3 ms·

Not to spoil the fun, but is it really still a "Nintendo Wii" if you replace the stock OS? The identity of a "Nintendo Wii" is the combination of its enclosure

Not to spoil the fun, but is it really still a "Nintendo Wii" if you replace the stock OS? The identity of a "Nintendo Wii" is the combination of its enclosure, hardware, and software. To take only the enclosure and hardware and keep calling it the same thing is absurd. Where does it end? What if I keep the enclosure, but replace guts with an Xbox? Is it still a "Nintendo Wii"?

s_dev 5mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus You can draw the line wherever you like but for me it is still a Wii even with a different OS. I would draw the line at replacing the hardware inside with XBOX hardware. Others may draw the line at the chassis.
mghackerlady 5mo ago
no, then it's an xbox in a wii shell. I'd say having two out of three makes it a wii. Plus, there really isn't anything stopping someone from writing a web server for the wii, it's just that running a different os makes this silly task much easier
- tantalor 5mo ago
  > two out of three makes it a wii So if I stick a modern hardware PC running a Wii emulator inside a Wii shell, then it's still a Wii?
  - bombcar 5mo ago
    This strikes at the root of the Biggest Controversy™ - if you beat a video game arcade cabinet on an emulator, did you beat it? Things can be named analogously - if I have a machine that plays Wii games for me, and nothing else, I'll call it "the Wii".
    - mikepurvis 5mo ago
      > if you beat a video game arcade cabinet on an emulator, did you beat it? Yes for the purposes of your own personal sense of achievement, no for the purposes of speedrun records.
    - ssl-3 5mo ago
      I have an old PSP that has only ever been used to play emulated NES games. Shall I call it an NES?
      - mghackerlady 5mo ago
        Does it boot straight into NES games? Does it have an NES cartridge slot? Or controllers? What about the never used expansion port on the bottom? Is it in a NES shell?
        ssl-3 5mo ago
        > Does it boot straight into NES games? No. > Does it have an NES cartridge slot? No. > Or controllers? No. > What about the never used expansion port on the bottom? It does have an expansion port that I've never used. > Is it in a NES shell? No. > [so it's not an NES, then] It's mine, and I can call it whatever I want. :P
        mghackerlady 5mo ago
        >It does have an expansion port that I've never used. so not an NES one, then >It's mine, and I can call it whatever I want. :P that's fair, I call my switch lite a playstation 7. It'd be disingenuous to present it to others as an NES, however. If it meets most or all the criteria above, then it wouldn't be
  - mghackerlady 5mo ago
    It depends on how fully it emulates a wii and what restrictions it would have, but I'd say if the thing quacks and functions like a wii (you have support for the controllers, the disk drive, network things, etc.) it could be called a wii
john_strinlai 5mo ago
i personally consider "running on X" to be accurate if it is still X's hardware
zen928 5mo ago
Absolutely not. Ruins the rest of the charade when you say "okay, now let's just step around the hard part and instead replace it with a different OS to make it cookie cutter". Wow, you can run a server on hardware constrained stock BSD ...? ... cool ....
- malicka 5mo ago
  I think it’s still cool enough to get the OS running in the first place; and there’s still novelty in using something for a purpose completely unexpected, even if the last few steps are cookie-cutter.
- sjmulder 5mo ago
  A 'charade'? Just having some fun running NetBSD on unusual hardware and learning something along the way. There's no cheating some imaginary game you seem to think I'm participating in.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
sjmulder 5mo ago
It would be a fun project to do a homebrew HTTP server (and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been done already) but in this case I actually mean to replace my Pi 'home server' with this Wii, and for that I want SSH, git, web, mail, and all that, so practically, NetBSD was a good option. There's also the fact that there's a modern, up-to-date Unix distribution for this in the first place, how cool is that.

s_dev 5mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus You can draw the line wherever you like but for me it is still a Wii even with a different OS. I would draw the line at replacing the hardware inside with XBOX hardware. Others may draw the line at the chassis.

mghackerlady 5mo ago

no, then it's an xbox in a wii shell. I'd say having two out of three makes it a wii. Plus, there really isn't anything stopping someone from writing a web server for the wii, it's just that running a different os makes this silly task much easier

tantalor 5mo ago
> two out of three makes it a wii So if I stick a modern hardware PC running a Wii emulator inside a Wii shell, then it's still a Wii?
- bombcar 5mo ago
  This strikes at the root of the Biggest Controversy™ - if you beat a video game arcade cabinet on an emulator, did you beat it? Things can be named analogously - if I have a machine that plays Wii games for me, and nothing else, I'll call it "the Wii".
  - mikepurvis 5mo ago
    > if you beat a video game arcade cabinet on an emulator, did you beat it? Yes for the purposes of your own personal sense of achievement, no for the purposes of speedrun records.
  - ssl-3 5mo ago
    I have an old PSP that has only ever been used to play emulated NES games. Shall I call it an NES?
    - mghackerlady 5mo ago
      Does it boot straight into NES games? Does it have an NES cartridge slot? Or controllers? What about the never used expansion port on the bottom? Is it in a NES shell?
      - ssl-3 5mo ago
        > Does it boot straight into NES games? No. > Does it have an NES cartridge slot? No. > Or controllers? No. > What about the never used expansion port on the bottom? It does have an expansion port that I've never used. > Is it in a NES shell? No. > [so it's not an NES, then] It's mine, and I can call it whatever I want. :P
        mghackerlady 5mo ago
        >It does have an expansion port that I've never used. so not an NES one, then >It's mine, and I can call it whatever I want. :P that's fair, I call my switch lite a playstation 7. It'd be disingenuous to present it to others as an NES, however. If it meets most or all the criteria above, then it wouldn't be
- mghackerlady 5mo ago
  It depends on how fully it emulates a wii and what restrictions it would have, but I'd say if the thing quacks and functions like a wii (you have support for the controllers, the disk drive, network things, etc.) it could be called a wii

john_strinlai 5mo ago

i personally consider "running on X" to be accurate if it is still X's hardware

zen928 5mo ago

Absolutely not. Ruins the rest of the charade when you say "okay, now let's just step around the hard part and instead replace it with a different OS to make it cookie cutter". Wow, you can run a server on hardware constrained stock BSD ...? ... cool ....

malicka 5mo ago
I think it’s still cool enough to get the OS running in the first place; and there’s still novelty in using something for a purpose completely unexpected, even if the last few steps are cookie-cutter.
sjmulder 5mo ago
A 'charade'? Just having some fun running NetBSD on unusual hardware and learning something along the way. There's no cheating some imaginary game you seem to think I'm participating in.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

sjmulder 5mo ago

It would be a fun project to do a homebrew HTTP server (and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been done already) but in this case I actually mean to replace my Pi 'home server' with this Wii, and for that I want SSH, git, web, mail, and all that, so practically, NetBSD was a good option. There's also the fact that there's a modern, up-to-date Unix distribution for this in the first place, how cool is that.