THE NOSTALGIA HIT ME IN WAVES In Europe, Sony included a version of BASIC with the PS2 called Yabasic, but some stores would also bundle in copies of PS2Linux. This was mainly done to circumvent some taxation (or something along those lines) that the EU had placed on game consoles, and including Yabasic/PS2Linux allowed them to sell the PS2 as a computer making it exempt from that tax. My PS2 was my first truly personal computer as a result, excluding family PCs
i clicked on this video thinking it was a MattKC video, and here is MJD, I encourage this type of content on this channel. I love to watch MJD and MattKC. I would watch this type of content on this channel anyday of the week.
This was a strategic move on Sony's part. The rumor is, that in order to bypass tariffs on Game Consoles in certain countries; they tried to claim the PS2 was a computer since it technically runs Linux, and can connect to a mouse and Keyboard.
@@o_KingOfKings_o That isn't official. That's just a bunch of programmers trying to see what they can do with the PS4 hardware. Sony outright supported using Linux on a regular PS2, no modding needed.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as PlayStation 2, is in fact, GNU/PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 2 is not a device unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functional GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs blah blah blah ed is the standard text editor, real programmers use butterflies edit: please stop taking this seriously lmao
Those screens bring back so many memories. I started using Linux in 2001 so nearly every install looked like that. WindowMaker had one of the smallest RAM footprints of any GUI.
Ahh how fondly do I remember the twm vs fvwm vs windowmaker (and a few others) debates on which one was the best wm for low end machines of the time. I went with fvwm, it's still the backup which will definitely work if all else fails.
Idk if it’s mentioned but the reason for the colours being so messed up was because you were using a regular vga monitor. The ps2 outputs sync on green through its RGB mode which many modern monitors don’t support correctly. The fact the green colour signal seemed to be off makes me think it was that. Luckily you could turn it down. Also a few years ago a Scottish TH-camr known as Cameron grey did this but with a European ps2. Might be good to watch as a curiosity
Yeah, and if MJD sees this, what I can mention is that I remember someone posting instructions on how to make an adaptor that converts VGA sync-on-green to a more standard VGA connection with separate green and sync lines.
Hey, that's me! The sync separator I built used an LM1881N chip to provide separate sync signals to the monitor, otherwise all the monitors I tried would just stay in standby. It was actually while researching making this sync separator for use with my NeXTstation Turbo Color that I first came across PS2 Linux! Interesting to see a relatively modern Dell monitor in this video seemingly working fine without the separate sync signals, unless the cable itself contains a sync separator chip which is entirely possible as the PS2 multi out connector provides 5v which could power such a chip. In this case the issue isn't necessarily solvable with a sync separator since it looks like the monitor is interpreting the sync signals on the green channel as colour information which is causing the overall green hue. I experienced this with a Lenovo ThinkVision monitor but not the old HP one I ended up using in the video so I suspect it's possibly monitor dependant. That said, I saw some information online about making a circuit to strip the sync signals from the green video signal so that could help.
Yes. I also watched Cameron Gray's video years ago. I already knew the ps2 couldn't natively output the RGBHV format that most VGA monitors need in order to get a signal cause of all the stuff about retro consoles and video quality that I watched by My Life In Gaming.
holy shit, a Playstation 2 branded network adapter, external hard drive, keyboard and mouse, this is blowing my mind. The fact that they even had a Linux kit at all absolutely blows my mind, this is insane whatttt
I bought the PS2 Linux Kit when they first came out. I even founded a game company with another guy from their forums who happened to live locally. One thing I recall is that they are _very_ picky about the monitor type you connect to; requiring a sync on green monitor type which not all monitors of the time were. Beyond that, it was pretty cool, including 7 of 8 of the official developer manuals & AfterStep, a Nextstep clone for Linux (I’ve owned a Next Turbo 33 which I sold years ago).
@@JohnZombi88 I thought maybe you knew him, but after looking that up I now think that it's a cruel joke you're attempting to make at his or my expense and I'm not sure why.
Knowing what you need when formatting the hard drive for a Linux installation. That's why I had purchased a book before I tried installing Ubuntu on my PC. It really helped me a lot with this part.
I knew a guy who ran (?runs?) a quake server on one of these for the last twenty years. Imagine playing on a quake server for 20 years and it goes down, and you find out its been running on a PS2!
The fact that you got it running on an LCD is a miracle, the PS2 (and PS3) outputs a normal sync signal in 240p and 480i, but for some reason it only outputs sync on green on 480p mode. It works fine on most CRTs but LCDs don't like that This is why if you're playing games in 480p or higher it is recommended to use the component cable instead, thankfully most PS2 games only output 480i.
Knew that Linux existed for the PS2, but never seen it in action. The plug for Linode had me laughing hard as it was smooth while making fun of the misfortune when the PS2 didn't display anything initially haha.
yeah same like 5 yrs ago I knew abt it was even cheaper at that time to but never took the time to search or watch a video about it. happy one of my favorite yters made a video abt it
I was the guy who tried to install Linux on the slim after discovering the magic that is freemcboot, got my own iso, slid it on a USB, and tried. Failed. But still was super cool to be booting a Linux installer that was meant for the PS2
It still shocks me when I look at retro grade hardware how powerful it actually was. Knowing photoshop it is surprising to see the tools gimp provided even back then.
@@mar2ck_ Photoshop had many windows as well before they changed to “panels”. The windows being separate doesn’t preclude the user from having an easier time knowing where to click to do what they want, whereas modern day GIMP hides a lot of things behind menus which don’t make themselves immediately apparent.
