The PS2 is a powerful machine that has the potential to be used in a lot more ways than just a games machine. Currently there are a number of different avenues you can take to start developing programs for your PS2. Depending on your interest and funding you can take one of the following paths.

PS2DEV has become the keyword on the internet to identify the home brew development community. These are people that use open source, GPL & free software to develop programs for their PS2. This web site is all about PS2DEV; building the community and tools to make it easier for anyone to get started programming their PS2. If this is what you're looking for, read the following tutorials and get started.

Sony released linux for the PS2 in 2002. This is more than just linux on a disk. It includes a hard drive, LAN connection and other bits and peices to turn your PS2 into a linux machine. To protect their investment in the console, Sony have placed a hardware abstraction layer. This means that currently we are unable to run a similar linux environment using only open source material. This may change in the future.

If you write programs for PS2 linux only other users of PS2 linux will be able to run your code.

Visit the playstation2-linux.com web site for more information.

If you have plenty of money to throw around you could always approach Sony for an official development kit. This will involve Non Disclosure Agreements and plenty of official information.