Posted: . At: 7:30 PM. This was 11 years ago. Post ID: 5878
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Playstation 4 console to be running the FreeBSD UNIX operating system.

FreeBSD deamon.
FreeBSD deamon.

The new Playstation 4 console will have the FreeBSD operating system running on it. This will provide a solid UNIX base for the gaming platform. The actual name of the operating system that will power the PlayStation 4 is Orbis OS, which is a Sony spin of FreeBSD 9.0. It’s not a huge surprise FreeBSD is being used over Linux, in part due to the more liberal licensing. The BSD license allows for the use of the open FreeBSD code in a proprietary platform. This is why the Windows operating system ships with the ftp command that is under the BSD license. The heart of the Playstation 4 is an eight-core AMD APU with ATI Radeon graphics. There are no ATI graphics drivers available for any BSD operating system right now, it can be surmised that the Sony developers will create their own proprietary BSD drive to power the system. And the open-source driver ported from Linux with Radeon KMS and Gallium3D is still in a primitive state. There is an NVidia driver available for FreeBSD, but the state of ATI drivers is poor, there are Catalyst drivers for Linux and Windows, but FreeBSD is lagging behind severely. That is why Sony should release the source code of any drivers that they create, this will greatly assist the FreeBSD developers even though the driver is for slightly different hardware.

This is the best idea that Sony have had for a long time. I only hope that they will learn to encrypt passwords in their databases. They keep suffering security breaches and this does not help their image at all. But if they can deliver a properly working UNIX powered gaming console that can compete with the privacy invading Xbox One console then they are on a winner.

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