Gentoo on Sony PSP?

deadstar · Guru Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 319 Location: England

Found this floating round the PSP-Vault forums:

http://www.hacker.co.il/psp/bochs/

Is Gentoo possible with this?

Found this thread, marked as a Duplicate, but with no link to the original :roll:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-385922-highlight-psp.html

So sorry if THIS is a dup.
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GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

i think so
but i wonder about performance...
by the way what is the statut about psp-linux
is this project dead???
by the way you have bow serial port working...mabe a keyboard...lol

Redhatter · Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 2:28 am Post subject:

PSP Linux is hardly worth it.

The machine runs a MIPS32r2 processor without an MMU. In other words, it lacks the necessary hardware to run full-blooded Linux.

It could, run ÂµClinux, as that runs on MMU-less CPUs, but I still have my doubts over the viability of such a port.
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GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

by the way...
is the psp-linux project dead???
and why???

Redhatter · Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 2:33 pm Post subject:

There are a couple of people working on it. I wouldn't have a clue about the actual status of the port, and seriously ... it doesn't bother me. :-)

I don't own a PSP myself, and I'm not likely to do so in the near future.
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I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

dabinka · n00b Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 29

There were a couple of people.

psp-linux.org *was* a grand orchestra of supreme n00bs (who probably don't even know what a kernel is, other then a popcorn kernel) who sat around all day dreaming about what PSP Linux would look like, should be, and how it should operate, with nobody who actually wanted to program or was a developer in any way shape or form. The dude conducting this mess was in the same boat.

A few of us split off onto Sourceforge. The project didn't really get anywhere because Sony kept bashing the PSP with updates that magically closed the Opensource holes that the PSP had.

The biggest problem was running legit code without using the exploits. The second bigest problem was how the PSP boots- it boots off a Flash chip (from which I've personally seen the contents of), and the only way to access the pre-firmware bootloader (Firmware = PSP OS, here) is through the serial port on the headphones Remote port, which nobody has a converter for right now (it is some weird serial interface).

You can't just run Linux as a "PSP Application", since the PSP OS is still lingering around in memory. You'd have to reboot the PSP and boot linux, thats where the fun comes into play. You probably can't do that unless you flash the Firmware to include a bootloader, and thats hit-and-miss in the dark, literally, 1 in a Million that you don't brick your PSP.

Last I heard before I took off myself from Sourceforge was the same problem as always- how do you "Run" linux in the first place.

Sold my PSP, bought a Video iPod. Couldn't be more happy :).

BTW: Bochs PSP is slow. Real slow. You don't want to try and do anything on it that requires anything higher then a 486 SX 33, and thats pushing it (in terms of speed).

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

i also saw that this website lacked a lot of organisation and support for the developers
(thing that make their developement easyer,atract them... and let them work in group instead of each one working alone,doing all the job and beeing the one that knows evrything about the psp) ,permit simple users to help developers with documentation ... wiki...develloper's blog...that is a good project management
but i was wondering if it was realy dead...(website down)
so it was because the developement was "paralised"
(i also thoat about developers/users that weren't capable of choosing an inut method)
(i don't own a psp but i'm very interessed about such things:porting linux to ...)

and in order to help
THE SERIAL IS WORKING
this time is over http://nil.rpc1.org/psp/remote.html
now they use the serial in a developement program in order to load program in the psp and run it(this save a lot of time)
and you can also have standard serial acces with terminal

wikipedia:

dabinka · n00b Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 29

> THE SERIAL IS WORKING

Yes, the serial is working in a sense. They only have Remote capabilities working- ie, the same thing you'd get if you plugged in the headphone remote.

They have not figured out how to load any data to the PSP through this port. The only thing they can do is emulate a headphone remote.

You should probably read that article again- They don't have any sort of terminal access. The only thing they can do is run that headphone remote emulator on Linux, which controls the serial adapter and gives the simplistic commands to the PSP.

You can't debug, load, or otherwise execute anything on the PSP through the serial port that way. I've heard speculation that Sony can kick the serial port into a high speed mode, in which many more commands are available to reflash the firmware if needed and download code.

