forums.ps2dev.org

Hi,

so after installing PS2Linux the last week and setting up xwindows I am finnally trying to run some apps on my ps2. I installed gaim without gnome as a package, but no connection was established (network and inet work! tested ping www.google.com and apt-get worked fine) so I guessed it could be a problem cause I use gnome so changed to gaim-gnome but where the hell is the executable file?!? gaim-gnome did not find anything! With typing gaim in xwindow before I changed everything workd just fine?!? And as I am asking for gaim what do I have to do to set up firefox. Just download the package from playstation2-linux.com and decompress the file type in make install and afterwards firefox to start firefox?!? In the end all I want to do is surf the net and use icq/gaim.

CU!

I'll make a howto after the last 2 points are working! So please help me!

Just found out that there are precompiled packages on playstation2-linux.com so I guess everything will work after decompressing them.
Hopefully a how to is coming soon. It's a nightmare to search for all those tiny little hints!

Firefox works thanks to ppietro but is a memory hog. I'm hopeful that Firefox 3 will be less memory intensive, but am not holding my breath. I mostly use and recommend Dillo and have compiled dillo-0.8.6-i18n-misc-20070916, but the precompiled version on the playstation2-linux.com site is fine for starters. If you insist on using Firefox (and I admittedly do when Dillo doesn't work with a site), here's a good setup:

1) If you don't run as root (I run as regular user mostly), "visudo" as root and add the following line replacing "username" with your username.
username ALL=/bin/mount, /usr/X11R6/bin/X
You can have more like umount, and other programs but these are fine for now.

2) Create a batch file called "ff" in /usr/local/bin with:
sudo mount
export DISPLAY=:0
mcookie=$(mcookie)
xauth add :0 . $mcookie
sudo X :0 -screen 0 NTSC,inter -auth ~/.Xauthority -nolisten tcp &
~/firefox/firefox
xauth remove :0

I use the "sudo mount" to get the root password prompt before running X in the background. After exiting Firefox you will get to the gray screen with the X, this is X-Windows. Press Control-Alt-Backspace to exit to prompt.

3) When the system boots up, make sure you are booting without starting X-Windows or a window manager, because the above runs Firefox without a window manager for performance reasons and starts X in a certain way (change NTSC to PAL or other as needed). You should also go into /etc/init.d and rename any daemons which are started that you don't want to start. Other than the kernel-related procs, when I run "top" I only have the following running at startup: sshd, top (of course when I'm running top only), syslogd, ksh, klogd, and init. I usually kill sshd before running Firefox just to maximize memory. With sshd running "ps -ef | wc -l" shows 20 processes (most are kernel mandatory). Hopefully this performance tweaking will make your Firefox experience on the PS2 almost useable.