Gimp is an horror ( really, grab a CS3 portabl and run it on WINE) but at work I use a Thinkpad X60 for admin stuff and basically, LibreOffice stuff, and gets the job done. So yeah, Linux. as soon you have some ram and a CPU and not a truck of a GUI ( xfce or wmaker) it will get the job done.
I love how the version of GIMP was so old that it said "PNG can't Handle Transparency" Times have changed and it's now JPEG with the transparency problems
Hi from Japan! Japanese keyboards are slightly different from US ones, especially for typing special characters such as backticks and colons. So if you face a problem about it, remember to change keyboard configuration. BTW everything 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 in this time, isn't it rare for your videos? :)
Well, it's specially designed software running on specially designed hardware, so it's not surprising things went well. Don't misunderstand, I'm happy it did work! Also, that is very good advice, thank you. :)
When you were going back and forth through the system preferences, I was surprised at how usable (not laggy) it seemed. Gimp crippling it is no surprise, but I imagine if you were able to install a package manager and a few basic apps you could possibly do some real work on it. The Xbox got executive sponsorship because Microsoft was afraid of losing its dominance. In the context of this, that fear makes more sense.
Pretty sure it mainly existed as another countermeasure to the import taxes on game consoles. The DVD drive was the other countermeasure. Label it as a DVD Player, Home Computer, or media center and you got a product that doesn't have to pay like 15% extra just to get it in stores (The Game Tax)
@@hiRyan329329 no, it exists because producing actual game console was borderline unfeasible in 200X and PS2 was always just a fancy BSD minipc with propertiaty periferals.
@@chronosyndrome4095 well do yourself a favor and look up PS2 console Tax or something like that and you'll see why in Europe every PS2 was meant to be bundled with Linux. In the End they lost the case and still had to pay the EU game console import tax though.
@@hiRyan329329 yeah, and every Amiga was meant to be bundled with AmigaOS - yet was able to run Linux as well. Maybe Amigas are gaming konsoles, masked as personal computers, too ? They aren't IBM PC compilant and runs propertiary hardware (including gamepads) + have tons of games, so...
@@chronosyndrome4095 I'm not saying it's the only reason it existed. I understand it's pretty close to a pc already and that's why it could run and they felt like letting people buy it. But it is evident that the reason it was bundles for EU consoles and as much effort was put into it was to avoid the tax an try and make more money off the PS2 in the EU
The green tint on the VGA monitor is likely because the PS2 outputs RGB with sync on green and some monitors can’t handle it properly. An Extron sync processor might help here.
My school's after school care had a Playstation 2 connected to a projector with a AV cable to RCA cable connected to the projector and every afternoon I'd hear that Playstation 2 start-up sound! Soooo nostalgic! We'd play Skate 2 all afternoon. I don't know how they got their hands on a Playstation 2 in 2019 though.
Probably had it forever or it belongs to a teacher. Up until like mid 2010s they were really cheap and easy to find like I got many of them I had (we somehow went thru twelve between launch day- 2013 lol dogs pulling them off the table killed a bunch of em) for 20$ max. They were a dime a dozen as they are one of the most sold consoles of all time
Oh my, this brings back so many memories. During faculty, I installed many flavours of Linux on my modded PS2, including a minimal version of Debian 5 I could get working from a burned DVD. I remember trying to install GCC on it to compile C code for the MIPS arch and try to run the executable. Guess what? Aptitude ran out of RAM and couldn't even generate the package dependency tree to be able to download GCC's required packages from the internet... wow. However, I could get BlackRhyno Linux to work! It closely resembles the official flavour, including the GUI and functionality of the system. Great job! Thanks for the video. Try BlackRhyno next :)
@@milkywaydotmoe unfortunately not. That Debian version I mentioned was optimized for the PS2 entirely, and still it was slow, it booted very slow and quickly ran out of memory. No swap available because it ran exclusively from the DVD drive. You won't be able to install modern versions for sure.
Nice video. I can't believe that this was an official thing from Sony. I think you should consider doing a followup video where you look at all the applications included so we can get a felling on what computing tasks are possible on the system. Maybe you can also look at all the settings and see how customizable the system is. That goofiness at the end with that piece of "art" you created was very fun. :) You could also do a bit of stress testing and try opening and using as many programs as you can at once to see how stable the system is. And if you are feeling really adventurous for a whole another video, try installing this Linux distro in the PS2 emulator, PCSX2. Not really sure if that is possible, but it would be interesting to find out. And with its inevitable problems and weird issues that would pop up, it would make for a very fun and typical MJD video. ;)
An old friend of mine had a PS2 back in the day. We heard about the Linux option, but it was too expensive and/or unobtainable in our country back then. However rumours said you could run a web browser on it, and connect it to the internet using the network adapter, and surf the web like from a PC.
According to the complete kit's manual, you needed to connect your console to both a VGA sync-on-green monitor and a TV set. To do that, you had to get an AV Adapter -- preferably the SCPH-10130 with S-Video output. Naturally, you connected the VGA cable to your monitor via the AV Adapter's AV Multi Out terminal, and then connected the adapter's composite or S-Video outputs to your TV and the audio jacks to your audio device (preferably a stereo or surround receiver). It was helpfully illustrated, but it does seem rather convoluted for the unprepared.
Yellow Dog Linux was, I believe, designed to run on the PS2. I wonder if you could find a copy and install that? But having Window Maker as the Window Manager for the official PS2 Linux is awesome!
