Wii hacked at the Chaos Computer Congress

Its only a matter of time before we will be able to have bootable Linux CD/DVDs working on the Wii.

Check out this link for the other neat stuff the CCC is doing this year.

The Day my MacBook died

Merry X-Mass.

Yikes, I never thought I would see the day where a Mac bit the dust, but it has in fact done so. Specifically, the native hard-drive that came with the unit. I was able to save and back up the crux of my work but not everything.

This is a picture of the boot-up screen. I am now looking to get another SATA Hard-drive and a new installation of Leopard.

I am on my PowerBookG4 now, old faithful with a PPC chip-set (not the Intel)

It just goes to show that all machines are prone to wear and tear, I am not a snooty Mac user, and in Mac's defense it was just a hard-drive failure not a virus that bricked the thing.

Google's gPhone coming in February!?!

When I got the word on this, I couldn't contain myself. This will give us a base of code that we can be relatively assured of working. With Google's "summer of code" and the colossus resources at their disposal its small wonder they are able to get this out early.

Gentlemen, install your SDKs, and get ready to rock. With hardware units specifically designed to utilize Google's gPhone platform, this will allow pretty much everybody to program just about anything one can imagine. In the immortal words of Han Solo, "I can imagine quite allot".

Having a platform like this rocks...

Windows lesson #1, install Cygwin

This install is actually for our Android development. This will be a manageable development environment designed specifically with Windows users in mind. We are developing on the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE), we will be programing mostly in Java but will also program the lower device levels in C/C++ when Google releases accessibility to them.

This Windows clone will offer Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP (WAMP) integration, this is similar to Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP). Specially geared with specific applications to lessen the learning curve for new UNIX/Linux interfacing.

Windoze in one, SuSE, in another and Fedora 8 all housed in Tiger on my Mac.

Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows

Sorry to say this to Windoze, but without Cygwin XP would be severely gimped. Cygwin gives the full power of UNIX through your terminal window.



This is a good thing because the native C/C++ compilers allow programability from the get-go. I am looking at .NET to begin the testing of its integrity and security weaknesses. Keeping our Window proto-type in a virtual prison we are able to better safe guard our Windows specific applications and .NET web development.

We do this in sync with our open source equivalent, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on the Macs main operating system, since Macs are essentially BSD UNIX they already come with full UNIX functionality. The unfortunate fact of XP gimpness "mandates" the immediate install of Cygwin so XP would not suck so much.

Playing at being a game designer

Making games or more specifically developing them is something most of the game players out there would love to get a gig in. The Uberly cool games that are out there now, Halo 3, GTA (series), and many others have a decent replay value, great graphics, and everything else that makes games fun. I have worked at companies that have had these dream gigs for the lucky few that can read and write Assembler and C/C++ in their sleep and do the code work of at least 100 engineers.

It seems that in this industry, you got to be a God of code just to get an entry level intern position. Yes it is very tough, to get a gig in the gaming world. Unless you have a unique idea that has not infringed on any proprietary or patented copy-writes and that has fully demonstrable with your own source code and your own graphics and your own story line half way to market. The studios will give you a snub look and thank you for your time.

Game studios can be hard on many aspiring developers. If you are new to the game of game development and you are seeking a gig in it, best assume that the "creative" (read non-engineering and non-programming) positions have already been accounted for, typically by a manager with an accredited degree in Business Management and absolutely no clue (or a desire to learn about) new game technologies. After all that is why they hire Gods that can code the work of 100 engineers, to deal with the meddling details of actually doing the work.

This blog is dedicated to the aspiring developers that would, in addition to programming and engineering, like to try the creative roles that have typically been doled out to the nepotism pre-hand selected clueless administrative managers that don't code a lick of C/C++ but can make unreasonable requests and impose ridiculous deadlines.

So what are we looking at to click into this industry? Build it yourself, if you are not a God of code (yet), find others who have specialized talents to contribute. Compensate them, preferably with money, but recognition and status can play just as well, especially if they are in the same boat of scoring a gig.

