[Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3

[Sergey Chaban]

> So you're saying that it should be very little
> effort indeed, being mostly PowerPC

That's my understanding anyway, based on my experience with Mono
and the limited info about PS3 that is available now.

> I imagine that
> Linux support on PS3 would be even better than PS2, given that Sony
> themselves will supply it on the (optional) hard drive.

Actually, the Linux Kit I'm talking about is an official Sony product,
it's unfortunatelly discontinued now (but there are always some on ebay).
See http://playstation2-linux.com for some details.
Because it was an official product supplied by Sony, it runs on an
unmodded PS2. The kit itself consist of two DVDs (one with installation
and another one is boot disk), network adapter, _hard_drive_, USB keyboard,
USB mouse, and monitor cable adapter, there is also printed installation instruction
booklet and PS2 documentation plus some extra tools and libs on one of the DVDs.
You need one spare memcard also, that is formatted during install and is used to
boot into Linux.
When it was still available from Sony it's price was around $150 (if memory serves).
Linux itself runs ontop of so-called Run-Time Environment, so you don't actually
have direct access to all of the hardware, i.e. IOP, DVD drive, sound hardware
are protected. But Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer are fully documented
and accessible.
The whole thing is most useful for those who want to get into PS2 graphics programming,
since official devkits are only available for registered devs (and are expensive).
It's possible to use it as a desktop computer but is not really practical.
In fact, there was similar hobbyist programming kit available for Playstation1
as well (called Net Yaroze), but it wasn't Linux-based.
So it's only logical if they will provide something like that for their new platform,
and most likely PS3 Linux will be _very_ similar to PS2 Linux kit.

Sergey