Yellow Dog Linux was for PowerPC and IBM POWER systems, so mostly for PowerMacs and the PS3 for any home users. I still have it on my 'phat' 60GB PS3 (I bought a slim PS3 to continue gaming with).
Ps2 is not my childhood but a good part of my teenage years, gotta say I love it, Sony Is one of my favorite brands, and the JDM has wilder stuff related to the console. Good stuff man, I love this kind of content, I'm a new sub btw, greetings from Colombia
I don’t think you need to install mod chips these days. PS2s are very easy to soft mod. You do have to disc swap first tho(I think?), or buy a memory card with the soft mod installed on it.
With a network adapter and an HDD, you can create a FreeHDDBoot drive that you can use to install FreeMCBoot from, so you don't need to open the PS2 to do disc swaps or pay for anyone else to write a memory card for you if you'd be using a network adapter and internal HDD anyway.
i remember reading monthly the Brazilian version of the Playstation magazine between 2002 until 2007 when i owned just a humble slim ps1 and got fascinated about Linux and the capabilities of running plenty of day-to-day apps like a normal pc on the ps2. Seeing this video today brings me so much memories.
The entire thing with its external HDD and PCMCIA looks so cumbersome, yet sophisticated. I guess I would have fallen in love with it back in the days and many probably did.
@@streetinfamy You can't technically change soldered onboard RAM without replacing whole board. Also PS2 RAM is using proprietary RDRAM instead of standard SDRAM. You probably need PS2 Test debugging or PS2 Tool devkit console which have 64MB or 128MB. The only why iPhone storage succeed because eMMC is replaceable and you still needs tricky amount of workarounds.
@@streetinfamy RDRAM (or Rambus) is proprietary and not much use back then because it was expensive. AFAIK, it used to be RAM module for late Pentium 3 and very early Pentium 4 Intel's board chipsets. And it just failed, dropped after DDR SDRAM (or just DDR1 we know today) was more viable and cheaper. Even so, you'll need find exact compatible RAM ICs, insane soldering skill, patient, and if you lucky that board chipset is capable to accept higher capacity.
As far as I can remember the PS2 CPU only had 32k of L1 cache with no L2 memory at all. Watching the time it takes Gimp to render your PNG file gave a strong Gen1 1 Celeron 266 MHZ energy.
the US & UK FFXI Kit Hard Disk could Also back then be used for Linux, but outside FFXI there wasnt many games that used the Hard Drive if you had one, outside i think Socom? the Green Issue is because that PS2 Linux dosent output a *Standard* VGA signal, but a "Sync on Green" Signal
@@DigitEgal It was Bill Gates, you get to the Microsoft Empire, after passing the kernel update phase. I couldn't pass it, because if you fail, it updates your memory card and erases all of it.
It's not official, but Linux on PS4 has been done. Can't remember the name of the talk about it, but it did reveal some weird design choices that make you wonder if an executive at Sony gave a bunch of engineers a case of booze and said "Design me the next Playstation!"
awesome i remember in the 2000 18 years old wanted this on my ps2 but never can afford it as it was a expensive kit even back in the day.. but thanks for showing me how it was to experience it. great video.
No need for a Chip to unlock your PS2 if you don't mind ditching the disks.. You can install a bootloader on the mem card that will allow you too boot into a compact OS with some basic tools(like a ftp client). It allows you to boot any PS2 iso (regardless of the region) from the HDD or a network server. Can't remember the name but I still have it on a 100% stock(Euro + network adapter + ide drive but broken laser) PS2 that I use to play Japanese games that I may or may not own.. ;) And unlike my modded ps2, this system does not crash and your ps2 will pass most if not all mod detection(as there is no chip)
Man I had no idea the PS2 accepted 3.5" Sata hard drives. It annoys me that we had to put up with the small memory cards when we could've easily just put those saves onto that instead.
*IDE not SATA Although you can use SATA if you get a custom adapter that has SATA ports But yeah it's just one of those moments that I could only guess Sony didn't plan for or think the idea through completely. You could copy saves to the HDD but games couldn't load or save directly to it (unless it's one of the few that supported that). It's one of the things the Xbox did right, having saves on the HDD be a standard thing.
I was expecting to see more than GIMP, are you making more videos? Perhaps installing a modern browser and surf the web, taking a look at the cpu and ram in the terminal, trying to do a yum update to see if repos are still alive, running an ftp server or something! It would be really interesting to see how this old machine copes with that.
I remember installing on my modchip PS2, using a burned CD and a 3rd party VGA adapter. Everything was GREEN, because I had no sync on green monitor. The Linux allowed direct access to 3d accelerator and came with a few demos, you compiled them like a normal OpenGL software today, and could have been used to write real games in a memory protected environment, given the swap file to swap out the Linux kernel temporarily. Still the easiest way to run MIPS Linux on a real hardware, outside of buying a used SGI workstation. BTW, that VGA adapter came with hack allowing to render normal games in high res mode on a computer monitor. Played all Final Fantasy games that way.
Void warranty if removed stickers at least in the U.S hold no merit. People often forget this and I don't know why they didn't just make those stickers illegal, since companies are still tricking people to this day with those stickers in the U.S.
I can't believe Sony thought Linux on a game console was gonna be a thing. But this was in a time where companies thought they could change gamers into programmers like they were the same thing.
nah this was just a gimmick so they could sale there game console as a computer entertainment system otherwise they wouldn't allow them to sale it in certain countries as a game console.
Never got a kit because they've been damn expensive for as long as I can remember, but I've had success getting the mipsel build of Debian Jessie up and running on the homebrewn kernel. It's a bit of a pain to get there, but I managed to make it work alongside other PS2 things installed to the HDD, which is a nice touch I suppose...
