Gotcha

Fine, I did it and it was easier than I was expecting. Just load Sony CD1, swap to CD2 and install like a regular RedHat7 system, than copy of the 2.2 kernel on a memory card. Booting still needs a similar SELECT+R2 press for PAL screen output. I modified /etc/X11/XGSConfig to comment out "pal interlaced" output in 50Hz. It took me 3/4 hour to complete the installation and ping my DMZ network through the wifi bridge.
For the fun, cpuinfo BogoMIPS on PS2 & AMD-K6-2/333:

#cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : MIPS
cpu model : R5900 V2.0
system type : EE PS2
BogoMIPS : 392.40
byteorder : little endian

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 5
model : 8
model name : AMD-K6(tm) 3D processor
stepping : 12
cpu MHz : 334.098
bogomips : 666.82