The business of games so often includes more than just developing them, this is a multi-billion dollar industry with budgets that are well over several million dollars for a very good, tight team of engineers that can make the impossible, slightly probable.

Of course, now with the Internet and really inexpensive international development labor, one can almost be ones own game development studio. It is not uncommon for giant game studios to collaborate with teams that have been already proven and just needing a nice contract to be financed.

Windoze where it belongs...in Parallels

I installed Parallels right away, and in that Win-32 XP. This is one of the perks of having a Mac being able to run Windows in a virtually safe environment. I wouldn't run Windows on the bare metal of any box, but because most of the corporate world does windows I will to for show and when I want to get into the meat and potatoes of my professional operations I switch to MacBook mode.

I nuked my Mac...it's the only way to be sure

Total resurrection of the Black Beauty, it is the only way to to be sure, and slimed me down 50 gigs on my harddrive!!!

The first thing I did was upload Tiger updates, I am still trying to get a hold of a .iso

The Game of the Game Industry

The Game Industry is a dynamic and challenging environment. I have been engaging recruiters with various opportunities. In the midst of corporate uncertainty some want me to be a traditional employee with the traditional employee expectations under the typical employee constraints.

It is difficult for me to really figure out if being an employee is really any different than being a consultant. The same level of focus and commitment is typically required. I have always been of the opinion that contracting is always better albeit difficult sometimes more difficult to obtain. With the rise of recent layoffs being an employee gives a false sense of security and "permanent" positions are really not as permanent as as the pink slip holders would of hoped for.


I was recently contacted by several recruiters one in particular that supposedly has actual job offers for me if I would consent to becoming an employee and engage a permanent position, according to the recruiter I am having talks with apparently this is a standard practice in the industry.

I emailed off a Word resume (even though the same information can be downloaded from this blog). I have been curious about what this particular recruiter could bring to the table. The first time I had dealings with this particular recruiter, I was essentially told to buzz off and get some "real" game experience before he could help be land anything. So thats *exactly* what I did. Even went as far as to start my own development on the PS/3 and learn OpenGL development.

We will see just how permanent any offers that come my way will become.

Android (Java code)

The code will, be in the Java tounge. The Objects will make our develompent very easy, and ready made.

Truth be known. we should start our GUI code right away

/* the GUI Graphical User Interface code */
/* */
import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.*;

...the rest of the code

Android Set Up...

Ok, here is the first step, download the Android SDK, its freely available.

http://code.google.com/android/download.html

Also it is advisable to also download the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) called Eclipse, while it is not the only "option" out there some of the truly old school types can roll-there-own using emacs or vi as a text editor and maybe configuring by hand the Java path.

Here is the download link for Eclipse

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/


There is a plug-in that is required to develop Android under Eclipse

http://code.google.com/android/intro/installing.html

I myself can verify it installs and works correctly on MacBook (Intel) for both the Eclipse IDE, the Android plug-in and Android SDK.

On Windows it should install easily, but I do not have a Windows machine and cannot verify this.

On Linux, I am not sure, but if it installs on the Mac it should install on Linux platforms as well.

Google's Andriod

We are going to go into Google's Android development in developing games. It's a very powerful system which includes its own Operating System, middle ware and surface applications. By our understanding this wins hands down over Symbian and Windows CE for the very fact that it is a open-sourced software platform that is capable of being placed on any linux based handset phone and is capable of incorporating the hardware features within the chip set of the phone devices.

This is very cool.

The fact that it is capable of utilizing hardware on the handset it is installed upon gives it great flexibility and capability limited only by the hardware it is on.

The official language is Java, using the Sun compiler, but it can also be developed at the lowest levels in C/C++ giving it added granular flexibility to modify the lowest levels of the Android Operating System.

I would like Python to be used as one of the primary languages to develop this in. With direct access to the graphics acceleration and even low levels of the device (bluetooth, WiFi, etc.) This will make for a power.
One of the more inreging features is the fact that it is capable of OpenGL and

LAMP...in depth look.

