Slashdot Mirror
LinuXbox Boots
ducker writes: "Finally Xbox is ready for some real fun! Linux can be booted now ... just check out http://www.xbox-scene.com - Linux boots into a network-enabled state, running a web server and telnet, which allows you to log into the box from another machine. It can be booted either from flash memory, or (more easily) from a CD inserted into the machine. (The Xbox still needs to have a modchip fitted to allow it to run unsigned code)."
(The Xbox still needs to have a modchip fitted to allow it to run unsigned code)
And if Microsoft's political engineering team has their way, you'll need one to run an "untrusted" OS on any machine! The joy!
Basically this is a micro distro that fits either on 1MByte of flash in the xbox / in a modchip, or is also able to boot from an unsigned XBE on a CD. After booting web services, telnet, etc are available. We added a small precooked default website on the box; after booting visiting http://192.168.0.64/ (the default IP for the box) brings up this page direct from your box.
We hope to issue a full distro that boots into X in the next couple of releases, with video, USB and audio up.
So are they going to get the $200,000 (or whatever it was) that was put up a couple of months ago to the first person to get Linux running on the XBox? (The story was run here on Slashdot, but thanks to Slashdot's incredibly shitty search system, I can't find it)
It'd be nice to see if whoever it was sticks to their word.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Do you mean we are few months from gettin MAME for XBox, or that the port of Linux means that we are a few months away from a MAME port? I ask because you may not be aware that MAME has already been poted to Xbox
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
Not sure what they go for in the US, Linux on XBox means that for $299 Canadian, I can pick up a webserver / NWN server / mail server / whatever server.
That's a good deal. And it'll bug Microsoft, as MS is losing money on each and every XBox being sold, and instead intends to recoup their loss via software license fees.
I'm starting to get sick of playing all those flashy professionally-made games on my high end gaming machine. Now I can finally play classic games like Tuxracer, Freeciv, fortune, and hangman and leave all those crappy multi-million-dollar Xbox games on the shelf. Thank you, hackers, for bringing Linux' superior game selection to the Xbox!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Whoah! Linux running on Intel hardware! What will these crazy Linux hackers think of next...
I think the Xbox is a little more powerful than a Dreamcast.
Dreamcast had better games.
My other first post is car post.
2) From a message on LKML:
3) And finally, from a reply: Draw your own conclusions."The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
and my coffee pot is 100% Pure Java(tm).
Why not ask MS to sign the linux kernal on the X-Box?
I'm not sure what it takes to ask for a signing but it would provide interesting fodder for the Dept of [in]Justice.
It'd be the perfect Catch-22 to put Micro$oft in. If on the 1 hand they deny it then it looks bad for the predatory practices they've been doing. If they allow it, then it'd be good all around but not so good for M$ as they'd have to bump up their prices to a self-sustaining level and wouldn't be able to leverage their cash cow.
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
The X-Box is at the confluence of several bad trends in the world.
1) The trend towards evolving a 'perfect customer', a sheeplike animal which only consumes and offers money. Such creatures may never contribute, it would be competition for the attention of the other sheeplike creatures.
2) The introduction of extraordinarily overzealous punative Intellectual Property laws. The patent laws again are designed to stop people being able to contribute by making a land-grab of concepts on behalf of established interests. You are just not allowed, by dint of fines and imprisonment, to contribute in the areas these corporate barons have fenced off.
And if you try to go around that, the barons are ready with the copyright law, EUCD, DMCA.
3) The cross-ownership of Intellectual Property driven corporations and Media companies, which leads to...
4) The meekness of our representatives in government. They are there to represent the interests of the people that voted them in. Instead they represent their own interests by pandering to the powerful media corporations, who hold out the dreadful stick of public humiliation in their outlets (or worse, no coverage at all), and who knows what kind of porkbarrel carrots
5) The sleight of hand that takes money but delivers no ownership. Evil licenses. You buy software - but do you own it? What happens when that extends to physical hardware like the xbox itself? Already MS issue licenses that deny you the right to print comparitive benchmarks. You want things to extend down that path, controlling your rights to utilize physical objects that you paid for, with punitive laws enacted by your own gutless government to back them up?
6) Palladium. With the force of the DMCA/EUCD.
Consider these reasons, and then consider the act of Tux occupying the Instrument Of The Beast and telling people that they can be free.
Does this answer your question?
Interesting point, but I really doubt that this is aimed at the general consumer. It's for Joe Linux, who prides himself on doing nifty tech things with Linux.
:-) ) more effort to set up properly. But they're often very customizable, you can actually have an impact on the game design ("This game needs feature X"), and you don't have to leave the comfortable environs of Linux. And the environment is getting better, not worse.
Okay, Tux Racer may not be the most amazing thing in the world, but it's fun for a couple hours.
Freeciv...why is freeciv bad? You don't like civilization? There are some differences, but aside from the fact that civ had more artists (and, IMHO, a worse interface) and is a bit easier to use, not huge difference in fun factor.
Lets consider some others:
zangband/ToME/angband/nethack/etc: These *are* a lot of fun. Diablo has much more simplistic, boring gameplay, and it took off all over. Most variants have a pretty simple text or 2d graphics based interface without music, but some are a bit more elaborate. Be a bit of a pain to play on the controller, yes...
Chromium BSU: flashy scrolling shooter. Could use the 3d hardware in the X-box.
Dunno if you can just use ordinary ol' x86 binaries (particularly considering RAM usage), but:
Quake 3 (use the 3d hardware). Not free.
Abuse: This was a *blast* when it came out -- I played it over and over. It's looking a little dated now, but it's still a good game. Free now -- thanks crack.com.
Pingus is apparently shaping up pretty well.
There's part of the amazing Exile series available for Linux. (shareware)
Maelstrom may be too "simple" for you, as it's only an astroids clone, but it was a very well known game on the Mac for a long time, and I still like it.
While I'm not a tremendous fan of Illwinter's Conquest of Elysium II, their Dominions: Priests, Prophets, and Pretenders is a non-flashy but very deep, very good strategy game. Shareware.
There's a DOS-style shooter from Mountain King Studios, Raptor. (shareware)
Finally, there are all the emulators and whatnot...take a look at GNUboy, TuxNES, snes9x, DGen/SDL,
FreeSCI, Sarien, Exult, XU4, ScummVM, Basilisk II, YAE and others.
There are a host of Loki ports that you can't get any more except used. Lots of good stuff from LGames, though I'm not as big a fan of their stuff as some other people are.
Finally, text-based but really, really sophisticated, good, and almost all of them free, there are text-based interactive fiction (Try Tower of Babel before giving up on this...first one I ever beat without cheating, and it's *soooooo* good). The Interactive Fiction Archive has games and players.
Finally, many good games can be played through WINE -- Starcraft, Fallout, Max Payne, Half Life...
These are just some of the games that I enjoy under Linux. There are lots more (admittedly, some of lower quality) available at the SDL Games Page and the Linux Games Tome.
Linux games usually take a bit more (okay, often a lot
May we never see th