[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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