Gamecube support

[browny]

This may need to be moved to the PPC forum as the gamecube is based on the PowerPC acrhitecture.
Anyway, although I see no reason for it until nintendo release a modem, HDD and keyboard for the gamecube, would it be possible to port gentoo to it?
I know the GC disc isn't a standard DVD or CD, although it is supposed to be based on DVD.
Does anybody have a gamecubethemselves, and have you tried it? I've looked around the net and can't find anything about it, but I'll keep on going till I have an answer.
_________________
Plug and Play, more like Plug and Pray

[carpaski]

The Mini-DVDs are recorded with a reversed spin, I believe.
Try to get a hold of a recorder that does that...
_________________
Nicholas Jones <carpaski@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Linux Developer

[browny]

[SilverSnake]

[Kumba]

Actually, Sega will be releasing the Keyboard/Controller Hybrid. Literally, Sega took a GameCube Controller, cut it in half, and grafted it to the sides of a keyboard. By far one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.

As for GameCube working with Linux, I am highly doubtful. GCN uses some really specialized Hardware. It doesn't even have what one might consider a real "CPU", rather, IBM called the Gekko processor an "MPU". It's based off of PowerPC, but has a load of additional assembler instructions added to support 3D Gaming and the like. The ATI Chip, "Flipper", is a behemoth, incorporating the sound system (Musyx, made by Factor 5), and the Graphics processing. Both Gekko and Flipper work in conjunction to run the system.....I don't think either could function separately to fully run the system.

The biggest catch in my opinion is the RAM. GCN uses 24MB of specialized 1T-SRAM from MoSys Systems, and 16MB of 80MHz A-DRAM. The 1T-SRAM refers to "One Transistor Static Ram", and I am not sure if it would even be possible for the linux kernel to deal with this ram. The other RAM, A-DRAM, I have no idea what that is. I believe it is mainly used by Flipper for sound processing and other menial tasks. The Flipper chip also incorporates 3MB of the MoSys 1T-SRAM embedded for things like the texture cache and other graphics stuff.

Add all of that to an extremely clean mainboard design with a diskdrive that spins backwards, and supposedly reads from the outside track to the Inner track (opposite a normal drive), and you've got a pretty un-portable little system in my opinion.

As for Q, all that really is, is a GCN Mainboard plugged into a proprietary Panasonic/Matsushita mainboard and interfaced to the DVD Drive. I'm sure the DVD Drive they use is a dual-mode version of some type, that operates one way for GCN Discs, and the other for Normal DVD. Since they built the one in the normal GCN, I'm sure the one in Q is also an in-house design. Unlike PS2 && X-Box, both of which have been hacked/cracked in some way, I really don't think GCN will ever evolve beyond just a simple, purple (or Silver for Q) lunchbox that plays games (or DVDs).

// Edit
On the plus side, the GCN DOES support C/C++ Libraries. There is a version of Metaworks CodeWarrior built exclusively for GameCube Development. You can see it in the product listings on their website. Not to mention, I have heard rumors of a specialized "Green Gamecube" unit that has a specialized interface to accept hardddrives and the like for game testing and debugging, but the hardware is explicitly altered for this unit so it won't play games bought in a store, and the normal GCN systems won't play any disks made by this developer system.

--Kumba
_________________
"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between."
--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic

[Curious]

[bubad]

Well, everyone on the thread has been proven wrong, about a year later, care to think about it again?

Well, I just tried it, and it works fine, tomorrow I'm going to try to cross-compile some stuff and set up an nfs root. Loading linux is really cumbersome, having to exploit the pso hack and everything, but it is manageable, your thoughts about it?
_________________
"You don't need wings to fly"

[someguy]

gc-linux.org its been done and its getting better
_________________
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`
while [ 1 ] ; do echo "*" | telnet ip.of.print.er 9100 ; done

[Duty]

I was going to reply "Couldn't one make a reversed ISO image?" - is that what they did?

[bubad]

Way ahead of you, someguy already running linux on my cube
But I was actually thinking about a distribution, not only a kernel and an initrd.
I'm going to try to bootstrap via nfsroot in these days, I'll keep you posted on how it works out (I just hope my cube doesn't burn out, bootstrapping, whew )

About the iso image, no they upload kernel+initrd via the psoload hack, there's a game, a mmorpg, that downloads a client from the master site and then executes it. Simply trick the game to think that your box is the master server, upload a ppc-compiled binary, in dol format, and you're done. More info on the site.

Also, I keep reading about the supposedly "reversed" disks. The cube disks spin clockwise, so there normal from that point of view, I don't know about the outside first - inside last part. I guess the only problem is that the disks have a lot of blank sectors at the inner ring (about 3 mm) so if you put them in a standard drive, the drive will say it's empty.

I also heard that there are the dvd-reader api around, but AFAIK they're illegal and you can't burn gc-dvds with standard dvd burners.
_________________
"You don't need wings to fly"