The most popular open-source software is also the most free of bugs, according to the first results of a U.S. government-sponsored effort to help make such software as secure as possible. The LAMP stack of open-source software has a lower bug density--the number of bugs per thousand lines of code--than a baseline of 32 open-source projects analyzed.

The LAMP includes the Linux operating system, Apache Web server, MySQL database and a scripting language--PHP, Perl or Python. It has been pushing its way into mainstream corporate computing, a rival to Java and Microsoft's .Net.

In our analysis, more than 17.5 million lines of code from 32 open-source projects were scanned. On average, 0.434 bugs per 1,000 lines of code were found. The LAMP stack, however, seemed to show significantly better software quality, with an average of 0.29 defects per 1,000 lines of code. PHP, the popular programming language, is the only component in the LAMP stack that has a higher bug density than the baseline.

Other open-source projects we're scanned, we found that the Amanda back-up tool had the highest number of bugs per 1,000 lines of code, with a bug density of 1.237. The lowest was the XMMS audio player, with 0.051 defects per 1,000 lines of code.

In absolute numbers, most defects were found in X, the low-level graphical interface software for Linux and Unix. We found 1,681 defects in X, it said. With only six defects, XMMS also scored best in absolute numbers.

Our analysis looked for 40 of the most critical security vulnerabilities and coding mistakes in software code. The analysis can't be used to measure the security of open source code next to that of proprietary code because that code is not available for scanning without heavy de-compilations.

Linux Specific Development

Linux has the highest learning curb, with the biggest level of control over the device. Slackware Linux, Fedora Linux (Redhat), Yellowdog Linux all work off the same kernel, and can offer a plethora of intresting setups for the development enviorment.

Linux does come with all the tools you need, but they are not initially a very user friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface) and IDE (Intergrated Development Enviorment) solution out the gate. Everything is configured through simple text files creating a complex level of simplicity, which unfortunatly to many is still quite complex. If you are comming from windows you may be expecting dropdown menus, checkable boxes, etc. with Linux instead of these easy identifiable menus, one has to memorize a vast array of command-lines and be savvy to the location of configuration files to get things done.

We have Linux Yellowdog installed on our PS/3 unit, but it leaves much to be desired. Without access to the GameOS, we are restricted to the framebuffer to do any thing with graphics.

Sony does not want linux developers writing games for the linux side of the PS/3 and some could argue not even for the GameOS side without a very heavy licensing agreement that can cost thousands of dollars.

Mac Specific Development

With the Mac, the story is diffrent, and it is far from "standard" its enviorment is a hybrid of BSD UNIX and the GUIness of Windows, or vice versa. Macs are, well made and their OS really works well and solid. Like Linux we have had zero downtimes with these machines.

Game development seems amiss as the Mac is geared to just contemporary development. The tools are not "obvious" and may require some digging into the machine to find the right development tools, but they are there.

Macs do things just a tad diffrent than PCs, and its main interface has specilized tools Carbon and Coco that spins a slightly diffrent syntax than the core C++, but the Mac is capable of C++ programming with the C++ Tool framework.

We find that the development should be done through the OS's XCode, but the user is free to go the Linuxy gcc/subversion route, XCode gives a efficient veiw of the code, the source and binaries all in one place.

Macs are not known to be "game machines" but they are certainly capable of becoming them. OpenGL's direct compeditor DirectX obviously does not play well with the Mac platform. The only real way to "develop" with the .NET, XNA and DirectX suite is to either to install VMWare or Parrlles to actually run Windows or install Mono (the open source port to the .NET platform)

Wii Hacking direct from the CCC

This was so cool I had to share it.

Ubuntu Linux

For a change of pace we are exploring Ubuntu, a Linux distribution that has a Mac like quality. Since it has raised such a ruckus we want to see for ourselves.

Ubuntu is, at the time of this writing at version 7. The first time I personally installed it on my friends mini laptop it actually was pretty decent. Audio fired up without a hitch...Video, well was a bit more involved and complicated and required additional downloading and installing of the necessary CODECs because of the DMCA/MPAA bullshit.

