[mythtv-users] OT: Mythfrontend on a Wii - ever posible?

Stroller linux.luser at myrealbox.com
Sat Jan 6 01:01:49 UTC 2007


On 5 Jan 2007, at 19:26, Jeff volckaert wrote:

>>>>> I, too, am curious about this. It seems like it might be  
>>>>> possible for
>>>>> somebody to implement the frontend as a Wii Channel rather than
>>>>> requiring that the Wii run Linux...
>>>>
>>>> In order to write a Wii channel, I'm assuming you'd need a licensed
>>>> Wii developer's kit, which is probably prohibitively costly.
>>>
>>> That depends upon your definition of "costly".
> By running as a Channel I assume that the code would need to be ported
> to the WII.  I don't think you would be able to compile any of the
> frontend code under the Nintendo platform.

Um, no... "porting" is by definition making the appropriate changes  
if something doesn't compile natively. I hope I'm understanding your  
point correctly.

> What about booting linux under the WII as a dedicated linux machine?

Good question, but as Mr Stanton observed, there's not much benefit  
to it (I meant to mention this myself in my previous posting. Honest!).

As a "channel", a FE could be run on an existing Wii "installation",  
and the user would be able to switch between games and TV fairly  
seamlessly. For someone who already has a Wii it'd allow the addition  
of MythTV without requiring an additional box plugged into the TV -  
I'm already running out of component-in ports!!

But using the Wii as a dedicated Linux box would surely lose you the  
ability to play games, so you might as well buy an Xbox, the purchase  
price of which is subsidised by Microsoft.

> I know the WII has an IBM Broadway processor, but does the linux
> kernel support that?

Surely so - as Wikipedia observes "Broadway" is PowerPC based; it's  
made in the same plant (and with the same process?) that fabricated  
G5 processors for Apple. The Wii is sometimes referred to as "an  
overclocked Gamecube" - it runs Gamecube games, and Linux already  
runs on the GC.

I guess there's not as much interest in Linux on the GC as on the  
Xbox, because it doesn't seem as well documented, but you can run  
Linux & mplayer on it. http://www.gc-linux.org/  The advantage of the  
Wii is that it has some built-in flash RAM for persistent storage, so  
you don't always need to boot from a CD / DVD (as you do with the  
GC); but the Xbox has a hard-drive with more storage space than the Wii.

> What I find interesting about the PS3 is that it has EIGHT cores
> (though one is disabled).

The Wikipedia article described the "eighth [as] disabled to improve  
production yields" - IE: you MAY get a PS3 with one core that is  
merely disabled, but on many Cell processors it is disabled because  
it's a production failure.

> Wow... according to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3 they already have Linux
> running on it, but the low 256 ram was a problem.  256 doesn't seem
> that low to me.

Linux is actually Sony-supported on the PS3. Ummm... I mean, you  
can't phone Sony for help with RPM issues, but Sony have encouraged  
this activity, and offer the tools required for partitioning the h/d.  
One downside of Linux on the PS3 is that it is not (supposed to be)  
possible to use the GPU's hardware acceleration.

Stroller.



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