Ports of Linux(NetBSD and Gentoo)Lets share what we know

[SkyNet]

Hi everyone. Lately I started to use Linux on my ps2 slim and I am really became enthusiastic about it.
It was Black Rhino edition. That so good when console can work as computer. Wanted to try also Official Linux Kit from Sony but It is rare nowadays.
One day I found out on the Internet that there are ports of NetBSD for PlayStation 2 and Gentoo for PlayStation 2 and was so happy about that.
There are all files necessary (source code, snapshots,documentation) available.
I have a couple of questions about those ports of Linux to everyone who is interested or had any experience with it.
1.Has anyone tried to install those ports to ps2 because I cant find any feedbacks on the Internet? If so then what is the performance?
2.Can someone tell me which ports of Linux actually exist that we do not kn
ow about, because I am sure that there is not just couple out there?
3.Are those ports actually Open source projects?
4.Are those distributions actually developing by anyone nowadays or now?
I dont know, but if those projects open source then maybe,we developing community should start to develop and support them? Would be really nice to have them on ps2.

I would be very appreciated to anyone who has any information to share about those ports and everything related to it.

[mazxim]

Hi there Skynet

There's not such NetBSD or Gentoo -available and supported- for PS2 right now. Here there is an explanation about NetBSD. The Gentoo port was just a parallel project by a kernel hacker called "Chewi" sometime ago. His main purpose was porting the Linux kernel 2.6, which is a step not achieved yet. It is an abandoned project.
The only work in progress about Linux port, that REALLY work on almost every PS2 models are the deba5er's Blackrhino based distro plus the Mega Man's kernelloader
Take a look at ps2dev.org forum for further details.

[SkyNet]

Thank you mazxim for the information you submitted , I appreciate It.
The information on the page you are referring to about NetBSD is very interesting.
But there is said that we still can hope that kernel 2.6 will be ported to ps2 and the toolchain will be developed, so who
knows maybe one day this project will again be alive.
What makes me enthusiastic about all this is that all necessary files
for installation are present. (snapshot,info)
And also process of installation is depicted.
And if we have description and all necessary files, so It means that we can install it, and also interested
people in bringing this project back to life also can use the information located there.
What does not let me to be quiet about all this, the thought whether anybody has ever installed NetBSD to PlayStation 2 ? Would be nice to see any screenshots of working NetBSD on PlayStation 2 .
Actually I searched on youtube for such submission and could not find it, what is really weird, probably no-one ever installed NetBSD to PlayStation 2.
Anyway I would be very interested and also hope all people who are enthusiasts from nature to hear
any information submissions about Ports of Linux to PlayStation 2 .

[deba5er]

I also couldn't find enough information to install NetBSD, but there is another PS2-Linux distro available that I haven't tried yet based on openwrt. Check out this post - http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?p=86605#86605

[SkyNet]

Thanks deba5er . I think thats a good finding this distro based on openwrt.org If I have time I definitly gonna to try it. Thanks.

[SkyNet]