"back in the day" I did a tutorial for booting linux on the PS2, however what I was using was not the official PS2 distro. I've always wondered what the real PS2 linux release looked like! Kind of cool to see!
Imagine someone hacked you using Brazilian PS2 💀 Edit : Brazilian PS2s have an Ethernet port and adapter so someone can install Linux on a Brazilian PS2 and hack anyone
Extra green is likely the bad cable, since you already suspect the cable's quality and the apparent lack of "good red depth". Extra VGAs should be cheap and easy though. Would love to see if Linux can update/upgrade that Linux build
ok i did that on 2006 and the installation disk was just a single dvd i swear. I had the EU version i cant recall and I DIDNT have this windows style installation. I had to make a lot od commands to install tbh and took sometime. Was very interesting back then. EDIT : AND after seeing the whole thing even my version of th os inside was different!!?!?!? what the hell? It was mostly like a vista. I really really want to find my disk now
THE NOSTALGIA HIT ME IN WAVES
In Europe, Sony included a version of BASIC with the PS2 called Yabasic, but some stores would also bundle in copies of PS2Linux. This was mainly done to circumvent some taxation (or something along those lines) that the EU had placed on game consoles, and including Yabasic/PS2Linux allowed them to sell the PS2 as a computer making it exempt from that tax.
My PS2 was my first truly personal computer as a result, excluding family PCs
Yabasic! Sounds like an insult. 😂
@@Sithedd building BASIC at any point after 1986 might as well have been one tbf
@Justin Chanyong Rhee especially when you're the only one in your family who doesn't save everything to the desktop
@@kokonbini man I learned BASIC in high school in 2007. And I forgot it all.
@@Sithedd I only ever bothered learning it when I started to experiment with some older 8-bit micros
There's such a novelty in how antithetical a region locked Linux install is
sony deserves piracy.
My PS Vita won't turn on.
Ironic indeed.
@@Asian_Kid press the power button
@@18rocksthegames78 Thanks, it works now.
i clicked on this video thinking it was a MattKC video, and here is MJD, I encourage this type of content on this channel. I love to watch MJD and MattKC. I would watch this type of content on this channel anyday of the week.
Proud thay im not only one
Agreed! Also, LGR has some great content too
Same lol😄
I thought it was ltt
What it they collabed 👀
Imagine running Linux, on a PS2 emulator, in a virtual machine, on a Mac
The Mac 🔥🔥
And then in that linux emulating a ps3
*Hackintosh installed on a windows emulator running on an android built in tesla😊
bro you're giving him ideas..
him: new content founded!!
I remember watching your POSReady 2009 and Windows FLP videos when you had 5k subscribers, really happy to see how much your channel has grown
Windows FL what?
@@kantraa the coolest version of windows XP 😀
@@kantraa Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
same, the videos just stopped popping in suggestions, so I never knew this guy went so big quick :P
channel join date: 2018
This is one of the coolest things I have seen sony do. I wished they still did this kind of things. I am impressed.
This was a strategic move on Sony's part. The rumor is, that in order to bypass tariffs on Game Consoles in certain countries; they tried to claim the PS2 was a computer since it technically runs Linux, and can connect to a mouse and Keyboard.
I mean they did with PS3 before pulling the plug
It was on PS3 until the 2010 update
PS4 jailbreak can run this easy
@@o_KingOfKings_o That isn't official. That's just a bunch of programmers trying to see what they can do with the PS4 hardware. Sony outright supported using Linux on a regular PS2, no modding needed.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as PlayStation 2, is in fact, GNU/PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 2 is not a device unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functional GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs blah blah blah ed is the standard text editor, real programmers use butterflies
edit: please stop taking this seriously lmao
Hello GNU/Stallman
Or as I've taken to calling it, GNU + Playstation 2.
PS2 Linux is indeed actually PS2 GNU/Linux
Where's "btw I use Arch" ?
@@nongmaithemavinash3977 That comes later
Those screens bring back so many memories. I started using Linux in 2001 so nearly every install looked like that. WindowMaker had one of the smallest RAM footprints of any GUI.
Ahh how fondly do I remember the twm vs fvwm vs windowmaker (and a few others) debates on which one was the best wm for low end machines of the time.
I went with fvwm, it's still the backup which will definitely work if all else fails.
Idk if it’s mentioned but the reason for the colours being so messed up was because you were using a regular vga monitor. The ps2 outputs sync on green through its RGB mode which many modern monitors don’t support correctly. The fact the green colour signal seemed to be off makes me think it was that. Luckily you could turn it down.
Also a few years ago a Scottish TH-camr known as Cameron grey did this but with a European ps2. Might be good to watch as a curiosity
Yeah, and if MJD sees this, what I can mention is that I remember someone posting instructions on how to make an adaptor that converts VGA sync-on-green to a more standard VGA connection with separate green and sync lines.
I was wondering if something was going to mention Cameron Grey, so here's me commenting on it to bump up this comment. :)
he needs to just get a CRT pc monitor, most support SoG
Hey, that's me! The sync separator I built used an LM1881N chip to provide separate sync signals to the monitor, otherwise all the monitors I tried would just stay in standby. It was actually while researching making this sync separator for use with my NeXTstation Turbo Color that I first came across PS2 Linux!