Necessary evil, I suppose :/

....not

Linux will be a more influential Operating System without the encumbrance of any "commercial ties" that you have with Windows or even the Mac. With Vista being closed and still security "weak" by our standards and Mac, while still officially closed is close enough to an open-source model of the old standard UNIX/BSD to reference from.

It has more freedoms to do anything you want with it. One of our crew, is doing wonders with X. For a person who hates Graphical User Interfaces, being a line-command junkie its the best Graphical User Interface I have ever seen.

Stay tuned to our reports.

Game Developement...on Windows

Well, I figured we could start on the platform that game development is mostly programmed on. Microsoft, or MS is certainly a strong contender for the place of development. With the inception of XNA, .NET and ActiveX games for the XBox are becoming easier and easier to prototype market.

PS/3 has much to learn about creating a user friendly development environment for aspiring gamers, but from what I am told one is in the works.

So lets look at what we have

Win32

Win32 is probably the most "standard" of development environments in the game development biz, the core .NET, DirectX and XNA has made very successful tools for getting into the game development world and as a consequence has been way ahead of Sony's PS/3 in the game variety department, hands down.

Altho Microsoft has their own libraries that enable the 2D and 3D rendering capabilities OpenGL can be run on Wn32 units with the GLUT and OpenGL frameworks, practice with simple C level code for a logical library of solid C code, built with solid practices.

In regards to C++ in Windows, Visual Studio is probably the best one for its class. The ticket price is in the low to mid thousands of dollars, the windows system is buggy and prone to viruses and trojans and would not be a good to use the unit as anything other than a development client and even then in a virtual box (Parallels, etc.).

PS/3 Development...Where we are at.

Ok, everybody wants to know the "real deal" with the Linux-development-on-PS3.

And here it is....

There is none...yet.

Ok, lets be cool everybody, XBox in my book is the clear "current" winner in the development of games for there system. XNA kicks ass, period.

So you shelled out $600-700 for a PS/3, plus a wireless keyboard and maybe a game or two. Put it at a grand easy. If you have been following our blog, you should be at the point where you have Linux installed and the Wi-Fi working correctly, maybe even with Apache running....sweet.

But, you say, Halo3 is out and all my friends are playing the coolest game out. All I got was a PS/3 with little to no games and Linux running in very confined quarters that is governed by the Hypervisor.

Home, the Secondlife for PS/3 users has been delayed and GTAIV is delayed too.

So where do we stand?

Ok, lets look at the deal Sony paired us with.

Because of problems with access to the 2D and 3D acceleration on board the PS/3 their are complications involved with making the PS/3 as a game development platform under Yellow-dog Linux and developing in OpenGL.

So just what level of graphics support is available on the PS/3?

The short answer is very limited. At this point in time, Yellow-dog Linux runs in frame-buffer mode on the PS3, meaning there is no 2D no 3D acceleration and thus no direct support for OpenGL.

A work around is the x.org driver, as it is fully functional in its frame-buffer mode, offering quality support for a wide variety of hi-def televisions and computer monitors that comply with the PS3 video output signals.

The gameOS, of course has the full gambit of the device, the Linux side is severely gimped.

For now we are going to continue to develop OpenGL, but on our Macs or PCs. I will have instructions for both platforms.

A Gamer's Life

The original installment of The Gamer's Life.

A gamer who makes a game of life.

I am happy with the PS/3, for the most part. Runs Linux and Apache well, just a bit tricky when you have a SDTV.

Now it comes to my attention that Sony has special plans for the PS/3 and development on it and boy I am excited. I will get more details by Friday, on this.

Yellowdog Linux, so far, is not too bad. Doesn't come with many bells and whistles, however, its great to get used the Linux-Line-Commands. X Windows starts up without a hitch, but my SDTV does the resolution absolutely no justice.

We are working hard to save for a nice Viso at Costco that is 1080p.

Planets in OpenGL

Some new code, demonstrating spheres the large one, the Sun and the small one a planet.

Developed in OpenGL and GLUT with C. I modified the #include to accommodate Linux and Mac, this should compile on Win32 (Windows) systems.

