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walsufnir on 24 June 2013
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allenmaher said:
ironmanDX said:
Why don't they just develop their own OS based around the hardware? They started the PS4 in 2007 wasn't it?


An OS is a monumental task to develop, OSX is based off of BSD as well.  A lot of computer apliances will use linux or a BSD varient, but there are some comercial systems that are still around like QNX.  What almost all of them have in common is a general unix like foundation (and POSIX compliance).  So things like Direct X are irrelivant to everything except a windows device (the others use OpenGL which is what the hardware speaks anyway).

As  to the rest of the thread...

The interesting bit is that BSD has  very poor driver support from AMD.  BSD generally performs slower than linux on most tasks (except networking where it can be as good or better for serving up lots of web materials).

All of these non windows systems have very low overhead compared to a windows mahine. They need less ram, hard drive room, and fewer clock cycles for the OS.  A full fledged OS with all apps (ful office suites, etc..) in a recent version of Ubuntu for instance is 4-18 GB and comfortably runs in a gig of ram for most uses while multitasking.  Windows 7 is about 7 GB before you install a single application for comparison.  Windows 8 is 10-13 GB and needs 2 GB of ram.  A minimal linux/BSD/QNX install, like what console/appliance makers use is very small, Puppy linux runs in 165 MB of disk space and 128 MB of ram.  A minimal Ubuntu linux install like the steam box is using will likely end up needing  200-500 MB of drive space.

For the record, Android is Linux based, IOS is BSD based, Blackberry is QNX, etc..

I don't know what kernel the PS3 is based on.  I am damn curious what the WiiU's is based on, given the size of Nintendo (employees 5k) I doubt they have built completely from scratch.

What does a FreeBSD kernel mean for PS4? Decent system security, low overhead, minimal system resources for the OS. If AMD have made decent drivers for it, it should work well.


The overhead between Windows and a Unix running with Xorg and Gnome is mostly the same, also ram-usage. It's only better when acting as a server. Also there are no amd-drivers - Sony has a special team for drivers. Take a look at this guy: https://twitter.com/postgoodism

Also keep in mind that also MS knows of overhead - that is why the dashboard only uses 32 mb on 360 :)

Both have optimized drivers, API and in general kernels for gaming.