Linux On Unmodded Xbox, Improved

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like pSyCo from XEmulation.com Has found a way to boot Xbox Linux Live on an unmodified Xbox with nothing but an Xbox and Linux PC (no memory card of any kind, etc). Also a guide to using this method to flash your Xbox's onboard TSOP with the bios of choice, making the Xbox modded without an actual mod-chip. $5 to rent 007 to mod my xbox sounds nice =) Check it out at: XEmulation.net Forum or XboxHacker.net BBS. *Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...*" This builds on the "007"-based method discussed earlier. Update: 04/15 01:11 GMT by T : XEmulation.com, not .net. Sorry.

Comments

no mods?

[alwsn]

What you'll need:

"Soldering Iron + Solder (and torx screw drivers)

Now you must open up your Xbox *which I don't think I need to explain how to do*, take out the motherboard, and solder the 2x2 jumpers. Now put everything back together, but leave the case top off, and keep the Xbox near your pc!

While this method might not require you to use a mod chip, it definately requires you to mod the xbox in that you have to take it apart, and solder stuff. The only think that will make me run linux on my xbox is if I can install a working system withou touching a screw driver.

Re:no mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you misunderstand.

You can run Linux without flashing the TSOP.

You flash the TSOP so you can put on the hacked BIOS to play pirated (excuse me, "legitimate backups").

The BIOS is write protected, and can be made flashable by bridging a couple of solder points. This wont be overcome with any sort of sofware trick or backdoor. The BIOS just aint writable.

Of course, all you budding warez kiddies (excuse me again, Linux enthusiasts) need know that if you leave it bridged, your bios can be flashed at any time, like say from some joker who puts bios-destroying code in a file called "Halo 2.ISO" and uploads it to your favorite gene6 ftp.

If all you want to do is run linux, all you need is a copy of 007, and do the trick every time. Or, you can flash the linux bios onto the TSOP.

A smart person would realize that constant updates to the TSOP for different linux bootloaders is just asking for trouble. One bad flash and your xbox is a brick. You're much better off getting a mod chip, which required no soldering, or very dead-simple soldering to the LPC points (preferred, the no-solder ones jiggle loose).

Then you can switch it off.

Anyways. Dont think the majority of the chatter on these forums is really about running linux. It's about using linux as a "legal" front to getting a hacked bios on the box that allows warezed to be played. There are "fair use" backups, sure. You can use linux, sure. But 99.999999% of the posts on the forums are of the nature of "how do u copy renterd gamez?"

Oh yeah, buy a copy of 007 NOW if you want to do this, as an updated version of the game will no doubt be silently released (if it hasnt been already).

Re:no mods?

[deanpole]

Be glad we have to physically remove the jumbers to write the flash. It also means Microsoft can't "upgrade" BIOSes when connecting to Xbox Live. :-)

Re:no mods?

[slagdogg]

You can do it without modifying it, but you need a memory card to store the code that executes the exploit. Also, the memory card trick works ONLY for running Linux, not other games or Xboxmediaplayer :(

See this link for more.

Re:no mods?

[drunk_as_in_beer]

Of course, all you budding warez kiddies (excuse me again, Linux enthusiasts) need know that if you leave it bridged, your bios can be flashed at any time, like say from some joker who puts bios-destroying code in a file called "Halo 2.ISO" and uploads it to your favorite gene6 ftp.

So you should unbridge it once you are done with the flash?

Although everyone yells "warez" when they here about something like this, and it's probably true, there are some legitimate uses. Independantly written software is one of them, look at the Dreamcast. Though, yeah, the Dreamcast is well known for allowing copies to run with no mods. I own one, though I don't have any pirated games, I run Linux and other free software on it. I would have to say the PSX was the most popular machine for playing copied games.

Re:no mods?

[TopShelf]

It seems that /. could use a new topics logo for Piracy (perhaps modeled on the Pittsburgh Pirates logo?)...

Re:no mods?

[haraldm]

You will need to explain in how far Linux enthusiasts are warez kiddies.

Re:no mods?

[orn]

You flash the TSOP so you can put on the hacked BIOS to play pirated (excuse me, "legitimate backups").

I know that stealing is a common reason people are doing this... but personally I like the idea of trying to get MythTV running on the beast. Once again - a single box that combines as many forms of entertainment as possible. The _mythical_ TV.

That's legitimate. Maybe M$ should just release a version of linux, properly encyrpted and all that jazz, for the X-Box.

Wouldn't that be a hoot.

Re:no mods?

