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Xbox Receives Linux Mandrake 9.0
An anonymous reader writes "Today the Xbox Linux Project announced that Xbox Linux Mandrake 9 has been released. This is the first complete Linux distribution for the Microsoft Xbox gaming console.
A 350 MB installation CD of Xbox Linux Mandrake 9 is available for download free of charge from the Xbox Linux website."
If M$ was so determined to build a console and prevent people from running *nix and other fun stuff on it, *why* did they choose a (nearly) standard PC hardware platform. Please provide a more custom solution next time to give the hackers a real challenge ;-)
Even if its nice and fun that they have made it possible why would i want to run linux on X-box? All they really do is helping MS finetuning their DRM system before it gets to he PC. It will be a cold day in hell before i buy an Xbox.
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They lose even more money every time an X-Box sits on a warehouse shelf instead of being sold.
Buying an X-Box does not "stick it" to Microsoft.
Is anyone working on bringing Xbox emulation to the PC? Wouldn't that make more sense?
Except they have more money then me, and each sale goes on record as another person who has one.
wouldn't buying it help them recoup more (most) of the loss than if it was never sold at all? ;)
"Why choose a (nearly) standard PC platform"?
Microsoft are long-distance players.
They are designing a Microsoft PC platform.
Let's call it 'Fritz 1'.
They would really like this to become the next standard.
And by trying this out in the XBox arena they are proofing the concept.
Whatever weaknesses get thrown up now will be closed in the next release.
After three releases, the design will be unbreakable.
After that, it's a minor matter to convince Dell and HP to base their PCs on this design.
And Windows XP 2003 will not run on anything else.
If the XBox does not scare you, perhaps you should consider a future where all PCs are designed by Redmond.
It would be smarter for people to leave the XBox alone and not contribute to M$'s strategy by hacking it.
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Running Linux on the XBox helps no-one except Microsoft.
Microsoft are counting on this kind of project to test the XBox security.
And when all the weaknesses have been fixed we will find ourselves with a new closed PC platform.
Leave this thing alone, boycott it, let it rot.
It is an empty victory to help M$ improve this product.
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No, because if they remain unsold, MS will simply reduce production levels. If they are all bought, and people keep on buyingthe consoles but not the games, production goes up, profit goes down.
Games Workshop Petition
Oh, please stop that farse already.
The box may be sold at a loss, or not.
But every box sold means numbers to show to the game publisher's marketdroids.
Inflated numbers mean a greater probability of asking money for games that will run in the hardware.
The presumed loss not only is recuped from actual royalties, but too from sending the bill to the game publisher for signing a licensing contract.
For the *Morality* aspect of the question there is only a way out: you don't like them, in this case there is not a quick exit like saying "I have not alternative" because this is a luxury, not a need; if you dislike the company boycott them lawfully and stay aside from their products. Anything else is hypocrisy.
sigh... this comes up every time there's a discussion on the X-box. Your logic would make sense if there was an infinite supply of X-boxes. The fact is, the number of X-boxes being manufactured is limited (and finite, as are all things in this Universe except, possibly, human stupidity). If you buy an X-box, it moves off the shelf and the manufacturer gets $300 ($100 from MS, and $200 from you). If you don't buy it, it sits on the shelf and the manufacturer is out $300. An X-box sitting on the shelf for 1 year will end up costing the manufacturer an additional (say) $50 in interest and other costs, maybe much more.
If you really want to hurt MS (and I am not saying that one should; I'm just answering this hypothetically), then the best way to do it is to (a) not buy X-box at all, (b) convince others to not buy either, and (c) (this might be illegal) buy an X-box and return it after opening it.
Exactly.
Judging by the cost of the X-Box and the cost of these off-the-shelf parts when purchased in bulk, why must anyone assume that they are losing anything? Many of the parts are quite OLD. That includes the hard drive, RAM, CPU, and now even the GPU. It is foolish for anyone to assume that they are losing any money at all. Microsoft gets these parts at dirt-cheap prices, and they have Flextronics build the devices in their slave-labor shops in Mexico.
Taking a loss... Sure.
How many times do we have to hear that the Xbox runs linux? It ran the linux kernel - L-i-n-u-x. Of *course* is going to run EVERY gosh darn *linux* distribution! Are we going to list ALL the distributions, ONE by ONE? Do we even KNOW them ALL?
A *real* PC for $200? It'd be close just getting *that* for $200.....much less whatever you consider a real pc.
I agree, I wouldn't buy one either. But think about this: before Linux (I'll assume GNU/Linux, since it is now a distro) was ported to the Xbox, there was no reason to have a mod chip other than to play pirated games. Now people are hacking it (in the truest sense of the word) and are finding other fun uses for THE HARDWARE THAT THEY BOUGHT. I emphasize that because Microsoft just shut down a company that sold mod chips. They have no right to do this. Once you buy hardware, you own it. Now they might be able to convince a judge that the only reason to have a mod chip is to play pirated games, therefore robbing Microsoft of their money. But with the porting of Linux, it proves that there are non-illegal reasons to want to buy a mod chip.
Not that I think that it will stop Microsoft from bullying people, but it is a start. If you couldn't run the Linux kernel on the Xbox, there would be no other reason to buy a mod chip.
Besides, I think it is cool that people have the skills to do this kind of thing. It is interesting, and proves the power of the "little guy".
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Isn't is pretty obvious that the cost is a factor here? I'm in Canada and an X-Box goes for about three hundred bucks - which is a pretty damned cheap machine that I can throw Linux on. Even if I wanted a seperate machine to run Gnutella on, this is a low-cost way to do that.
Each Xbox bought also goes to the pool of "Xbox sold" which MS uses to market to game developers to code for the Xbox which creates more Xbox games which MS uses to market to the consumer to buy an Xbox.
Q.
Protecting the XBox is good practice for building an 'unbreakable' home PC.
MS had to build a PC becasue they need to have a reference point. A software DRM solution would be problematic because of the wide range of hardware it was likely to end up running on. They have a need to get this reference system into the wild and see how people would attempt to break into it. Already they have reaped dividends by having their first attempt cracked.
They can do this without any great risk to their reputation as secure system builders because, after all, it's *only* a games console.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter