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Xbox Runs X, KDE, Gnome, StarOffice and Tuxracer
freax writes "Today in the the xbox-linux mailinglist:
I'm typing this into KMail using a USB keybaord (and a USB mouse) in front of the TV connected to the Xbox. ... and even StarOffice works quite fine. TuxRacer also runs (look at the new screenhots on the website), but only with one frame per second.
Check out screenshots here."
So the question now is whether you can run the X-Box emulator on the result.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I have an X-box, and NO games, just the DVD kit. (I entered the taco bell challenge 600 times!!) Now I can do something other than play DVD's on it!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Does this mean someone will win get the $200,000 ?
I can spend $200 on a poor-quality, non-upgradable (and non-waranteed) Pentium III instead of building my own for about the same amount.
Now I can finally play TuxRacer at one FPS instead of all those crappy professionally made Xbox games!
Does anyone have some screenshots of the Xbox playing games with Wine running on X and Linux? Because if I can play PC games with Wine, X, and Linux on it (and a modchip of course), then I'll definitely get one.
I don't run any servers so I can't provide the bandwidth.
a PC!
[No wait! Zot!] NO CARRIER
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Just kidding.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
Samba, FTP, POP, NNTP, Squid, NFS, Grid engine.
:)
Y'know, all those services that an ISP or similar might find handy in a *big* server farm.
Hey, how's about a Beowulf of those.
Deleted
All this without the Anal Leakage (TM) that is the Xbox gamepad.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I'm typing this into KMail using a USB keybaord
Looks like it's a buggy USB keybaord.
Check out this picture.
"this is the beginning of microsoft's end."
Because everyone knows that Tux Racer is going to be the catalyst for change.
Oh, and GLTron.
This is the true beginning of a low cost, easy to use system. If the boot up totally doesn't destroy the system, for $200 you can get yourself a machine that:
This won't be perfection or anything as silly as that, but I'm curious to see where it goes. Great work to the team.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Is there any real advantage to doing this (graphics maybe??) on an X-box as opposed to a real pc or is just something to do when youre bored?
or just a DVD boot into Linux?
can you read/write from the hard drive?
I've never understood what all the fuss is about with Linux on the X-Box. Apart from being a fun hack, is there any point to this?
But wait, I can run Linux on my toaster, Look I opened a telnet session to my blender, ftp'd to my refigerator and I can finger my microwave - I am working on getting TUX Racer to run at 0.5 FPS - I'll post screen shots as soon as I do.
Not to slightly contradict my previous statement about building your own PC for the same price, but I do see one use: a networked audio appliance. The combination of the ethernet and digital sound output would integrate well into a home-theater setup. Good remote control and on-screen displays would round out the setup nicely. It would be much cheaper than Sonic Blue's solution.
How do we know the screenshots aren't created with a PC connected to the TV? :)
Go loss leader! I didn't really need another PC, but if me buying an xbox to use as a PC costs Microsoft money, then I guess I can find some use for it.
What did they loose? A broadside?
There are significant between loose and lose
I know, I should just let it go, but I'm curious: What is so difficult about spelling "lose" properly?
The correct spelling even saves you one keystroke per occurrence.
Ah, well, back to work.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
I beat you by two minutes.
Everytime someone buys one of these and put linux on it, it COSTS MS money...
Lets drive them out of the console market an hurt them so much they dont come back.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Is that an Amiga monitor?
if we went and did that, now would it. Where's the fun in that?
Deleted
There are significant between loose [dictionary.com]
significant what? significance is maybe what you had intended to type? perhaps, you wanted to type "There are significant differences..". perhaps it was just a human mistake. regardless, what you intended to type, and what appeared on the slashdot posting were two entirely diferent things causing significant disruption in the overall karma of the slashdot world.
ah, well, back to browsing.
Hehe... I've been to enough computer shows to know that a box (be it Mac/PC/X-Box) sat next to a TV/monitor showing an interesting demo is just not something you can believe!
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!
Check this out.
Some choice quotes:
Where was the idea to xbox-linux born?
To run unsiged code on the Xbox, wouldn't it be enough to write a boot loader, make someone with the SDK sign it and spread it on the internet?
Is your project illegal? Doesn't forbid the DMCA all this?
Finally I can start a web hosting business!
Thanks linux guy.
Nice work so far. You all should be proud.
Dawn of the Dead
Dude, you need to take your camera back to whereever you bought it. There's some really fucking annoying penguin stuck to the lens that's being included in every shot.