I built this as a C++ tool, with Xcode and included the OpenGL and GLUT frameworks. I really like developing on my Mac, I can prototype code quickly and port it to other devices, including PCs and even embedded Linux devices, particularly cellular platforms.

Custom OpenGL games are certainly possible on advanced cell phones, units like Nokia's N93 & N95.

J2ME, is our current development platform for mass-production of OpenGL code ported from our C code.

Here is the source from our demo session.

robot.c from the OpenGL Redbook

This is the screenshot on my Mac.

Well here it is fully compiled from the Redbook, we modified the #include statements to incorporate more "dynamics" from this code using C and C++.

Fingers, as the Redbook suggests and maybe some texturing to make this look like a real robot arm. The possibilities are virtually endless with 700 functions to choose from, OpenGL and GLUT.

I am more for space and virtually replicating accurate space travel, in tune with our understanding with Physics and Gravity.

The fundamentals are always great to draw from, graphics and 3D code are always more flashy than system administration and network programming. But make no mistake, just because its "behind the scenes" doesn't make it any less important.

OpenGL cube demo

Hello everybody. Just finished with some OpenGL code to demonstrate the simple cube. This is the beginning of working with OpenGL and demonstrates color, shading, lighting, etc. Our source is available and is written in C using OpenGL and GLUT ported for the Mac.

I wanted to get this out so everybody could get there hands on the code and have fun with it. Our OpenGL and Game development group will demonstrate more OpenGL/GLUT code and also look into Microsoft's XNA. Our goal is to make some monster game developers for all platforms.

Also a big thanks for the giants at NeHe for their tutorials without which we would still be scratching our heads on how to make the cube spin.

Keep in tune with our blog for more details.

OpenGL oh, please do tell.

OpenGL site is almost finished, I have been pulling all nighters just to get the demos ready and properly commented. Of course the crux of this project is to build games for all of the consoles. OpenGL allows for a higher granularity of manipulation of the graphic API.

In the interest of getting some local support we are having OpenGL meetings for game and console developers to meet greet and exchange ideas. I am going to do a old school step-by-step presentation on "L" Linux and "A" Apache of our LAMP for the Yellow-dog Linux on the PS/3 console platform series.

When we build install configure and test "M" MySQL and "P" PHP, we will continue our series in our future scheduled talks. Time and place still to be determined, I would welcome all donations and or sponsorships for a lecture hall rental.

XNA (Playstation 3, get a clue)

Ok, XNA looks very impressive, from Microsoft?!?

Well we all have to learn sometime. Sony should get a clue from this. Allowing us to install Linux was taking two steps forward but their lack of support to aspiring game developers is taking one step back.

There is no argument from me that XBox360 kicks ass in the availability in the game development arena. Exclusive titles like Halo (need I say more?) gives the XBox360 the leverage that it needs to make its mark in the gaming community.

I will take sides with Sony on the quality of its system, the Other OS install option built into its menu. Absolutely no quams about that.

But I know a good *bet* when I see one with XNA, it writes half the code for you, so launching a game is very straight forward and ridiculously easy. But don't think that XBox360 will become a Linux server any time soon. The overheating problems still exist and Microsoft's official word is "You can make your games to play...if its done just how we say"

Wanna be in our XNA club? Cough up your dues.

Games on the Xbox 360 they will have to pay an annual fee of $99 (or a four-month fee of $49) for admission to the XNA "Creators Club".

Way less than Sony, but yet another bite into the starving students pocket book. My jury is still out on this, we are still working on the PS/3 console mostly due to the *lack* of games on it and the fact that, well, we have a working Linux server.

What a cool factor.

PS/3 Home...October

Well, we did not make the Beta for Playstation's Home. But its opening up to the commoners come October. We are looking forward to doing our Playstation 3 Development segment there as it will provide for a plethora of capabilities (video, audio streaming) built directly into it.

Of course, this will require a PS/3 console and should be a easy download (reports say about 500MB). Now we will of course do our streamining on our mother site (still under construction) and we provide links to follow along our creation of a PS/3 super console.

Apache2 on our PS/3

We did it, we got Apache2 running on our PS/3 console running under Yellowdog Linux.

PHP 5.2.3 is next, MySQL is already installed but we are also looking at PostgreSQL also. From there we are going to install the Cell SDK.

So far the added functionality of a Web server and development platform is nice. The PS/3 is much more than a game console and can easily double as a solid linux computer and all of the power Linux provides for.

I also installed Apache2 on our Mac (PPC and Intel) units, all in the terminal through a series of Unix/Linux standard line-commands (gzip, ./configure, make, make install, etc.)

iPhone revisited.

This is cool.

"www.wulf-pack.net"

Well I got the domain "www.wulf-pack.net" with the hyphen (-). I checked out the hosting service Guildhome they have PHP installed on their servers so they should work out for us.

They said it should be up and ready in 12 hours, we will ftp some php test pages and design this site in real time.

Our concept for the Wulf-Pack is simply a place where we can educate and demo new games our students design and show boat them for all to see.

Linux Apache MySQL & PHP (LAMP) segment.

I will take some time to go into PHP as much as possible. As we are setting up a PHP server both on our Macs and the PS/3 (Linux Yellowdog).

Our current technologies allow for some very power full tools to be developed. PHP v5.0+ is what we are working on. Yahoo uses PHP so scalability seems like a sure bet.

You can run PHP on what ever platform you have (Windows, Linux and Mac), the Windows version is very easy to install, Linux and Macs are more involved (but for all the right reasons). We are going to run this PHP experiment on our PS/3 on the Yellowdog partition and our personal Macs. One old (but stable) 17" PowerBookG4 and our black 15" Mac Book with the new Intel chipset.

We may do a Video demo for a Linux, Mac and Windows install in the future.

But this is the core of what we are dealing with

Linux, the Operating System
Apache, the Server
MySQL, the Database
PHP, the Browser scripting language

Linux
Yes Linux, don't be intimidated Linux has come a long way and can be hardened quite well. The operating system is quite versatile, but can be overwhelming. Their are various "flavors" of Linux, we are using Yellowdog Linux and Fedora Linux. There may be better "flavors" but for demonstrative purposes we will be working with just those two. Yes, Mac is included based on BSD so officially its UNIX.

Apache
The core web server provides the functionality for many scripting common language interfaces support mod_perl, mod_python, Tcl, and PHP. Popular authentication modules include mod_access, mod_auth, and mod_digest. A sample of security features include SSL and TLS support (mod_ssl), a proxy module, a useful URL rewriter (also known as a rewrite engine, implemented under mod_rewrite), custom log files (mod_log_config), and filtering support (mod_include and mod_ext_filter).

MySQL
The database to store ID_NUMBER, NAME, etc. anything from the price of the widget, the the amount of widgets in stock, the colour of the widget, etc.

PHP
The scripting language

N93 & N95 Development to port to PS/3?

This market is very hot. The N95 (and N93) has onboard OpenGL, meaning that games developed for these (devices) have an easier time to port to PS/3 consoles.

The OpenGL ES-CM 1.1 is running on Symbian OS 9.2, S60 rel. 3.1 operating system.

Here is a link for the stats of OpenGL. This is a very nice feature for the more advanced cellular devices. Mobile gamming is a very hot area. More people can afford cell phones over high-end PCs or expensive game consoles.

The nice thing about the N95 is the Bluetooth capability, WiFi capability and a capability to become its own AP (access point), this is a beautifull beast.



Key Points to game development on N95 mobile phones.

• MESSAGING: built in SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
• BROWSER: WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
  
• BLUETOOTH: Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
• IR: Yes (lazy geeks remote)

More to come on our development.

Cryptophone, the wiretapping work around?

Phones are now a target for no holds barred, unrestricted compromise by the governmental agencies. With the new laws of Homeland Security, citizens are forced to resolve their communication methodologies by looking on the other side of the pond.

In Germany, a company called Cryptophone

Right off the back I liked that all of their source would be freely available to the customer.

I was very interested in the CryptoPhone 220

So what do we have hear?

Secures your voice's privacy.

Strong and secure algorithms AES256 and Twofish, 4096 bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange with SHA256 hash function, Readout-hash based key authentication, Encryption key is destroyed immediately after the call ends, Source code available online for independent security assessments.

Works in any 900/1800/1900 GSM network (AT&T, T-Mobile for the yanks), etc. that provides data call facilities.

Only problem is no Mac or Linux support and apparently only runs on Windows CE.

They reason this by explaining:

"CryptoPhone mobile phones run on top of a heavily modified and stripped-down Microsoft
Windows Mobile for Pocket PC/Smartphone ROM. The reason is that we wanted an affordable and well researched platform that offered sufficient performance for the speech encoding and crypto functions.A Pocket PC based system was chosen as the first platform for CryptoPhone because it was the only sufficiently fast device allowed us to do software integrity protection in ROM and the stripping of unnecessary functions."

They go on to say...

"The only commercially available alternative at the time of the necessary development decision was Symbian. Symbian is even more closed source (Windows CE is open source for developers in most parts) and was available only on a more expensive hardware platform. There was (and still is) no viable mass-market Embedded Linux based hardware with sufficient performance, stability, hardware integration and availability on the market at decision time, so we were not able to pursue this alternative."

Well, I will admit to this that Symbian is much more locked down than Windows CE. I have personal experience with trying to deal with Nokia and they make it extremely difficult to get *any* development information from them without paying for the privilege to even see their (non-updated) APIs.

As far as no Linux mass market, I firmly disagree. It is bigger than what they think, its just so "open" that nobody has approached the right manufactures with the right hardware specs to accommodate the lack of sufficient performance, stability, hardware integration.

But yes, Linux, is in its infancy not for being one of the oldest Operating Systems, but more to the fact of commercial refinement and ultimatly corporate acceptance.

And the price, oh yes, of course, the price...

You see, the Devil, is in the details and the Devil, apparently doesn't keep the those details on his web site. You have to goto through Hell to get them. I am still waiting for word on my last query.

PS/3 R&D for free?

This is absolutely fantastic, and truly awesome. I have taken allot of flack from my friends over getting the PS/3. My argument was that, when utilized correctly, the system itself doubles as a cell development platform.

Yes, the system needs some "improvement" as far as the mitigating details on how to install, setup and configure the CELL SDK for the Yellowdog Linux operating system, but Insomniac has put their R&D notes out on the World Wide Web for anybody that wants to have a clue to have one.

Now thus far the only game (of Halo quality) I have seen out for the PS/3 is the Fall of Man series. They have tackled the tough challenges the PS/3 has need of developers to master.

In the CEO's own words;
"our current research and development in hopes of supporting the PS3 development community and enhancing overall development for its core technologies such as the CELL processor and RSX."

This is very encouraging for the development of future games, the "stand on the back of giants" method of R&D is a smart one. I would encourage everybody to check out their R&D notes their are no doubt issues they already tackled that will save future headaches for development of PS/3 games.

The iPhone (how does it really compare?)

No argument of its elegant design, sleek style and look, it scores top in my book of toys. Yes you heard toys.

Forcing one to have only one provider is like an expensive form of indentured servitude. And to add a 2 year contract on top of that already overly high price gadget.

Cingular is AT&T if anybody is wondering.

So what if you choose not to go with Cingular and don't subscribe to Cingular? Then the iPhone has just become a very expensive non-functional paper weight.

I am holding off myself, let it run a few generations to work out the "bugs" no doubt happened when they rushed to to get it to market on time. Meanwhile its Linux phones for me.

For now its a rich man's toy, want to impress the ladies with your Uberdom just whip it out and you are an instant talking piece.

As for me, an exclusive Cingular contract sounds like a large price to pay for a modified PDA/cell phone I'll pass for now.

But if they open up their sources, allow other carriers to service me and as long as the device has a blue tooth keyboard, we're in business in the near future.

Rant Alert.

[RANT]
Even when I have it I don't.

The capital was there, a deposit on Friday made me in accessible to over $3,500 of my clients check. A two day waiting period, I hate that.