Hi everyone. I need your guidance and assistance .
I have gotten some time and decided to try port of OpenWRT for playstation 2 reading all the
instructions located here: http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?p=86605#86605
I have 8 GB flash-drive .
I know that I have to make such partitions :
1st partition primary with only 15MB , with FAT Filesystem
2nd partition primary with AT LEAST 50MB, ext2 filesystem (be sure to format it using 128 inodes e.g: mke2fs -I 128 /dev/sdX2)
3rd partition primary with AT LEAST 64MB (i'd recommend 300MB for php and stuff) for Swapping
What I do not know here is how to make second partition with this parameter-------
-----(be sure to format it using 128 inodes e.g: mke2fs -I 128 /dev/sdX2) ? Because I am not so familiar with console commands.
So now I will tell you what I have done so far :
1.Ihave downloaded all the files in the list; I have FMCB installed , so probably what I will need to copy to memory card only is config.txt to kloader folder , to make other changes to memory card I think is not necessary .
2.I have in addition to Windows installed onto my computer Ubuntu 9.10 and Kubuntu 9.10 and really like them to use. So in Ubuntu I plugged in flash-drive. I have software in Ubuntu called “Palimpsest Disk Utility” located in administration menu to choose from.
3.When flash-drive was mounted in Ubuntu , disk utility could not do anything to it, so I
right clicked the drive and chose safely remove. After that I was able to do changes to it
4. I created first partition (16 MB / 15 MiB / 15,649,792 bytes FAT (16-bit version) File System Partition 1 (W95 FAT32 (LBA) (0x0c)) /dev/sdb1 ;
5.I created second partition ( 165 MB / 157 MiB / 164,656,128 bytes Linux Ext2 ( version 1.0 ) File System Partition 2 ( Linux ( 0x83 )) /dev/sdb2 ;
As I said before I do not know how to create it with proper parameters , if someone could help me , then I would be happy, but for now I did it as Ext2 system . I know that Ubuntu uses 2.6.31 kernel , and ps2 uses 2.4.17 kernel , so probably ps2 kernel wont understand partition created in Ubuntu kernel ( different versions of kernel) but for now I think it is OK to have ext2 partition and probably if it will be necessary I will with help of people from this forum to partition it properly;
6.I created swap partition ( 361 MB / 344 MiB / 360,675,328 bytes Swap Space
Partition 3 ( Linux swap ( 0x82 )) /dev/sdb3 ;
7.When I connect my flash-drive , I get on my desktop first-primary fat icon ,
second -primary ext2 icon , third icon – TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME ;
8.I placed those files ( vmlinuz and initrd.gz ) to the first partition ;
Actually I do not understand what to do with kernel modules, because I have downloaded it but author of this distro did not specify where exactly to copy them or what to do with them . So probably someone will find out and make it clear ?
9. Did untar ROOTFS.tar to the second partition ;
10. Deleted old config.txt from kloader folder and copied new one there ; While my ps2 connected with component cable , so I am using kloader from Mega Man without “Pink Problem” and UlaunchELF(boot file) I have with FMCB installed , so only config.txt is required ;
11.Starting to boot it.
All went pretty well but then it comes to the point and stops. All the information does not fit on my TVs screen so maybe depiction wont be exact . It was written:
MDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
eeing initrd memory: 4113k freed
S: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem ) ,
unted devfs on /dev
eeing unused kernel memory : 76k freed
ot continues in 15 seconds...
b.c: USB new device connect on bus1/1,assigned device number 2
put0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [04d9:0022] on usb : 2.0
put1: USB HID v1.10 Pointer [04d9:0022 on usb:2.1
b.c: USB new device connect on bus1/2,assigned device number 3
si0 : SCSI emulation for USB mass storage devices
Vendor: TOSHIBA Model: Transmemory Rev: PMAP
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
atached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel0, id o, lun0
SI devise sda: 15667200 521-byte hdwr sectors (8022 MB )
a: Write protect is off
Partition check:
dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 p3
unting /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 on newroot
dprobe: modprobe: Cant open dependencies file /lib/modules/2.4.17_mvl21/modul
.dep (No such file or directory)
unt: fs type vfat not supported by kernel
ot failed, running bash...
This is what have been written when I first started it, sorry that my TV doesnt show all the information,
for some reason It does not fit .
I think may be this problem of not starting is related that I didnt copy modules on flash drive?
I checked structure of file ( modules.tar ) and It was same as on ext2 partition starting from /lib folder,
I knew that ext2 partition had this structure , but to be sure I extracted those modules and it didnt help, result was the same...
So now I have two options left:
1.To copy modules.tar to fat partition and see what happens;
2.Try to untar modules.tar to fat partition .
If nor one of this wont help to start OpenWRT then someone has to contact the author of this distro
and to ask him why his distro does not want to start? What to do with modules.tar?
And how properly format partitions, which commands to use, or which software in order to achieve
his distro up and running?
Tried everything possible and impossible and none of it worked.
Please help me to try OpenWRT Linux for ps2. Explain me how to properly format flash-drive and how properly to run this distro. I am sure that here a lot of people who knows Linux pretty well.
Help me, please.

[deba5er]

@skynet

I haven't tried this distro yet. I think it shows alot of promise being based on a much newer distro than Blackrhino, but I haven't had alot of experimenting time lately. I'm spending time trying to answer questions and get people started so that they can experiment on their own (sort of divide and conquer). You should load Ubuntu or a VMWare Player Ubuntu image and install gparted - "sudo apt-get install gparted" This is a way to use a GUI to partition your usb drive. And you CAN partition a USB drive in Ubuntu and use it with PS2-Linux.

[SkyNet]

Guys I dont know whether it is interesting to anyone but here is web-link with picture of
ps2 running NetBSD. So it means that at least someone tried to use that port.
http://crumby.err0neous.org/
It just I searched on binq for ps2 linux and found that page, thought maybe some other
people would like to see it.

[JaronDaWizard]

Does anybody know of there's a port of Fedora for Playstation 2?

[citronalco]

No, there's neither Fedora nor RedHat nor Debian nor Suse nor Mandriva and no Gentoo and no Ubuntu.