I can't believe you haven't noticed it.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
so it's the same as a normal pc with a geforce then
**boom boom**
Then he would have enough money to buy a beowulf cluster consisting of 1001 of them (Including the own he currently owns ;-) )
This expensive cluster would probably run a modified version of Tux Racer at a decent number of FPS.
Is http://www.xbox.com/ hosted on a XboX running Linux with Wine + IIS ??? ;-)
I'd love to see that
"If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it."
How far are we from a Linux distribution for the Xbox that can be booted from CD? I think that would be great for a web server farm (or a home web server).
I think this is more of a lesson to MSFT about what precautions you need to make for a DRM box to really work!
God creates man... Man creates computer... Gates creates microsoft.... microsoft creates most sucessfull OS on the market... DOJ distroies microsoft... Linux inherits the earth.
It's even true on a Microsoft piece of hardware. How 'bout them apples Gates?
To all those people who think buying an Xbox and running Linux is good because it causes Microsoft to loose money, your better off not buying an Xbox. Microsoft has already taken a loss on those nice shiny new Xboxes that you see in the stores. By buying them you are helping Microsoft recoup $200. If you don't buy the Xbox then Microsoft is out an additional $200.
And if you want to keep Microsoft out of the console market your better off buying a Playstation 2 and some games. Building up Sony's market share is more likely to keep Microsoft from making an Xbox2 then Linux Xbox. Of course , Sony's business practices aren't much better then Microsoft, but that is going way off topic.
What we really need to get running on this is xmame. Nearly 3500 arcade games on your living room television set!
Now there's $200 worth of entertainment!
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
xbox linux is ILLEGAL software. The developers have broken microsofts encryption to run their own ILLEGAL unlicenced software. This is a violation of the DMCA, and you could be SUED.
Who gives a flying fuck anyway? BTW, Microsoft seems to be passive about 'hack the box' issues so far(from the net hack for Halo to Linux)...maybe they want xbox to get some more attention in the news?
If Microsoft wanted to, they would have sent the Bill Gates Swat Team and stormed their ass down already.
Microsoft should hire the guy's for actually trying to do something useful with an X-Box, I mean for God's sake how many freaking gaming consoles does the world need !!!
... we used to buy game machines to play games, not turn them into half-assed computers.
"Derp de derp."
...for Linux but big crash for Pd ;o) (I think MS is testing some basic components here - running signed code only, special BIOS etc. etc.)
You know, people have been saying this since at least the Intellivision. Try #1 Try #2 (And something for the 2600 is niggling at my brain... there might have been something for that, too.)
After 20+ years of this line... I'll believe it when I see it. Not one second sooner. And with Microsoft fighting this tooth and nail... frankly, the Dreamcast had a much better shot here (what with most or all of them able to run custom CD-ROMs with no modifications to the unit), and it didn't happen either.
That's just rediculous!
no sig.
whoop-dee-freakin'-doo!
Why does this sig rock so hard?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I believe the post was written in Shakespearian English, which had no fixed spelling. Often lose and loose were used as a sort of double-meaning. See page xxxv of the introduction to The Everyman Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." Do you see how irritating off-topic references are?
You're an idiot. Pure and simple.
If you DO buy an X-Box even without buying any games you are still giving MS $200.
If you do NOT buy an X-Box, MS gets NOTHING from you. That costs them more than simply buying the X-Box and then not buying any games.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Check out screenshots here.
The monitor looks a lot like a Commodore 1902A. I think they're just faking us out with some Commodore-64 graphics!
Oi, just because it is a video doesn't mean that it can be believed. You can rent a James Bond movie at Blockbuster where it actually looks as if he can singehandedly save the world - without getting his tie out of place!
With a little bit of video editing experience I could put together a video showing you where I just put together some code and voila - there is a new OS on the screen of my PC!
However, all the cynicism aside - I doubt these guys would do that as it would be a fair bit of effort and they would be nailed fairly soon.
--
Employing incompetence: $35/h
Fixing the resulting mistakes: $1000's
Employing me: Priceless
The means is upon us at last to fairly compare the power of the two systems - the ultimate benchmark, Tux Racer!! Can the PS2 Linux system beat 1 FPS?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
at this rate, we'll only have to buy up a shade over 26 million of these puppies to eat up Microsoft's $4 billion cash reserve. The Empire is about to fall!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Can you imagine a beowulf clust...er...nevermind.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
People have said this in other forms, but no one's summed it up so far.