Stuck me for the whole bloody weekend, fortunately I got the wheels specced out before and paid my associate before the weekend lock-down. I often think about how delicate a banking arrangement can be and am looking forward to banking in the UK for a while to test the waters there.

Sorry about the rant, it was just frustrating for me.
[/RANT]

We have Wireless....with YDL/PS3

After a whole weekend we were able to configure the embedded WiFi device in the PS3. It was not out of the box up and working, there is a detailed method to "update the YDL kernel" and "configuring the WiFi device" on the PS3 using YDL.

The devils in the details of this and special attention needs to be placed in the WiFi device to be attached to. Specifically, the ESSID, the Channel, etc. Which needs to be retrieved by logging into the DSL/Modem itself.

We tried it with WEP, but it choked on that and gave an error message (but I did see the little green flashing light on the PS3 console sputtering so I knew it was trying to work.

So thus far we have an install of YDL on a 10 gig area allocated for it.

Our impression so far...its a work in progress. Although Sony has stepped up to the plate and made its PS3 unit more accessible to alternate operating system installs we are still looking for ways to access directly with the totality of this device.

Unless someone finds a hole in Sony's Hypervisor, it won't ever be possible to use hardware video acceleration in Linux on the PS3 without hardware modification.

The Hypervisor, in fact, does something valuable: it makes it possible to install any PPC (Power PC) version of Linux, without special modifications. Without the Hypervisor, Linux would have access to the entire hard-drive, and in theory, it would be possible to overwrite the GameOS when installing Linux, so Linux distributions would have to be carefully crafted to the PS3 before a new Linux install could be initialized. It would be important to avoid formatting the drive when installing Linux. With the hypervisor, Linux can't actually see the GameOS partition, and can't write to it, making Linux installations much safer.

Of course the obvious downside of the Hypervisor is that Sony decided to make it impossible to use the on board video card on the PS3 from within Linux, which means the PS3 Linux experience is disappointing, unless you wanted to use your PS3 for word processing. It makes a decent low-powered server, but not a very good home theater PC.

Yellow Dog Linux

We decided to re-install with Yellow Dog Linux for its "built-in" wireless features specifically for the PS/3. We installed version 5.0.1 but were having problems with our SDTV. The screen would go blank while loading Linux.

This stumped us for a good day of scowering the forums for an answer. Finally, we found an artical explaining that installs of Yellow Dog Linux on a SDTV were diffrent than a HDTV. We had to type a specific "configuration" line-command.

We were able to resolve this by typing this line-command after the ' kboot> ' prompt.

kboot>ydl480i

PS3 with Fedora 6 Linux

Well after many days of guesswork I finally picked up a PS/3 unit. Yes the choice was tough but I relented on the fact that installing Linux on it was on of the perks.

The PS3 has some nice features, if one could bear the brunt of its intimidating price tag of $700, first off it is one of the most "powerful" game systems out there, built in blue-ray making it one of the inexpensive blue-ray players. Powerful does not mean the best, in-fact the Wii is far more fun to play and the XBox360 has a greater selection of titles. We will get into DirectX development and XBox/360 game development in the future.

But the main deal is the capability to install other Operating Systems. This may seem quaint by some, but the fact of this exercise is to experiment with different methods of development of the games themselves.

Fedora 6, is the linux operating system we are utilizing. Installation of another variant Yellow Dog Linux, was our first choice but due to some anomaly in our original install we were unsuccessful in the installation.

So Fedora 6 it is.

After downloading the PPC version of the Fedora operating system, we then had to download the CELL Linux ADDON CD ISO image, which has the boot-loader (kboot/otheros.bld) and instructions needed to install the PPC version of Fedora Core 6 Linux distribution.

The installation went "well" and everything seems to work so far. We are having trouble with the wireless from the Fedora Linux side. Line-command usage may be required as the GUI (startx command) is awkward on our TV.

Now not everything is "perfect" with Linux on PS3, right off the back we are having issues with the built-in wireless adapter.

Welcome to the Wulf-Pack

Welcome to the Wulf-Pack