[MoonBuggy]

Anyways. Dont think the majority of the chatter on these forums is really about running linux. It's about using linux as a "legal" front to getting a hacked bios on the box that allows warezed to be played. There are "fair use" backups, sure. You can use linux, sure. But 99.999999% of the posts on the forums are of the nature of "how do u copy renterd gamez?"

You're right, I'm sure, for the sites that this was originally posted on, but I would think that most /. users actually do want to run linux on their Xboxes. It may be a front, but it's a front that benefits alot of us around here (spare computer, multi-use DVD player, file storage etc.) and it'd be unfortunate if people thought that ALL modders simply wanted to playe warez.

Re:no mods?

[mark-t]

It may be a lot simpler to USE a mod-chip, but the effort required to actually OBTAIN a mod-chip in the first place can be substantial, unless you are lucky enough to know where you can obtain one without resorting to international mail order, which is often subject to inspection.

Re:no mods?

[John Hurliman]

Why so focused on pirating games? I'm going to buy an XBox because of this, so I can turn my XBox in to a media center that plays DVDs, MP3s/OGGs/WAVs, DivX/Xvids/AVIs/MPEGs, view images and more with a nice remote to control it for $150. I can also work on the open source software myself and add my own changes in there.

I want a single interface to watch all the DVDs I buy, all the amateur skateboarding/snowboarding movies I make, listen to all the music CDs I buy, and look at all the pictures I take with my digital camera. Corporate America isn't able to come up with a solution that isn't completely bogus, and certainly not for under $200, so I'll build it myself. Two soldering points and a single ROM flash doesn't seem like too much work.

Re:no mods?

[KilerCris]

All the rental places like Blockbuster certainly aren't going to just buy new copies. What are they going to do? Send out new copies to every single store and ask them to replace their old copies? That's an awful lot of low-lever workers to keep quiet. It would be all over the news that microsoft tried to sneak in a fixed up version of a game and why they did it.

It's not the copies at blockbuster's you need to worry about, it's the new shipments that could be on store shelves right now.

Re:no mods?

[PerlGuru]

you don't need a memory card, that was the point... you are basically do the same as the memory card trick but using a pc to transfer the save to the harddrive rather then a memory card.

And your right, it does only work with Linux.

Re:no mods?

[AlternateSyndicate]

The Dreamcast turned out to be a great money maker for Sega didn't it... good thing it could play copies without mods!

Re:no mods?

[SScorpio]

Or you can just visit the website of the maker of the modchip you want and look at their partnered reseller list.

http://xecuter.gotmod.com/sellers.htm

You get sellers in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

You still might have a problem going UK -> France or something but I don't know since there is no issues with state to state shipping.

Re:no mods?

[drunk_as_in_beer]

The Dreamcast turned out to be a great money maker for Sega didn't it... good thing it could play copies without mods!

Yeah, it's a shame, it was a great system (though the stock controller sucked). I don't think the fact that it could play copies without mods was the reason it failed (it would've failed anyways), though that certainly didn't help sell any games. If the Dreamcast was as popular as the PSX, for example, piracy would not have hurt Sega much. The vast majority of people don't even think to pirate games.

When I was in college, everyone I know had either a mod chip in their PSX, or used a hacked action replay. Copies of PSX games were seen in everyone's collection. Though this was college, where you have plenty of engineers soldering chips and plenty of people with CD writers. For the Dreamcast, it was a little more difficult. Getting the game off a GD-ROM disc was not that easy (until the ethernet adapter came out, but that was after Dreamcast was already dead), at least not as easy as soldering in a mod chip, renting a game, and making a copy with a CD-writer. You had to know someone who was connected, or you had to be lucky enough to find a source on the Internet (I couldn't find any copies myself amd bought all my titles). Dreamcast copies are more common these days, though.

Bah, games, I don't have time for them, so none of these companies are getting any of my money anyways. The XBox is worthless to me, even if it can run Linux. I'd rather use the money to assemble yet another x86 box to run Linux/*BSD on.

Re:no mods?

[YE]

The only think that will make me run linux on my xbox is if I can install a working system withou touching a screw driver.

The only thing that will make me run linux on an xbox is if all the second-hand, much more powerful than an Xbox $200 PCs disappear.

Re:no mods?

[Grax]

Thanks for the cynical input. Some of us think that running Linux on game consoles could result in a nice cheap computer that plays the cool games without having to spend $1500 to $3000 on hardware and would still let us type up a paper or send e-mail.

99.999999% ? That means one post out of 100,000,000 is about legitimate Linux use. I don't think there have been that many total posts in all the forums put together.

Re:no mods?