When it comes down to it, why do most people use Windows? Not because it's simple or Linux is complex - most computer users couldn't install or manage Windows configurations, so the added complexity of Linux wouldn't make much of a difference if the defaults (a la Mandrake) were any good. Not because it's more familiar (Start Panel, anyone?), or because it runs their productivity apps (most people can be set up with OpenOffice and not notice a difference).
People use Windows because it's got the games. As commentators have said time and time again, the computer industry is driven by gamers. No one buys a Pentium 4 2GHz computer with a GeForce 4 Ti because they want to run Office, eh? Geeks resort to dual-booting, Linux for most tasks and Windows for games, while most users simply use what works best - Windows for everything.
Now, with Xbox, there's an opportunity. Games, by their very nature, defy multitasking. When you're playing a game, you're not doing anything else, period, and you expect real-time performance from your computer. No file/print serving in the background, no preemptive multitasking meaning that your game is only running half as fast as it could. The computer should be doing nothing else but running a game. When you put a game into a console, it loads up that game, isn't running anything else in the background, and thus can (theoretically) give you better performance than any desktop with a full-blown OS can.
So, suppose you had an Xbox with Linux installed. A user decides they want to type a document, or surf the web; they boot up Linux, and can open Moz or OO. Then, they decide they want to use a game. They shut down Linux, put the game CD/DVD in the Xbox, and load it up.
Essentially, users have the benefits of a dual-boot situation without the downsides. Games are fully integrated, having every piece of software you need to run them built-in to the disc; the fact that it uses DirectX behind the scenes is irrelevant. And when you're not gaming, you load up Linux, which requires almost no configuration because it's for a standard PC configuration; the Xbox, in fact, may soon be the most ubiquitous PC configuration (plurality) anywhere.
Users are happy because they get a $200 computer that they can use equally well with a TV, HDTV, or computer monitor; and due to its compact nature, could easily be transported from room to room if need be. Microsoft is happy because people are buying Xboxes, which means they buy games; so MS still ends up making a profit, because most people who buy the Xbox are going to get at least one game (which puts MS almost at break-even).
OMFG!!! It's funny 'cause Window$ suxs!!! HA HA HA!!!
Tell that to everyone who plays games.
Mine plays a fantastic game of Halo. My friends love to come in, grab some couch and a controller, and blow off some steam. It's called entertainment, and socialization, and fun. You know, fun? What you see everyone else having?
Such a shame the psx2 is pants in comparison to the xbox eh?
Around the time the X-Box came out, didn't some bozo at MS say that if someone were to get LINUX to run on it, there would be a job waiting for them?
Walmart sells $200 PCs now. These would make a better PC than an Xbox.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Yes, because the PS2-linux system supports accelerated 3D graphics. The XBox might too, in a while.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
The question, of course, being which evil empire you'd rather support less.
Tux Racer will run at that speed unless accelerated drivers are installed in x which i doubt they have gotten to yet.
Maybe the linux nvidia drivers will run on that. If they do then the speed will be more like 60fps.
It's illegal to run unlicensed software made with MS' SDK. However Xbox linux does not use the SDK and is perfectly legal software.
> The only harm you'd do is to the game companies
> trying to sell games. Not cool. Not cool at all.
No, screw em hard and screw em now. Any company that gets in bed with M$ gets screwed into the ground eventually. Best they get burned now while they still have other markets. They can take a hit to their stock price, what they can't take is allowing M$ to run Nintendo & Sony out and then be forced to assume the position, leaving M$ the only game company.
Democrat delenda est
First, only fixed costs decrease as volume increases. Since the xbox is basically a lower end pc (which is a mature and highly competitive market), I am willing to bet my Economic's degree that the majority of their costs are variable in nature (very easy MES point, not ideal for monopolies, low fixed costs).
Second, the unbought xbox verse hacked xbox losses to MS projection is correct in a per box analysis. However, total losses will be much higher from the hacked xbox due to the asymetric nature of information in these circumstances.
Third, these guys are "cool" (check out their music videos). At every point of the development of Linux, there was always someone there to complain that it just didn't make sense to port to this platform or write a clone of that application. After a decade of stubborness, the community has something to brag about, and humanity has a tool that does not discriminate based on the distribution of wealth.
