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XBox Chip With Legal BIOS
Lours writes "OzXChip, an Australian company, has a new Xbox chip which comes preinstalled with the new (Cromwell Linux BIOS. Previous chips came without (or simplistic) BIOS for obvious legal and hardware-related (HD-key) reasons you had to go through a lot of manipulations in order to install a patched version of the original Microsoft BIOS or ask the vendor to do it which obviously he was not willing to do for free (when he was willing to). Since the new Cromwell BIOS is fully open source it can be shipped with the chip without any legal risks, gaining you a lot of time, sweat and money. Plus the chip has a very useful feature: by using software based on Andy Green's -- one of the maintainers of the XBox Linux project -- Raincoat, it lets you flash a new BIOS very easily: burn the BIOS file onto a blank CD, put it in the Xbox, boot and you are done. With such beasts there is not much left in the way of want-to-be Linux Xbox hackers who might have been affraid until now to have to deal with delicate hardware intricacies or reluctant to run the whole town for a vendor willing to mod their Xbox at the smallest fee. With important linux distributions also incoming (Debian and Mandrake are underway if not completed) it won't be long before everyone can write code for (and on!) the machine only a few minutes after receiving the chip in his mailbox. Hopefully we are going to see a zillion things running on the machine that Microsoft would only have dreamt of making (and selling)." Update: 01/23 16:07 GMT by T : The company's name is actually OzXChip, rather than OzChip (as originally rendered); thanks to reader Michael Muir for pointing this out.
will it still play games? and be easy to go back to the original bios?
> Hopefully we are going to see a zillion things running on the machine that Microsoft would only have dreamt of making (and selling)."
I hope so too, but I thought the same thing when I picked up my Sony PS2 Linux kit. Not too many useful projects have come out of THAT yet. (All I really wanted was the ability to play mpeg video on my TV at a decent speed...but SDL hasn't been optimized yet, so that's not yet possible.)
everyone will still buy the bad ass xbox games.
Haven't most xbox owners already got both of those?
Sweet! And the "Matrix" chip that I ordered last week should be here tomarrow.
In other news, I buy all of my Apple hardware the day before a Macworld Expo.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
If you really want to get caught up in this addictive and fun hacking, check these sites for answers to all questions:
www.xboxhacker.net
www.xbox-scene.com
#xbins on IRC
By the way...the number of hacked xboxes surely runs into the thousands, if not more, and there are already enough robust applications to make it a full-fledged media device.
What is this guy, a Lisp programmer?
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* daring code hacker by night *
http://www.silent-tristero.com
2 of the best Killer apps for the X-Box I've heard of are the DivX player and the PVR. This chip will go a long way towards making it quick and easy to set those up.
It's too bad MS doesn't jump on the bandwagon. If they produced PVR software and sold it for the price of a normal game, I'd happily buy an X-Box and that software. I'd also pay at least $20 for DivX player software for it.
Jason
ProfQuotes
How does this change the problem with playing XBox Live with a modded XBox? I would like to mod my box to play around with a lot of the homebrew apps, but I really don't want to get my XBox's MAC address banned from XBox Live, as I really do like the service. This is assuming that Microsoft really does check for modded XBox hardware. Does this advancement help the situation?
So I buy an X-BOX, buy the chip, and then install a linux based bios.... on what amounts to a shitty celeron based machine? I don't know... seems kind of weird.
I'd rather get a good machine, install linux... and NOT pay microsoft 300 bucks for sub-standard equipment.
I'm gussing most people who do this sort of thing are the types who would love to see Microsoft fall... if that is the case, don't give them your money.... no matter how cool your modded X-BOX will be.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
Easy solution: buy a second XBox. No, really. There are a number of used/refurb XBoxes around if you look. The infamous "Disk is Dirty or Damaged" error (DDoDE) made for a lot of replaced XBoxes. If you look around at your local used game shops, I'm sure they have a couple used for a good price (or refurbished for a bit more money). Play XBox Live on your current working XBox, waste your time hacking around with Linux on the refurb.
There are two big reasons why this is interesting.
1) Because modchips can now ship with a fully legal clean BIOS, it is very hard for MS to suppress or chill their development any more. Cromwell, the Linux booting BIOS, is only capable to boot Linux, there can be no copyright-based complaints. Ozxchips have made a micro-distro (~2MB ISO) which boots and reflashes the BIOS. In the future, I expect mods with multiple BIOSes in one flash, with Cromwell used to manage and reflash the other parts, but being itself read-only/protected.
2) Because Cromwell can boot off the Linux install CDs, perform the install and then subsequently boot direct into Linux, the increased availability of the BIOS suggests that more people will be encouraged to try Linux. And considering these are mainly kids who otherwise face a sterile, uncreative and useless relationship with games on the Xbox, that's a good thing. Again, in the future we can expect Cromwell to be a static feature of mods, the option to boot into Linux always being available.