[minaguib]

Bah, games, I don't have time for them, so none of these companies are getting any of my money anyways. The XBox is worthless to me, even if it can run Linux. I'd rather use the money to assemble yet another x86 box to run Linux/*BSD on.

But the XBOX is an x86 architecture and evidently CAN run linux, it's also comparatively cheap.

Or am I missing something ?

Re:no mods?

[drunk_as_in_beer]

But the XBOX is an x86 architecture and evidently CAN run linux, it's also comparatively cheap.

True, but if all you want to do is run Linux, the money would be better spent assembling a PC, unless you plan to use the XBox for gaming. With 64 MB of RAM, you aren't going to be able to do much. And, correct me if I'm wrong, this 64 MB of RAM is shared by the CPU and the video card, leaving you with even less usable RAM.

Maybe it'd make a decent set-top box.. but I use a PC for that purpose as well. AFAIK, you can't record video with an XBox.

Re:no mods?

[FauxPasIII]

> 99.999999% of the posts on the forums are of the nature of "how do u copy renterd gamez?"

While this has been unfortunately true of such efforts in the past... perhaps I'm naive, but I really feel like this number is significantly lower in the X-Box, just due to some of the incredible Free software out there for it. I got this working last night, but not because I have the least bit of interest in copied games. I want to use the x-box media player.

Re:no mods?

[cyt0plas]

The X-Box is a lot different than most other consoles when it comes to mods. When you mod a PS/2, PSX, or GameCube, you are left with a machine for the most part that only gets access to a import games, and pirate games. When you mod an XBOX, you have a windows (albeit a weird version) PC. Developers can support it, and there is the other software out there to run. You can get media players. emulators, frontends, media players, or any of a number of other types of apps. You get a Microsoft-Subsided PC. Tell me that isn't attractive in and of itself.

Re:no mods?

[drinkypoo]

I can't see Microsoft doing it, but I wonder if any linux-distributing company has asked them if they will sign a linux distribution. Maybe Knoppix? :) Sure, you'd have to pay a royalty to Microsoft when you bought it, and I suspect that royalty would be higher than what one normally pays them when buying a game if they would do it at all, but it might still be worth it.

For instance: If Microsoft wanted $25 in royalties for each copy of xbox linux sold, you could charge $50 and give the balance to a combination of the handful of people wou will need to maintain the Xbox distribution (if you're starting with Knoppix, for example, you would probably need 0 extra staff) and the EFF or similar. That way you could feed and fight microsoft at the same time.

I still hope

[sielwolf]

The guy who came up with the 007 method gets whatever rewards were for booting Linux first on an Xbox. Yeah, this seems more like what "people want". But that wasn't the challenge. It was to boot Linux.

I'm sorry but the fuss around the backdoor-ness of the 007 method was blown way out of proportion.

Re:I still hope

[japhar81]

He doesnt qualify anyway. An unmodded xbox means an unchanged one. You have to take it apart and bridge some jumpers (i.e. mod the xbox) to make this work.

Re:I still hope

[Ikeya]

At a bare minimum, he earns my respect as a hacker. Holes like this can often lead to great developments. Look at the TI calculators. Holes were found in the ROMS in order to get to the Z80 assembly layer and produce some of the greatest games (and useful applications) that have been published on calculators.
This was so much a success that TI eventually starting allowing access to the Assembly layer natively (ala the TI86 and TI89/92+)
Besides, it's so much fun hearing about all of these cool holes and backdoors. Like the TI82 was cracked through the Matrix variable named "Q" (which doesn't really exist).
Anyway, kudos to all involved!
ikeya

Re:I still hope

[robotbrain]

Actually, you can boot to linux without opening the case with the original method. This method is to flash the onboard bios so you don't have to go through the 007 workaround everytime you want to run unsigned code.

FYI

[skrowl]

The previous method that they're talking about involved a buffer overflow in the savegame handling from 007:Agent Under Fire.

You were able to execute code (in most cases, a BIOS flash to flash the internal TSOP) tacked on to the end of your save game.

Hopefully this comes as a lesson to ALWAYS ALWAYS sanity check ANY USER INPUT, even if it comes in the form of a file that you THINK you know the layout of.

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Question from the floor:

Everyone is saying that the DMCA does not apply to this, as there is no circumvention device at work. Why isn't the 007 save game, with the buffer overflow, classifiable as a circumvention device?

Re:FYI

[Pharmboy]

What I find odd is now we WANT a buffer overflow, so we can BOOT linux instead bitching about sloppy ass programmers for them causing it to crash.

Make up your damn mind ;)

Re:FYI

[SatanicPuppy]

Heh.