Interesting to see a relatively modern Dell monitor in this video seemingly working fine without the separate sync signals, unless the cable itself contains a sync separator chip which is entirely possible as the PS2 multi out connector provides 5v which could power such a chip. In this case the issue isn't necessarily solvable with a sync separator since it looks like the monitor is interpreting the sync signals on the green channel as colour information which is causing the overall green hue. I experienced this with a Lenovo ThinkVision monitor but not the old HP one I ended up using in the video so I suspect it's possibly monitor dependant. That said, I saw some information online about making a circuit to strip the sync signals from the green video signal so that could help.
Yes. I also watched Cameron Gray's video years ago. I already knew the ps2 couldn't natively output the RGBHV format that most VGA monitors need in order to get a signal cause of all the stuff about retro consoles and video quality that I watched by My Life In Gaming.
holy shit, a Playstation 2 branded network adapter, external hard drive, keyboard and mouse, this is blowing my mind. The fact that they even had a Linux kit at all absolutely blows my mind, this is insane whatttt
I love the PS2 component aesthetic (keyboard, mouse, hard drive, etc.)
Kind of reminds you of the Atari 2600, doesn't it?
I bought the PS2 Linux Kit when they first came out. I even founded a game company with another guy from their forums who happened to live locally.
One thing I recall is that they are _very_ picky about the monitor type you connect to; requiring a sync on green monitor type which not all monitors of the time were.
Beyond that, it was pretty cool, including 7 of 8 of the official developer manuals & AfterStep, a Nextstep clone for Linux (I’ve owned a Next Turbo 33 which I sold years ago).
What game company? Are you still developing today?
@@JohnZombi88 I thought maybe you knew him, but after looking that up I now think that it's a cruel joke you're attempting to make at his or my expense and I'm not sure why.
@@anon_y_mousse I can't believe that worked
>screen way too green
"Let's fix that."
>makes screen way too red
"Ok perfect."
I would do blue
Ok, PERFECTION
Knowing what you need when formatting the hard drive for a Linux installation. That's why I had purchased a book before I tried installing Ubuntu on my PC. It really helped me a lot with this part.
I taught my mom how to format a hard drive, now she daily drives gento on her fitbit
I knew a guy who ran (?runs?) a quake server on one of these for the last twenty years.
Imagine playing on a quake server for 20 years and it goes down, and you find out its been running on a PS2!
The fact that you got it running on an LCD is a miracle, the PS2 (and PS3) outputs a normal sync signal in 240p and 480i, but for some reason it only outputs sync on green on 480p mode. It works fine on most CRTs but LCDs don't like that
This is why if you're playing games in 480p or higher it is recommended to use the component cable instead, thankfully most PS2 games only output 480i.
Knew that Linux existed for the PS2, but never seen it in action. The plug for Linode had me laughing hard as it was smooth while making fun of the misfortune when the PS2 didn't display anything initially haha.
yeah same like 5 yrs ago I knew abt it was even cheaper at that time to but never took the time to search or watch a video about it. happy one of my favorite yters made a video abt it
I was the guy who tried to install Linux on the slim after discovering the magic that is freemcboot, got my own iso, slid it on a USB, and tried. Failed. But still was super cool to be booting a Linux installer that was meant for the PS2
lol
@@alwaysenkeilover yes
@@SchlongIslandIcedTea yea
I was using GNUstep back then, and I had the same "experience" with GIMP. When I saw you changing the themes i shed a tear.
It still shocks me when I look at retro grade hardware how powerful it actually was. Knowing photoshop it is surprising to see the tools gimp provided even back then.
And somehow the pre-release GIMP is more intuitive than the current GIMP
@@raviolimavioli I don't see how that's the case? Having 5 windows for one application isn't exactly intuitive
@@mar2ck_ Photoshop had many windows as well before they changed to “panels”. The windows being separate doesn’t preclude the user from having an easier time knowing where to click to do what they want, whereas modern day GIMP hides a lot of things behind menus which don’t make themselves immediately apparent.
Gimp is an horror ( really, grab a CS3 portabl and run it on WINE) but at work I use a Thinkpad X60 for admin stuff and basically, LibreOffice stuff, and gets the job done. So yeah, Linux. as soon you have some ram and a CPU and not a truck of a GUI ( xfce or wmaker) it will get the job done.
@@raviolimavioli My main gripe with GIMP is the unintuitive user interface. At least with PhotoGIMP mod you can make it look like modern Photoshop.
I love how the version of GIMP was so old that it said "PNG can't Handle Transparency"
Times have changed and it's now JPEG with the transparency problems
Hi from Japan! Japanese keyboards are slightly different from US ones, especially for typing special characters such as backticks and colons. So if you face a problem about it, remember to change keyboard configuration.
BTW everything 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 in this time, isn't it rare for your videos? :)
Well, it's specially designed software running on specially designed hardware, so it's not surprising things went well. Don't misunderstand, I'm happy it did work! Also, that is very good advice, thank you. :)
Hah!
@@KingLich451 WarCraft
What is a backtick
@@stecewalters1996 ... `
When you were going back and forth through the system preferences, I was surprised at how usable (not laggy) it seemed. Gimp crippling it is no surprise, but I imagine if you were able to install a package manager and a few basic apps you could possibly do some real work on it.
The Xbox got executive sponsorship because Microsoft was afraid of losing its dominance. In the context of this, that fear makes more sense.
PlayStation 2 was my first console I ever played on! Didn’t even know you could install Linux on that! Also congrats on reaching almost 255k subs!
Pretty sure it mainly existed as another countermeasure to the import taxes on game consoles. The DVD drive was the other countermeasure. Label it as a DVD Player, Home Computer, or media center and you got a product that doesn't have to pay like 15% extra just to get it in stores (The Game Tax)
@@hiRyan329329 no, it exists because producing actual game console was borderline unfeasible in 200X and PS2 was always just a fancy BSD minipc with propertiaty periferals.
