Sony's PlayStation 4 Is Running Modified FreeBSD 9

[Ibidem]

So they produced a silly comic strip that undermines the appearance of professionalism and maturity of the entire project, just because they got trolled by one person on a mailing list?

No. That's the illustrations for one of their release songs, and you need to read the notes to understand it. There's more provocation from rms than "trolled by one person on a mailing list".

[intellivision]

OxBADCODE's comments are really insightful

Anyone can write a post with ad hominem attacks against *BSD, that doesn't make it insightful or even correct.

[shadowriver]

A combination of the BSD POSIX-like APIs for basic OS/hardware services, some superior games-centric APIs (a port of the Direct3D 11 graphics API rather than the CAD-oriented OpenGL mess as one example), plus the console-specific Sony PSN/chat/profile/video/controller APIs.

Playstation 3 and Vita use libgcm not OpenGL and PS4 is expected to have same APIs. There no really need for Direct3D, MS marketing made people think that is something that makes things better and everything using it.... where only Windows and Xbox using it

[mrugiero]

Playstation 3 and Vita use libgcm not OpenGL and PS4 is expected to have same APIs. There no really need for Direct3D, MS marketing made people think that is something that makes things better and everything using it.... where only Windows and Xbox using it

It doesn't make things better, but a lot of graphics developers think it makes life easier for them. And that always reflects as better support for users. Of course, I think it wouldn't be wise to use it as the main graphics API on Linux, since it's directly controlled by MS, but I'm far from opposing its very use.

[tux9656]

I think Sony made a good choice with using FreeBSD. The FreeBSD kernel is lean and efficient and FreeBSD's UFS2 filesystem offers great responsiveness . I have tried wine gaming under FreeBSD and it was every bit as good as Linux, even running on ZFS (which is much faster than btrfs).

[Massa]

Sony has once again confirmed they're using FreeBSD:

"We would like to clear up a misunderstanding regarding our "direct" and "flexible" memory systems. The article states that "flexible" memory is borrowed from the OS, and must be returned when requested - that's not actually the case.

The actual true distinction is that:

"Direct Memory" is memory allocated under the traditional video game model, so the game controls all aspects of its allocation
"Flexible Memory" is memory managed by the PS4 OS on the game's behalf, and allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality. However this memory is 100 per cent the game's memory, and is never used by the OS, and as it is the game's memory it should be easy for every developer to use it.
We have no comment to make on the amount of memory reserved by the system or what it is used for."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-system-software-memory

[yogi_berra]

Sony has once again confirmed they're using FreeBSD:

It's a goddamn game console, as long as it runs the games people want to play no one gives a shit what OS it has installed on it.

[Massa]

It's a goddamn game console, as long as it runs the games people want to play no one gives a shit what OS it has installed on it.

People that post on tech forums give a shit.

[yogi_berra]

People that post on tech forums give a shit.

They have pills for that, now.

[Massa]

They have pills for that, now.

Be sure to let us know how that's working out for you.