PS2 Operating system

[tecahftw]

So I took apart my slim ps2 and plan to mod it but one question? could I overclock this and add more ram to run a small os

[kendrick]

Welcome to GamesX. The simple answer is yes, you could run an operating system on a PS2 if you really wanted to. It's theoretically possible to take something open source, like a build of BSD or Linux, and port it to the custom chips in the Playstation 2. You'd then have to recompile applications to be able to run there.

The follow-up question is, why would you bother? The reason that the Dreamcast and the original Xbox had so many alternative OS options is because they both used off-the-shelf CPU chips. There are tons of systems outside of Windows already compiled for the Hitachi SH-x and Intel x86 series. Anything you could do on PS2 hardware could be done faster, better and cheaper on almost any modern computing platform.

[Andy-Antsinpants]

My guess is overclocking and expanding RAM size isn't useful with game software. Neither would it be easy to implement, nor would it solve any issues with low frame rates and screen resolutions on certain games.

Running a different OS has been done with the official PS2 Linux kit, and a Basic interpreter (or some sort of) was available on the pack-in Demo disc shipped to some countries. The latter wasn't breathtaking at all, and (I just guess) the same goes for the former.