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wraggster
April 6th, 2006, 22:14
Freedom Fry (http://www.psphacks.net/content/view/763/2/) has announced his port of ucLinux to the PSP.

From the original Post:
This is a Release for all the non believers and elitist "hackers" in the "scene". After some weeks of hacking i made it. Yet another time the REAL breakthrough stuff comes from FRANCE!!!

WARNING: It doesnt do anything useful yet. It also runs in kernel mode which means incase of a malfunction anything could happen including bricking your PSP (although very unlikely, i have run it a hundred times during development).

I will release the source (or maybe only patches) in the next days. Give me some time to recover first.

More info

A tiny Bootloader made with the opensource PSPSDK is used to initialize the Memory and a little bit of the Hardware. It decompresses the ucLinux kernel into Userspace and runs it. Currently it relies on the Display Hardware beeing initialized by the PSP Operating system (and PSPSDK) to make the Framebuffer Console work. As you can see from the dmesg, this is also pretty much the only thing that works at all.

Screenshots and Download Via Comments

EDIT by DraconumPB: Beware of this software until it is fully tested! A version of this runs on iPod as well, but I have in the past bricked a first-gen iPod by installing this (it did run but eventually caused an endless boot-loader loop). As stated it runs in kernel mode and therefore can really mess with your PSP and cause damage to your PSP that can't be repaired. However, this is still an excellent effort towards linux running and operating on PSP without emulation!

The_Ultimate_Eggman
April 6th, 2006, 22:29
WOW !!!! could this be the building blocks to a linux based OS on the PSP I hope so Fkin awesome work guyz !!! Plz like linux make the source available.I know u will !!

bullhead
April 6th, 2006, 22:30
I know im saying something that sounds stupid but, What is this? What is uclinux? Thanks.

sroon
April 6th, 2006, 22:31
So does this run on the PSP or do you make stuff on you computer, then put it on your PSP?

pepegomez
April 6th, 2006, 22:46
linux is a os based on unix. a kernelaccesthing. i dunno much about that...
but its an os like windows but more comfortable for pros

kyle2194
April 6th, 2006, 22:49
Yep, and uclinux is the type of linux that runs on my ipod also! I wonder if podzilla runs on my psp.

idapimp
April 6th, 2006, 22:52
linux kicks ass. this is a cool developement. maybe it'll lead up to someone porting say maybe...gentoo, debian, or redhat... i'd be in heaven

Apoklepz
April 6th, 2006, 23:08
KICK ASS!!! Oops can I say that here?

Cooe14
April 6th, 2006, 23:36
That's pretty cool but i think someone should try and get BII running better instead. I would prefer mac os 8 over linux and BII already runs the full os just not that well. Is this form of linux text based because that's what it looks like from the screenshots?

dcmain
April 7th, 2006, 00:32
Oh, first post.

MacOS may be more user friendly, but your comment implies you havn't used Linux much! Basically, linux has a massive number of open source programs that can be made (often with no modification) to compile on any different version of linux you may be using. By version, I mean whatever platform you might be using it on. Linux can run on the old PowerPC mac processors, Intel and AMD x86 chips, and just about every single other chipset used in the last 10 years.

The point of using linux over a different os is that it can be adapted to almost any purpose, and a really psp-oriented gui could fairly easily be constructed to fit this version of linux for the psp!

It would be great to get BII working better, because any development for the psp is cool, but linux is a massive, massive thing to get working - it opens up so much other stuff.


All versions of linux are sortof textbased, underneath, but on top of that you get all the good stuff.

UCLinux is a special type that doesn't require a certain chip on the motherboard, I think it's called a real-time clock, or something... Anyway, normal linux kernels do need one, UClinux doesn't, so it's more easily ported to portable devices (like the iPod!).

Phew. I'm going to bed.