@@chronosyndrome4095 well do yourself a favor and look up PS2 console Tax or something like that and you'll see why in Europe every PS2 was meant to be bundled with Linux. In the End they lost the case and still had to pay the EU game console import tax though.
@@hiRyan329329 yeah, and every Amiga was meant to be bundled with AmigaOS - yet was able to run Linux as well. Maybe Amigas are gaming konsoles, masked as personal computers, too ? They aren't IBM PC compilant and runs propertiary hardware (including gamepads) + have tons of games, so...
@@chronosyndrome4095 I'm not saying it's the only reason it existed. I understand it's pretty close to a pc already and that's why it could run and they felt like letting people buy it. But it is evident that the reason it was bundles for EU consoles and as much effort was put into it was to avoid the tax an try and make more money off the PS2 in the EU
Next is "install linux on microwave!"
The amount of customization is very impressive.
That's Linux (or, GNU+Linux, or any other OSS OSes like BSD and stuff) for you :D
It's been maybe 2 years since I converted to Linux, and I am happy now :)
The green tint on the VGA monitor is likely because the PS2 outputs RGB with sync on green and some monitors can’t handle it properly. An Extron sync processor might help here.
I've been watching your videos every day for a whole week, these videos are really impressive
Saludos desde México 🇲🇽
same 😅
My school's after school care had a Playstation 2 connected to a projector with a AV cable to RCA cable connected to the projector and every afternoon I'd hear that Playstation 2 start-up sound! Soooo nostalgic! We'd play Skate 2 all afternoon. I don't know how they got their hands on a Playstation 2 in 2019 though.
Probably had it forever or it belongs to a teacher. Up until like mid 2010s they were really cheap and easy to find like I got many of them I had (we somehow went thru twelve between launch day- 2013 lol dogs pulling them off the table killed a bunch of em) for 20$ max. They were a dime a dozen as they are one of the most sold consoles of all time
Skate 2 is a PS3 game
Oh my, this brings back so many memories.
During faculty, I installed many flavours of Linux on my modded PS2, including a minimal version of Debian 5 I could get working from a burned DVD.
I remember trying to install GCC on it to compile C code for the MIPS arch and try to run the executable. Guess what? Aptitude ran out of RAM and couldn't even generate the package dependency tree to be able to download GCC's required packages from the internet... wow.
However, I could get BlackRhyno Linux to work! It closely resembles the official flavour, including the GUI and functionality of the system.
Great job! Thanks for the video. Try BlackRhyno next :)
Will more modern versions theoretically work like Arch or Gentoo?
@@milkywaydotmoe unfortunately not. That Debian version I mentioned was optimized for the PS2 entirely, and still it was slow, it booted very slow and quickly ran out of memory. No swap available because it ran exclusively from the DVD drive.
You won't be able to install modern versions for sure.
@@CosminCrihan I'd love to see someone cross compile and run LFS on it. Any chance you'd be willing?
Nice video. I can't believe that this was an official thing from Sony.
I think you should consider doing a followup video where you look at all the applications included so we can get a felling on what computing tasks are possible on the system.
Maybe you can also look at all the settings and see how customizable the system is. That goofiness at the end with that piece of "art" you created was very fun. :)
You could also do a bit of stress testing and try opening and using as many programs as you can at once to see how stable the system is.
And if you are feeling really adventurous for a whole another video, try installing this Linux distro in the PS2 emulator, PCSX2. Not really sure if that is possible, but it would be interesting to find out. And with its inevitable problems and weird issues that would pop up, it would make for a very fun and typical MJD video. ;)
Ken Kuturagi was really a tech fan. His ideas of architecture is interesting, yet annoying for devs.
Did the harddrive contain those partitions initially? Exploring what was on there previously would have been a nice touch
What's a preservation? smh
Probably wouldn't have gotten very far without the previous user's login credentials anyway.
@@Lethaltail I have to say my datahoarder self was screaming
@@YayWalterSullivan old linux releases have a lot of backdoors and working exploits
@@YayWalterSullivan
You don't need to be able to log into a system to read the data on the hard drive it's installed on lol
the hard ass fact that The Meta quest headsets run on a modified linux operating system just shows how everything can have linux
Would have been nice had the PS2 had more ram similarly to the xbox at the time along with a hard drive from the git go rather than as an addon.
Indeed, too bad it wasnt powerfull enough for doom 3 or high life 2
The developers had a 64MB ram PS2 units which ran games much better but it was still 300mhz cpu
GIMP may have changed many things in 20 years, but this old version still looks very familiar.
Near the end of the video I forgot this was even happening on a PS2, it's kinda mind-boggling
I clicked on this fully expecting some amount of a hack to bypass PS2 VRM and such but this was so much better. This is sick
the moment I saw linux I clicked.
it was literally seconds since I got the notification
An old friend of mine had a PS2 back in the day. We heard about the Linux option, but it was too expensive and/or unobtainable in our country back then. However rumours said you could run a web browser on it, and connect it to the internet using the network adapter, and surf the web like from a PC.
Am I the only one that imagines MJD looks like the Windows XP bobble head?
Nope.
Felt like a lucky guy that I found a PAL linux kit being sold in the country I live. Took me a few hour driving, but it was worth it!