In conclusion, there is no corporate front sacred from the scrutiny and manipulation from those possessing the ability to do so. Corporations are the creations of man and, therefore, must be constantly judged by man. If a corporation were to fall from grace in the eyes of individuals savvy enough and many enough, its fate would be sealed. In the end, I do not see hate as being their motivation, but their belief that what is good, will continue to survive. Their job is simply to hasten our journey to that conclusion.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Which gives me an idea. As long as Microsoft wants to continue to compete in the low end they mush make DRM truly optional. Their software is now the most expensive part of a computer. The hardware has been getting cheaper and cheaper and ther software is getting more expensive. Otherwise the cost of closed hardware will drive the demand for alternitives and drive MS into Apple territory. Afterall, if MS is able to fritz chip all pcs, what will be the difference between PCs and Apples. Not a whole lot.
Loose != Lose
Look it up!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
My question (which I'm sure others have also raised), is why it is a good thing if Microsoft doesn't make an Xbox2?
I'm not attacking neverkevin.... I'm just curious as to what people are thinking. Making Microsoft lose money on the XBox will only cause them to shut down the XBox unit. It's not really going to hurt their Windows or Office units.
Isn't competition a good thing? Even though I have no wish to see Microsoft dominate the set-top-box market, their huge budget and presence forces all others to continue with innovation.
I enjoy seeing boxes hacked, like the Dreamcast. I also like seeing Linux being used in creative locations. But I wouldn't go as far as to say we should somehow drive a potential competitor out of a market.
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*beware the cute-bunny virus
They use this type of monitor because it has a composite connection. This is the easiest way of connecting the Xbox to a monitor.
My Xbox is now an X box, because it runs X.
It says something like 'runs with slight modifications'. *MEEEEP!*
Wrong answer.
200K still waiting for anyone who dares to go for it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I see a lot of people justifying the worth of this port. Some people say it's "sticking it to Microsoft". Others say it creates well needed negative publicity for DRM. But I'm not seeing a lot of people talking about the obvious benefit: MORE VALUE FOR THE CONSUMER!
Imagine a CD from AOL with Mozilla on it. The only instructions required are "Insert this disc into your X-Box". The CD connects to AOL automatically. You enter a unique code (perhaps printed on the CD sleeve) and the login process is completed. In under a minute you're sending and receiving email and browsing the web. Text entry could be via an on-screen "virtual keyboard" or a USB keyboard with an appropriate dongle.
Don't like the ISP idea? How about a Logitech USB keyboard bundled with a complete office suite on an X-Box disc. Automatic bootstrap straight into OpenOffice. Files are saved to the conveniently included hard disk. Logitech can bundle appropriate dongles to connect their USB keyboard and a USB printer to the Microsoft-USB ports. Home users who can't afford (or don't want) a PC can still reap the benefits of a word processor at home.
This is a huge opportunity for companies to to reach a wider audience. Linux is irrelevant. What is relevant is APPLICATIONS and a closed well-defined system that can run them. If you only think of an X-Box as a games console then you're not going to be convinced. If you think of it as a cheap computer with a hard disk and broadband connection that millions of people have in their homes, then you'll understand that Linux/X-Box really is important.
... but I think that people buy game consoles to have fun. If some people are having a lot of fun by fiddling around with the Xbox doing anything, loading Linux on it inclusive, I think that thats good. I'm not so sure this is hurting M$ very much, it seems to me that this is bringing it additional publicity, not to mention the number of linux-geeks who will be buying Xboxes to try it out! just a thought
You finance MS but that means you cost them cash.
Lets see, situation 1, you buy a Xbox,
MS invests around 350 in each Xbox: -350
You buy an Xbox: +200
Total for MS: -150 (plus the potential to recoup money via games, because you will buy games once the box is gathering dust there).
Situation 2, you don't buy a Xbox,
MS invests around 350US$ in each Xbox: -350
Total for MS: -350. Full stop, you will not buy games even if you were tempted to.
Now tell me, what costs MS more?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have to deal with MS software and servers all day long and they suck. However while i do not like what MS intentions with xbox are(ie dominate yet a another market) i do think the xbox is a fantastic little box. If you are running linux on it just to say you can do it great. But dont think that it is hurting them, your are doing for more to help MS then Bill could ever hope to buy. Free publicity! The best way to fight MS is to deny them existance. How many of these are going to get converted world wide a few hundred maby a 1000 tops. Bill spends that kinda of money on breakfest. Stop kidding your self people you are helpping him not hurtung him.
