoles; I am talking about hacking them to run unsigned code.

[–] carl_the_grackle 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The Xbox One consoles were never hacked because Microsoft went paranoid crazy on the security model

[–] barsquid 1 points 6 months ago

That's really fascinating. Now Google wants to do this same thing on your computer hardware to ensure people are forced to look at ads.

[–] Ptsf 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Actually just got my $20 for this. Class actions work sometimes I guess. 10 years after the fact.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

WTF? Only $20? Please tell me that people could get more. Especially if it isn’t automatic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I’ve read it was just to shit with Microsoft by announcing that computers were tools of the past for gaming AND non gaming (and earn money).

Pushing Microsoft to invest billions to develop the Xbox on Windows (which ultimately did not run on windows) to shit with Sony, and earn money…

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago

Ah, that brief window in time when it seemed somewhat reasonable to buy software from Sony.

[–] shotgun_crab 7 points 6 months ago

As long as it can run Doom, yes

[–] Krafting 6 points 6 months ago

A friend gave me a PS2 for free a while back, I'll need to try this one day

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

the design is solid, but the message is way off...lol

[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago (4 children)

what message? This was a real product released by Sony.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] Zachariah 5 points 6 months ago

Did it come with a free rootkit preinstalled?

[–] ch00f 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah. They cancelled it after they realized that people were buying consoles to build computing structures which went against Sony’s “sell the console at a loss and make it up in game sales” strategy.

Edit: on wait, that was PS3.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

Yep. I have the original HDD (somewhere) and the ethernet adapter. For anyone interested, it's two DVD's.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Whaaaat ? whyyyy? 😅

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

So you could use your console for computing tasks.

It was possible on the PS3, too, until Sony removed it.

[–] RayOfSunlight 1 points 6 months ago

Lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's decent, but the right way is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbxAmRnAGUo

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=YbxAmRnAGUo

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

No.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Hehe. "Rear".

[–] badbytes -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I believe that software was pirated. Probably contains a virus.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Nope, this was an official, legally sold product. Came with a keyboard, mouse, 40gb HDD, and PS2 ethernet adapter. Required an 8MB memory card to function and installed via command line. It's a pretty cool piece of history.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Its me mario on the ps2

The real question as can you run gentoo on the Ps2

(I believe playstations runs a version of gentoo for its OS? I think)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The operating systems from the PS3, PS4, PS5, 3DS and Switch and Mac OS are based on FreeBSD. The Wii U probably also runs something based on FreeBSD.
Linux for the PS2 is based on Red Hat.
Chrome OS is based on Gentoo

CC: @[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Neat, I had no idea. Can't wait to pull this out on trivia night lol