You can't debug code through that port. That is what the PSP Developer Kit is for ($24,000+). Sony wouldn't put that ability on the PSP if they want to lock developers to purchasing and licensing the Sony Dev Kits and compilers for the PSP.

PSP Development for Linux is completly dead at a standstill. Nobody can really do anything without using exploits, great, that lets you run a PSP program, not boot the PSP using a alternative OS.

Sony's locked the device up. That was their intention. If the firmware updates keep rolling out, and people keep updating, well, that's going to throw quite a wrench in the gears of PSP/Linux's development.

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

i don't say it was in that article
i wanted to express the folowing thing:
what is written in this article is outdated
so i'll search the website that have the information
it was about a COMUNITY developer kit
here it is:
http://ps2dev.org/

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

yes i understand what you are saying about mmu
but..i don't understand how they run linux with savegames exploit on others console(don't remember wich one mabe gamecube or xbox)

Redhatter · Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:35 am Post subject:

I think you'll find the CPU in the GameCube, does, in fact have an MMU.

The XBox (original) definately does ... it's pretty much a stock Intel Celeron 700MHz chip.

Hence why Linux is able to run. It's also worth noting, that the GameCube isn't nearly as closed, as Sony or Microsoft's offerings. GC was one of the few gaming devices out there, to be sold at a profit. The PlayStation 2, XBox, and others, were sold at a loss. The loss was offset by charging an arm and a leg to license development kits to game developers.
_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

you pointed out the mmu issue...
yes it is problematic...
but running linux would incrase it's capabilities even without mmu
mabe there are faster os for non mmu processors???
by the way running linux on evrything is fun
and sometimes it start like this
and then the project becomes very interresting
who thoat dom would run on the ipodthere are some evrsions that lack mmu)
who thoat you could have lan over firewire(so you can read your mp3 from your nfs server) on theses ipod
it's as the unix philosophy
someone do something and then another person use this basic functionality to do something interresant and more usefull than just porting linux on it

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

from xbox linux project
Short answer: Read the Software Method HOWTO step-by-step tutorial.
Long answer: The basic idea is to modify the application of the hard disk, the Dashboard, to accept Linux CDs and to show the item "LINUX" in the main menu. But how can I change the hard disk contents with an installer on a CD, if the Xbox only accepts game CDs? That's why we distribute a set of savegames: Use the game MechAssault to load these savegames, and they will modify the Dashboard. You can find details in the tutorial.
but i don't know yet well how it works so...mabe i was wrong
=>i was wrong
http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Software_Method_HOWTO#Is_your_Xbox_compatible.3F
this is used only to run CODE in order to INSTALL linux
BUT there is a hope
i know that there is 2 bootloader that can load bsd or linux(bsd bootloader adapted to linux) from winCE!!!
(was used with some jornada720 that couldn't be flashed)
if they was a wiki on the developer's site...mabe i could tell them about it without bothering them too much(but my freetime is very variable)

dabinka · n00b Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 29

Xbox and PSP are two completly different consoles.

There is nothing similar between the two. Xbox = x86, PSP = MIPS.

No knowledge between the two is really applicable.

>BUT there is a hope

PSP doesn't run Windows CE?

The thing here is that nobody really knows how the PSP works internally. Lots of speculation, but there are no stable grounds to start a project like porting linux on. Yes, you can hack, crack, and run third party unsigned Applications on the PSP, but as I've said, Sony will always be on top by releasing even more Firmware patches to block the exploits that are discovered.

The real question here is, even if you do get Linux running, without a MMU, how useful can you really make PSP Linux? You an't gonna be running Firefox or Evolution. You definately aren't going to be running Gnome or KDE.

So, how long will it take to figure out how to run PSP Linux.. How long will it take to design a GUI just for the PSP because of its apparent lack of hardware power... How long will it take to figure out the completly custom designed Graphics & Audio cores that Sony had manufactured?

Several years, I think. By then, It'll be the PSP2, PS4, and XBox 720...

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919