Linux modi 2.6.26-2-parisc
Xbox definitely has the advantage over the PS2 for running linux, as Xbox is nothing more than a stripped down pc. It is good for those people that tied up a lot of money in the Xbox, now they have more use for it. Although linux runs on the PS2, it's not going to be the primary reason people buy a PS2 because many linux programs require more porting to work on the non-intel PS2 system- more people will continue to buy the PS2 because that is where the most/best games are. Linux is great, I use it exclusively but when it comes to games, nothing beats the PS2.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
Maybe I am missing something, but why would I want to use a Xbox running linux? True, the hardware is very cheap, but: on the one hand there are no good linux games I would want to play on the linux-Xbox. On the other hand the hardware isn't fit to be used as a cheap replacement for e.g. a router or a workstation for development or office applications. I dont see the point.
If you think you can do better, create your own superpower.
We're on the case.
as my bedroom tv. And of course whenever i wanna play some c=64er games...
> When you're playing a game, you're not doing anything else, period, and you expect real-time performance from your computer.
:-) since it is adjacent to my consoles.
For most games & gamers, yes, I would agree - the game IS the computer.
However I can provide a few examples where that's not 100% correct.
When I was playing UO, I always had UO Assist, ICQ, and UO Map running. Other guilds (usually PK ones) ran IRC in the background. Why? Because the game didn't provide the proper tools to automate a lot of tedious activity / communication.
In D2X, I usually alt-tab out to RuneWizard (to check rune words), to diabloii.net (to check stats on items), to ChippyDips skill calc, and/or to my spreadsheet template of my character's stats/skills.
Another example: Playing a (single player) rpg/shooter, and I'm stuck for the past 30 mins. I tried everything I can think of, but it hasn't helped. Alt-Tab out to google or gamefaqs and hit the walkthru to get a hint. I know it would of been a huge PITA to quit the game, load the browser, check the info, then restart the game.
Granted, I'm a power-gamer, but I can't be the only one, who finds it extremely frustrated when I can't alt-tab out of a game on my computer.
Now for a console, there is no need to switch to another app in the middle of game, since you can't anyways. However, that doesn't mean you don't want access to other info when you are playing the game! What I do instead is use my main computer to load up the FAQs
i.e. I want to try out some of the interesting cheat codes in GTA3. Pause the game, look at the computer beside me, then go back to the game.
My $0.03
Cheers
You are sadly mistaken. The closest thing to a killer app on the Xbox was Halo.
Who in their right mind would think that Linux would sell more Xboxes than any game released on the Xbox.
What is worse? A monopoly on closed source OS, or the extinction of the pc? If Sony and Disney get it the way they want, the PC dies and a DRM Microsoft machine replaces it. Microsoft would be more than happy to just sell Office and WinXX with a subscription model giving them say $150 a year for 95% of all desktop PCs. They would NEVER have pusshed for DRM if they didn't think it would be mandated by law. Now they are just making sure they still sell 95% of all OS's (the fact that they now will sell 100% doesn't hurt, but that cannot be why MS is doing this).
Still off topic, but Sony ain't better at all.
- Ost
---- Sig. gone.
It may seem strange to buy a "PC" from Microsoft to run Linux, but let's look at it a little closer.
Microsoft LOSES money with each XBox sold. They hope to recoup that money by selling licenses to the game manufacturers. So, if say a few million XBoxes were to be sold without any game purchases it'll go straight to MS's bottom line. (So maybe it's not as ironic as it might seem.)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
...what happens when better integration prevents you from being able to "chip" a machine?
Anyone out there know how much it would cost to put the important parts of a PC onto one chip using modern manufacturing techniques? This would mean anything significant to DRM (cpu, audio, and graphics) would need to be in one package soldered to the circuit board. I suppose it would have to include encrypted IDE and memory busses, too. If this can be done within the price ranges typcial for a PC, it will be done, and we really need to worry about it.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
You euros have been loging for the days of good old Rome for over 1500 years. Many have tried to strip away your nation identities through war, now the mega rich are trying to do it through trade but the result will be the same. Your like a buck of emotionally stunted adults longing for to be kids again, get over it and grow up.
If you all want to surrender yourselves to an authority so you can compete with us, good luck to ya'. Youll learn the hard way... again..
Why is this modded down? This is a great post. Although it could be Offtopic, it at least warrants a (Score: 1 Offtopic).
I will not have anything that microsoft makes/produces/blesses in my house. Its just
wrong.
Now the funny thing is NVIDIA is being investigated becuase it wrote down 7 million
worth of useless graphics xbox chips just because
MS changed their security roms.
Wouldn't it be funny if MS DUMPED their BOX.
XBOX going cheap......can you say SEGA....
K.
are you as sure as the men who called WWI the war to end all wars??
Wars usually break out when you least expect. I am not hoping for a war, but all it takes is one nutjob with a gun..