Oh, and podzilla probably wouldn't work very well, it's integrated quite tightly into ipod linux, isn't it? it probably uses all sorts of iPod specific hardware things. However, if you really, really wanted, you could get the source and slice all the ipod bits out and compile it. Good luck with that ;).
In theory, any linux app could be adapted to work (and work well, not like an emulated version of windows!) on the psp, if linux would work in the first place.

Dom

DustinFraze
April 7th, 2006, 01:25
Oh, first post.

MacOS may be more user friendly, but your comment implies you havn't used Linux much! Basically, linux has a massive number of open source programs that can be made (often with no modification) to compile on any different version of linux you may be using. By version, I mean whatever platform you might be using it on. Linux can run on the old PowerPC mac processors, Intel and AMD x86 chips, and just about every single other chipset used in the last 10 years.

The point of using linux over a different os is that it can be adapted to almost any purpose, and a really psp-oriented gui could fairly easily be constructed to fit this version of linux for the psp!

It would be great to get BII working better, because any development for the psp is cool, but linux is a massive, massive thing to get working - it opens up so much other stuff.


All versions of linux are sortof textbased, underneath, but on top of that you get all the good stuff.

UCLinux is a special type that doesn't require a certain chip on the motherboard, I think it's called a real-time clock, or something... Anyway, normal linux kernels do need one, UClinux doesn't, so it's more easily ported to portable devices (like the iPod!).

Phew. I'm going to bed.

Oh, and podzilla probably wouldn't work very well, it's integrated quite tightly into ipod linux, isn't it? it probably uses all sorts of iPod specific hardware things. However, if you really, really wanted, you could get the source and slice all the ipod bits out and compile it. Good luck with that ;).
In theory, any linux app could be adapted to work (and work well, not like an emulated version of windows!) on the psp, if linux would work in the first place.

Dom

That "certain chip" is the memory management unit. It is also why "any linux app could be adapted to work" is a falsehood. I'd be *really* surprised to see X working on this thing.

However, I don't mind not having X. Awesome development.

kyle2194
April 7th, 2006, 01:28
Hellow DCMain. Welcome to DCEMU!

csd-san
April 7th, 2006, 01:51
X could work. Maybe not horribly well, but I really think it could... seeing as all PSPs have the same internal hardware, this could be optimized like hell. I hope nobody expects to have a heavy desktop environment though.

pakkman781
April 7th, 2006, 03:18
uClinux is a linux specially build for devices without memory management units or embedded systems. In otherwords, it runs on very limited hardware ;)

This is great! Finally, linux natively on the PSP! Perhaps we can get a windowing environment like GPE (http://gpe.handhelds.org/) running on it, then a good web browser!

CoderX
April 7th, 2006, 03:36
Great a Linux Kernel running nativly on PSP.

Ill have to create a nice eviroment for it native to the psp.
Linux is my Home, ill take this little app to the next level

Give me a week and ill have a psp Linux GUI

O wait, no sorce :mad:

Cap'n 1time
April 7th, 2006, 06:06
cool. opens up alot of possibilities for future applications on the psp.
miniGUI is always a possibility (works wonders on my old pocketpc)
http://www.minigui.org/whatis-os.shtml
http://linuxdevices.com/files/misc/minigui_ecos_phone.jpg

Also I just read somewhere that dillo has been ported to minigui meaning a web browser is certainly possible.

dcmain
April 7th, 2006, 19:17
Hellow DCMain. Welcome to DCEMU!

Thanks! :)

And, DustinFraze, I admittidly don't know much about uclinux, and have no idea where that realtime rubbish came from, but I can't think of a good reason why some form of X couldn't run. As a said though, I don't know much about what limitations uclinux has.

Regardless, it's cool, and I just hope this guy releases the source soon, fully working or otherwise, so we can tinker with it :D .