MJD + retro hardware + Linuxing all the things =
Hello fellow bisexual
@@bodhithespoodergen pinko
Yay more LGBTQ+ people
According to the complete kit's manual, you needed to connect your console to both a VGA sync-on-green monitor and a TV set. To do that, you had to get an AV Adapter -- preferably the SCPH-10130 with S-Video output.
Naturally, you connected the VGA cable to your monitor via the AV Adapter's AV Multi Out terminal, and then connected the adapter's composite or S-Video outputs to your TV and the audio jacks to your audio device (preferably a stereo or surround receiver).
It was helpfully illustrated, but it does seem rather convoluted for the unprepared.
Yellow Dog Linux was, I believe, designed to run on the PS2. I wonder if you could find a copy and install that? But having Window Maker as the Window Manager for the official PS2 Linux is awesome!
I might still have my install file, don't remember as I haven't used my PS2 in some time
Yellow Dog was actually for the PS3, I believe. Might be mistaken, though.
Yellowdog was for PPC Macs but also worked on PS2 and PS3 if I remember correctly.
Yellow Dog Linux was for PowerPC and IBM POWER systems, so mostly for PowerMacs and the PS3 for any home users. I still have it on my 'phat' 60GB PS3 (I bought a slim PS3 to continue gaming with).
Now that I thought about it, Yellow Dog was for PPC Mac, Black Rhino iirc is what the PS2 Linux distro was called
Ps2 is not my childhood but a good part of my teenage years, gotta say I love it, Sony Is one of my favorite brands, and the JDM has wilder stuff related to the console.
Good stuff man, I love this kind of content, I'm a new sub btw, greetings from Colombia
This was always a fascinating thing to me. Great video!
this video strongly encouraged me to learn linux and then get this and mess around with it this is so cool
Some Linux, Sony Playstation and Michael MJD storytelling… an excellent way to kick off the weekend if you ask me. Greetings from Belgium !
I don’t think you need to install mod chips these days. PS2s are very easy to soft mod. You do have to disc swap first tho(I think?), or buy a memory card with the soft mod installed on it.
This Linux is extremely picky. Anything you do that isn’t “by the letter” will almost certainly fail.
With a network adapter and an HDD, you can create a FreeHDDBoot drive that you can use to install FreeMCBoot from, so you don't need to open the PS2 to do disc swaps or pay for anyone else to write a memory card for you if you'd be using a network adapter and internal HDD anyway.
i remember reading monthly the Brazilian version of the Playstation magazine between 2002 until 2007 when i owned just a humble slim ps1 and got fascinated about Linux and the capabilities of running plenty of day-to-day apps like a normal pc on the ps2. Seeing this video today brings me so much memories.
i see a 30 min mjd video, i click. As always, top notch content!
Thank you!
The entire thing with its external HDD and PCMCIA looks so cumbersome, yet sophisticated. I guess I would have fallen in love with it back in the days and many probably did.
There was also a internal HDD to plug it inside console to play final fantasy online which was required for updates
yall gotta subscribe to him i mean he spent money on this vid just to entertain us what a legend.
Wow that Made PS2 a Fully functional computer! those perfect hassle times of changing disks! kids these days don't even know how fun it was
With only 32MB of RAM, it's pretty tough to play with even back then
@@streetinfamy 64 mb should be a goal
@@streetinfamy You can't technically change soldered onboard RAM without replacing whole board. Also PS2 RAM is using proprietary RDRAM instead of standard SDRAM. You probably need PS2 Test debugging or PS2 Tool devkit console which have 64MB or 128MB. The only why iPhone storage succeed because eMMC is replaceable and you still needs tricky amount of workarounds.
@@streetinfamy RDRAM (or Rambus) is proprietary and not much use back then because it was expensive. AFAIK, it used to be RAM module for late Pentium 3 and very early Pentium 4 Intel's board chipsets. And it just failed, dropped after DDR SDRAM (or just DDR1 we know today) was more viable and cheaper. Even so, you'll need find exact compatible RAM ICs, insane soldering skill, patient, and if you lucky that board chipset is capable to accept higher capacity.
Finally! Another GREAT video from Michael MJD
As far as I can remember the PS2 CPU only had 32k of L1 cache with no L2 memory at all. Watching the time it takes Gimp to render your PNG file gave a strong Gen1 1 Celeron 266 MHZ energy.
"Hey bro can you give me back my ps2 i lended you?"
"About that...."
2051: Installing Windows 6969 on a microwave
Yeah
Nice
9:48 the little figurine in the corner is trying to steel my soul and I'm all into it.
Has the ISO been ripped off the disk? I really want to mess with this myself.
No
👀 an MJD video that doesn't go wrong I must be dreaming
the US & UK FFXI Kit Hard Disk could Also back then be used for Linux, but outside FFXI there wasnt many games that used the Hard Drive if you had one, outside i think Socom?
the Green Issue is because that PS2 Linux dosent output a *Standard* VGA signal, but a "Sync on Green" Signal
I can imagine a good number of people back in 2001 use the PS2 as an internet browser
I already played this one, 7/10, the browser installing mission was kinda hard.
Whats the Endboss?
@@DigitEgal It was Bill Gates, you get to the Microsoft Empire, after passing the kernel update phase. I couldn't pass it, because if you fail, it updates your memory card and erases all of it.
IGN be like:
Linux on a Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 would make for extremely good followups!
It would be cool on the PS5.
It's not official, but Linux on PS4 has been done. Can't remember the name of the talk about it, but it did reveal some weird design choices that make you wonder if an executive at Sony gave a bunch of engineers a case of booze and said "Design me the next Playstation!"
My god the PS2 fat with the HDD add-on is so sexy. Those things were built like magnificent tanks back in the day.
awesome i remember in the 2000 18 years old wanted this on my ps2 but never can afford it as it was a expensive kit even back in the day.. but thanks for showing me how it was to experience it. great video.
The research put into these videos is very thorough.
No need for a Chip to unlock your PS2 if you don't mind ditching the disks..
You can install a bootloader on the mem card that will allow you too boot into a compact OS with some basic tools(like a ftp client).
It allows you to boot any PS2 iso (regardless of the region) from the HDD or a network server.
Can't remember the name but I still have it on a 100% stock(Euro + network adapter + ide drive but broken laser) PS2 that I use to play Japanese games that I may or may not own.. ;)
And unlike my modded ps2, this system does not crash and your ps2 will pass most if not all mod detection(as there is no chip)
is this just me or does the button clicking during the installation look so satisfying?
Man I had no idea the PS2 accepted 3.5" Sata hard drives. It annoys me that we had to put up with the small memory cards when we could've easily just put those saves onto that instead.
*IDE not SATA
Although you can use SATA if you get a custom adapter that has SATA ports
But yeah it's just one of those moments that I could only guess Sony didn't plan for or think the idea through completely. You could copy saves to the HDD but games couldn't load or save directly to it (unless it's one of the few that supported that). It's one of the things the Xbox did right, having saves on the HDD be a standard thing.
@@VexAcer reason: money 🦀
15:47 I had a eargasm
I was expecting to see more than GIMP, are you making more videos? Perhaps installing a modern browser and surf the web, taking a look at the cpu and ram in the terminal, trying to do a yum update to see if repos are still alive, running an ftp server or something! It would be really interesting to see how this old machine copes with that.
Once you started messing with "The Gimp" this video became pure gold lol.
I've had more fun watching this video than with my own playstation 2
I remember when I was 7 my elementary school friend had Linux on his PS2 and I found it so fun to see the penguin on the display
I remember installing on my modchip PS2, using a burned CD and a 3rd party VGA adapter. Everything was GREEN, because I had no sync on green monitor. The Linux allowed direct access to 3d accelerator and came with a few demos, you compiled them like a normal OpenGL software today, and could have been used to write real games in a memory protected environment, given the swap file to swap out the Linux kernel temporarily. Still the easiest way to run MIPS Linux on a real hardware, outside of buying a used SGI workstation. BTW, that VGA adapter came with hack allowing to render normal games in high res mode on a computer monitor. Played all Final Fantasy games that way.
Void warranty if removed stickers at least in the U.S hold no merit. People often forget this and I don't know why they didn't just make those stickers illegal, since companies are still tricking people to this day with those stickers in the U.S.
PlayStation 2 Linux disc looks cursed, something that shouldn't exist
Oh wow, I run WindowMaker to this day. Nice to see I'd be right at home on PS2 Linux.
Imagine watching TH-cam on PS2 (in Linux)
I can't believe Sony thought Linux on a game console was gonna be a thing. But this was in a time where companies thought they could change gamers into programmers like they were the same thing.
nah this was just a gimmick so they could sale there game console as a computer entertainment system otherwise they wouldn't allow them to sale it in certain countries as a game console.
Best GIMP Tutorial.
Never got a kit because they've been damn expensive for as long as I can remember, but I've had success getting the mipsel build of Debian Jessie up and running on the homebrewn kernel. It's a bit of a pain to get there, but I managed to make it work alongside other PS2 things installed to the HDD, which is a nice touch I suppose...
"back in the day" I did a tutorial for booting linux on the PS2, however what I was using was not the official PS2 distro. I've always wondered what the real PS2 linux release looked like! Kind of cool to see!
Question: Can you install Windows NT 4 on it though ? i remember reading rumors that NT4 supported the ps2 processor family.
Not exactly. Windows NT 4 supported MIPS, the CPU family on the PS2, but it does not explicitly support the game console.
11:42 there are four Turkish keyboards, and they all are at the top. I feel proud
Imagine someone hacked you using Brazilian PS2 💀
Edit : Brazilian PS2s have an Ethernet port and adapter so someone can install Linux on a Brazilian PS2 and hack anyone
Brazilian models only?
@@Bush_Dog777no, slin models
I got a apple ad before this 💀
I wonder if it's possible to install a different Linux distribution on the PS2?
It's a bit pointless, but I'm a bit curious.
It's even recommend to do so. Black Rhino is far from ideal, but much more modern than official kit.
Really needs more Linux testing. Programs, internet, web browsing etc.
I like the vga text mode being simulated in software I suppose :).
Looks like it's actually RHL-based. Disk Druid is a RHL feature.
Extra green is likely the bad cable, since you already suspect the cable's quality and the apparent lack of "good red depth". Extra VGAs should be cheap and easy though. Would love to see if Linux can update/upgrade that Linux build
ok i did that on 2006 and the installation disk was just a single dvd i swear. I had the EU version i cant recall and I DIDNT have this windows style installation. I had to make a lot od commands to install tbh and took sometime. Was very interesting back then.
EDIT : AND after seeing the whole thing even my version of th os inside was different!!?!?!? what the hell? It was mostly like a vista. I really really want to find my disk now
Is there a search engine in Ps2 linux?
Just so you know, It had been ruled a while ago that "Warranty void if removed" stickers are not binding.
Loved this video, would love if you could investigate if PS3 Linux is still accessible in any way
Cfw on the ps3
That Linode segue was actually impressive.
Man, I still have my PS2. xD
Same I still have the slim I got in 2006
Same