Although I have the Linux kit, I still love these homebrew projects.Quote:
Some amazing news for fans of the PS2 and the Homebrew scene that surrounds it, here goes
The Great Experiment (TGE) is an Open Source PS2/Linux Kit RTE replacement and bootloader. It's being written to provide a binary interface compatible with that of the RTE shipped with the PS2/Linux Kit and other Sony products that use Linux. The end goal is that anyone who owns a PS2 will be able to run Linux (or other programs written to use the RTE, such as NetBSD) on their PS2 without hardware modifications or expensive hardware bundles.
The core of TGE is the SIF BIOS (or SBIOS) which provides the library code Linux uses to communicate with the IOP. The RTE loads the SBIOS and a special set of IRX modules before loading the Linux kernel. The SBIOS in TGE is being developed by reverse engineering the SBIOS and IRX modules that are shipped with the PS2/Linux Kit.
TGE is far from completion. Right now only a couple of the IRX modules are written, the SBIOS is partially written, and the bootloader doesn't exist yet. Because I took on a new job working for a licensed PS2 developer, I can no longer provide any new information that I found by reversing the RTE.
Therefore, I've asked Drakonite to put what does exist of TGE into the
public view, so that others can step up to finish it. I still plan on
developing for it, but my involvement will be somewhat limited.
Thanks to Drakonite, TGE now lives in the ps2dev CVS repository (you can view it or check it out from cvs.ps2dev.org). We need your help in finishing TGE. I've started a new mailing list on topica,
http://www.topica.com/lists/tgedev/, for developers who would like to work on TGE. Please subscribe if you have any interest in helping to develop TGE
to completion.
Marcus
The actual cvs page is at http://cvs.ps2dev.org/TGE/
Avery big thanks to LyonHrt for the news.