StealthCP
April 7th, 2006, 19:28
It does look pretty cool, however, I have reason to suspect it's fake. I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like a console print program to me. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

1. When loading it from PSP iR Shell, it has the exact same amount of free memory (21512k) as if it were booted from the XMB menu.
2. It supports sleep mode, even whilst it is loading ramdisk.
3. It takes the exact same time, all the time to arrive at the Kernel Panic, at which point the PSP should have stalled, and not function with the shutdown code.
4. When uncompressing the kernel, it does not access the memory stick. In total, only one flick of the memory stick access LED is seen upon startup.
5. When using a process monitor, it is using virtually no resources at all, and has very little output.

As I said before, I hope I'm wrong, as a large group of my school's PSP club are Linux users, and they are eagerly awaiting a usable version of the kernel.

dcmain
April 7th, 2006, 19:33
Oh dear, that is some damming evidence...

there's no reason why it shouldn't take the same amount to time to panic each time, but the rest is a bit suspicious. Damn it, it's very suspicious.

Especially the memory & sleep mode ones. Some of my homebrew doesn't even support sleep mode, which makes it seem very unlikely that a pre-alpha linux kernel would.

It may very well be fake, which would be a real shame. I hate faking.

DraconumPB
April 8th, 2006, 08:10
FYI guys, I did once brick a 1st-gen ipod with this software... so beware! I think it was an EARLY version. but what happened was, I got in a boot-loop where it wouldn't boot either the ipod firmware OR the uclinux firmware... so... all I'm saying is, be really careful and I'd advise against using it until it's extensively tested.

Not to knock this software effort, it's really incredible, but as stated, it can really mess with your PSP if something goes wrong.

BY THE WAY it would be silly for someone to fake this. It already runs on ipod. I've tested it before. There's no reason why someone would claim that it would run on a psp when it actually doesn't ;)

DustinFraze
April 8th, 2006, 16:52
It does look pretty cool, however, I have reason to suspect it's fake. I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like a console print program to me. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

1. When loading it from PSP iR Shell, it has the exact same amount of free memory (21512k) as if it were booted from the XMB menu.
2. It supports sleep mode, even whilst it is loading ramdisk.
3. It takes the exact same time, all the time to arrive at the Kernel Panic, at which point the PSP should have stalled, and not function with the shutdown code.
4. When uncompressing the kernel, it does not access the memory stick. In total, only one flick of the memory stick access LED is seen upon startup.
5. When using a process monitor, it is using virtually no resources at all, and has very little output.

As I said before, I hope I'm wrong, as a large group of my school's PSP club are Linux users, and they are eagerly awaiting a usable version of the kernel.

I hadn't got a chance to run it before last night. I gave it a run, and now I agree with you, though for different reasons. Most of the reasons you provided could be explained away by saying that the Linux kernel is replacing the PSP kernel, and as such, it takes over those functions.

The most damning thing, to me, is that Tux is rendered in the corner before memory checks or anything else. Now, this *could* be a ucLinux difference (*very very doubtful*), but normal Linux kernels don't display Tux in the corner until after the framebuffer is initialized.

However, I'll give that this person was clever. psp-strings doesn't show any of the strings displayed on the screen. It's very possible that something is compressed in here.

As for why this was done as a joke, I'm not too sure, but perhaps the "release date" was April 1st, and psp-news picked up on it a bit late, due to the recent down time.

EDIT:
Also, add in to the doubt that the audio buttons still work. I turned the volume all the way up, booted "Linux", and pressed the volume buttons several times. Then, rebooted. No volume. Some piece of software is in place, adjusting mixer levels. However, this is before the point in the kernel where the mixers are loaded (and there is no mention of the audio driver in the dmesg).

I guess that also makes me right about this never running X... :p

blaz3d
April 25th, 2006, 00:41
linux kicks ass. this is a cool developement. maybe it'll lead up to someone porting say maybe...gentoo, debian, or redhat... i'd be in heaven

Damn Small Linux all the way, gr8 effort dude cant wait till we see every port everyone wants released!

again gr8 job

pepegomez
April 25th, 2006, 18:07
if u havnt mentioned it yet.
this has been proofed as fake...
its just a text

xXSujoXx
May 23rd, 2006, 21:36
cool but..