You've been able to run Linux on the Xbox for some time now, this doesn't really change that. What's different is that you can now run Linux without using any MS code in the BIOS, whereas before Linux required the use of a hacked native BIOS to get it started. So the big difference is that you can run Linux without any copyright infringement.
That has ramifications for the MS trend to try to suppress modchips.
gaining you a lot of time, sweat and money
Well, one of those things I have plenty of, but I could always use more of the other two.
Karma whorin' since 1999
when the next 'leaked' halloween memo states that the original Xbox strategy was
(1) to test different types of security and see which ones were easily hacked
(2) to test different types of licensing agreements for their real hardware push into the living rooms of America
(3) to find a way to willing have people buy ms boxes to replace the failed WebTV fiasco
(4) to use open source people to boost the sales of Xbox above Sony's PS2s.
You'll never play xbox live online with a modded box. Theyre attitude makes sense: a service population with 5% cheaters will make 60% of normal gamers shy away from playing. Many people stopped playing CS because cheating is so prevalent.
As for killer apps, the XBMP - Xbox Media Player now in v2.2 is the ultimate app that is continually updated. DVD/mp3/ogg/m3u playlist/divx support, and the features keep getting better. Plus streaming support. right now, Xbox is the most cost effective media center available. Plus it has some great tech support in the dev scene. And Dreamix is a WIP PVR to complete the media center ideal
What's the fun part in running anything on an x-box? Have you forgotten that it's made by microsoft? It's like saying that it's cool to run programs in windows, which it obviously isn't. Stop the madness!
In the article, there's a link to the pictures gallery.
;)
It has switch for "X-Box Live" compatibility
... and then there were none
Flashing a BIOS is *not* supposed to be an easy one step process, and there's a reason for it.
I can just see it now:
1) Linux hacker goes home with new hotly anticipated Starcraft: Ghost (published by Microsoft), which he stood in line for 10 hours to buy.
2) Linux hacker pops new game into XBox.
3) New UberSafeDisc protection on Starcraft: Ghost flashes replacement BIOS, replaces it with code for original XBox BIOS, then disables future flashing...
But with the depreciation of hardware over time, does it still cost them? Thoughts appreciated. -MMT
Gee since It's half the price of the PC you are pricing, I WOULD consider that a great reason to buy an XBOX. Also, with the XBox media player you can watch SVCD/VCD/DIVX, etc. Try building a computer with TV out that will do that for any where near $200.
--
This is a good point.
However, some information: on the Xbox, the motherboard flash containing the BIOS is not writeable by default. You have to take out the motherboard and short out a couple of links with solder before it can be written. So MS cannot trash or update the original BIOS.
Most commercial modchips feature a write protect line which you physically have to switch to allow writes to the mod flash. Even those that don't are externally reprogrammable from a PC printer port. So this is no kind of crisis.
What is more possible to imagine in the future though are new games linked with a new version of the MS libraries which seek out and shit on assets on the HDD that MS don't approve of.
I am waiting for a "real" X-Box.
I would be very happy if I could get an X-box to be a 'good file player' that could play DVD, VCD, and everything else I play on my PC (QT, AVI, DIVX, VOB, blah blah... I admit, a big bag), and some basic network functionality without compromising the ability to play legal X-box games.
Within the community, we seem to have several counter-productive lines of progression.
There are the folks that want to play around with their X-box and add functionality (the most interesting and productive pursuit) and the people who want to buy a M$-subsidized device and use it for Linux-only purposes.
Realistically, the latter are better served to craft their own boxes w/o M$ at all (we all know what has happenned w/ HW prices).
Does it make any sense to buy an X-box and use it as a Linux box? It did months ago, but, with the way the market is progressing, you will gain far less in HW $ than you get is SW time...
I am all for EXTENDING the abilities of the X-Box, but you get much beyond that and it ends up being a gesture motivated not my innovation, but by spite for M$.
-Z
M$ XP user (3 PCs) w/ a SUN Solaris, MacOS, and a lil TiVo on the SDA LAN.
> The Xbox itself is sold at a loss
No no no! Why do people always believe what they want to belive.
This is an urban myth. MS does *not* lose money on the sale of an XBox. It has lost money *so far* when incorporating all the development costs, but it doesn't lose more money each time someone buys one - it makes a small amount of the already lost/spent money back. The cost of the box easily covers the production cost of the unit and also incorporates a small profit for both MS and the retailer/distributor. Admittedly it probably makes more money out of the games, but buying loads of XBoxen will not send MS off into Chapter 11.