On Wednesday 24 August 2005 01:22 am, Richard Smith wrote:
What hardware do you have in mind?
I'd like it to be designed so any retail hardware off the shelf will do, but if we are to start a small business making these things I would try the best I can to make something that would cost less then say current game consoles. So any hardware that would accomplish this would work. I don't remember what the current XBOX cost, around $150 I think. The XBOX360 I belive is going to be close to $300 when it comes out. So it has to be hardware that would keep the over all price below the current consoles.
After all we wouldn't want to build a system that cost more then the xbox360, then people will get this idea that Linux systems are more expensive then MS systems. We need to build something that says "Linux saves people money."
To me the software of this actually seems like the easy part. There are loads of ways to make a small customized linux image.
http://www.emdebian.org/ http://familiar.handhelds.org/ http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ http://openwrt.org/ http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://www.pengutronix.de/software/ptxdist_en.html
It's easy when you know how. ;) I've still a Linux newbie my self. As of now I don't have the current knowledge to build a brand new Linux Distro from scratch. But I will look at those links. If you ever played with an Xbox you'll know that when you turn it on it loads to it's menu (with no game in it) pretty quick. Which made me think to use LinuxBIOS. Current BIOS wouldn't be able to pull this off. When you put a game in the xbox it loads up right away. no installing any thing except if you forgot to plug in your controller. I want to build a open gaming system with the same principles of user friendlyness. Many people have hacked the xbox to install a custom linux distro onto the xbox by replacing the "xbox live" menu entry with a Linux entry.
I want to build this new system with the same kind of easy to use menu system when you turn it on and I want it to have a menu entry to start up a regular sized distro if people want that to. This new system will have the primary purpose of being an alternative to the xbox.
Because of legal reasons it may not be able to play encrypted dvds but should be able to play cds just fine. But it should also be flexible enough so you can do any thing else with it.
The DVD part doesn't have to be a impossibility, if it became popular enough other companies might decide to make software to play encrypted movies on this system. For this system to be devoted to open standards and be sold in stores I wouldn't be able to provide any software for dvds with out breaking retarded patent laws. But that wouldn't stop other business from providing products to over come this. That way who ever makes this system don't have to deal with royaltie issues.
Horsepower wise though you are really going to have some beef to compete with the graphics power of the Xbox or ps2 line of products. That means the later nvidia or ATI cards.
I would use nvidia. I find they have better support and drivers for Linux. Thought I would prefer to find hardware with open standard "chip sets" so any one can make open source drivers for them but I'm dreaming now. I've seen some pretty nice video cards on newegg.com that's not to old that should be able to handle the latest games. The first xbox had a 800 mhz CPU, it didn't even have a fan on the heat sink but the GPU did.
A gaming console is also going to need some sort of low noise, smaller type case setup.
I've seen some nice microATX desktop cases on newegg.com. So those should do nicely. The thing to watch out for is heat and the power suplies they come with. I've been told by some people the ones they have have crap power supplies and ended up getting their own.
Neither of the above is cheap. $300 is a would be a pretty good deal for what you get if it wern't for the stupid DRM they use.
Now that I re-think it, building this system by hand, we would end up making a gaming system that would cost more than current systems but cost less than current desktop computers at Best Buy. And since this new system will be a hybrid of both I see no reason why this thing wouldn't sell like crazy.
Although I think ps2 has linux dev kit for it dosen't it?
The first ps2 had one, it was a hard drive with linux installed on it and you just insert it into the ps2. Sony came out with a newer thinner version of the ps2 and doesn't have the hard drive slot nor do they sell the kit any more. Not in the US any way.