Some general questions

[citronalco]

Sorry to bother you again, but although I've read lots of postings on psx-scene I still have some questions:

toolchain

• Is there a reason why you have picked binutils 2.24 as default for linux-dev and not 2.29? I have not tested 2.29 in depth, but to me it looks fine. 2.29 would also be compatible to gcc 6, which is required to compile the buildroot.
• In binutils 2.25.1 there's this commit rickgaiser/binutils-ps2@d94c88a that works around an error in R5900 regarding loops. Maybe I missed it, but it looks like it's neither in 2.24 nor in 2.29. Is there are reason for that?

linux

• As far as I understand branches ps2-v2.6.35.14 and ps2-v3.8 are both in an equal and pretty good shape, the other branches can be considered experimental?

kernelloader

• If I remember correctly it was not that easy to get audio in Linux working. Is that still the case and, if yes, what's required to get it going?

Thanks for your time.

[rickgaiser]

No problem. I don't have much time but it's good to still see some interest in this project and I'm happy to help.

Binutils 2.24 is the last working version. Since 2.25.1 there is a bug inside binutils for the r5900. The short loop bug was patched in both gcc and binutils if I'm not mistaking. So I don't think you'll need it if it's already in gcc (is it?). Buildroot and linux currently both use gcc 6.3 and binutils 2.24.

You're right about the linux branches. ps2-v2.6.35.14 has the most features, and ps2-v3.8 has most basic features working (but things like memory card support is not working for instance). The rest are topic branches and should be considered for testing / work-in-progress. The ps2-v3.8-dma-drm is a very interesting, but not finished branch :).

Audio is not really a kernelloader thing. You'll need to load the right IOP modules, then have a driver on the Linux/EE side that communicates to that IOP module. Loading IOP modules was previously done using kernelloader, but should now be done using the linux firmware loading interface. If you want to get audio working you should first try to get audio working with a simple ps2sdk hello world type program. Then try to port that to a linux driver.