The coolest thing about it is, when the guy tried to save and hit the bug he didn't immediately think, "DAMN! Screwed up my save game!" or "Stupid non-functional code!" but instead, "Hmmmmm, I wonder if I can use this to hack a half a dozen things and boot linux on my Xbox??!?"

Sanity checking is a pain in the butt. That's why visual basic is so popular. Those damn "Dim" variable declarations are almost laughably exploitable. You can hide an aircraft carrier in one of those things.

Makes my life SO much more fun =D

Re:FYI

[ZorbaTHut]

Unless, of course, you don't particularly care if it gets hacked. I don't know about EA, but most people I know don't really care if someone can hack their save files to make unexpected things happen - it's just not one of those issues that comes up often.

Re:FYI

[Minna Kirai]

Because the game wasn't designed with the intent of circumventing protection.

The BIOS flasher software that these hackers are loading onto the savegame, though, is a circumvention device, and illegal as per DMCA.

Re:FYI

[Pharmboy]

Buffer Overflows are great if they make Microsoft look bad.

Buffer Overflows in Free Software is a problem that should be fixed though.

Is that you Taco? :)

Xemulation.net should be Xemulation.com

[Sonicboom]

I think the first link should read Xemulation.com and point there, too.

C'mon editors - don't you check your stories and links before you post?

Re:Xemulation.net should be Xemulation.com

[ToadSprocket]

C'mon editors - don't you check your stories and links before you post?

Is this a trick question?

Re:Xemulation.net should be Xemulation.com

[MrScience]

You know it's bad when your first thought is "Don't you know this is Slashdot?"

And the second thought is, "Man, what a tired joke."

Re:Xemulation.net should be Xemulation.com

[milkman_matt]

C'mon editors - don't you check your stories and links before you post?

Hehehe, you're joking, right? :)

-matt

Re:Xemulation.net should be Xemulation.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you see the 'Posted by homestarrunner on Monday April 14, @05:08PM'?

Xemulation.net: It's Dot Com!

sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

[l337 kid returning xbox]

kid: g1bb0r m3 my m0n3y b4ck, f4gg0rz. My k-r4d Xb0x0r 15 fux0r3d.

clerk: Ok.. let's see.. Hmm.. the screw heads are worn, indicating you've opened this XBox up. Oh, I see solder splattered on the board.. wait a sec, this isn't even an XBox board, it's from an old Betamax!

Re:sure..

[unicron]

Oh no! Beta!

Re:sure..

[AbRASiON]

If only you could put on the voice of the character whom you were quoting (cmon people!) - easily 3 points not 2 :)

Re:sure..

[AssFace]

back when the switch was first happening from Atari to Nintendo, there were kids in my school that would go into KMart and dump out the Atari games (which came in huge boxes) and then stuff them full of multiple Nintendo cartridges.
then they would buy the cheaper "Atari" boxes and walk out of the store "legit" and then proceed to sell the brand new games at school the next day.

I never had a console until just the past few years, so I never really followed much of it - but I recall thinking that was pretty clever for some of the trailer trash that did it and didn't exect it of them.

"Wonder what the DMCA would think about this..."?

[RLiegh]

Whatever Microsoft TELLS THEM to think about this.
(I may get an -1 redundant since that is the whole reason for the DMCA. Oh well. )

Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't this be self defeating? To get a Linux PC you need..a Linux PC? :> Although I guess the XBox is smaller, and it has the cool factor going for it.

Nvidia drivers hacked?

[Vardamir]

Has anyone made progress on hacking the nvidia drivers to work on the XBox? If so, there is software, called Chromium I belive, that can take advantage of multiple OpenGL rendering nodes, making the XBox a very cost effective platform for such a project.

Here's the article

[JoshuaDFranklin]

SAVE THEIR SERVERS: Ok, I've never written a tutorial of any kind in my life... so if this is posted anywhere, you can edit it (to a point ... keep the main writing.. but adding photo's, etc are fine by me, just give me a lil credit) And with that said .. I'll start...

This tutorial will explain how to go about mounting your Xbox HD's game save partition under Linux on a PC, in order to get habibi_xbox's 007:Agent Under Fire game save along with raincoat and your bios of choice onto the Xbox's HD, eliminating the need for a Mega-X-Key!

What you'll need:

Xbox
PC running Linux (distro of choice)
Linux kernel 2.4.20 source ( http://www.kernel.org )
"Kernel" folder from xbox-linux's CVS ( http://xbox-linux.sf.net)
007: Agent Under Fire retail DVD
Soldering Iron + Solder (and torx screw drivers)

*Warning... i installed a fresh copy of Slackware Linux on an old PC just to do this, following this tutorial can cripple your linux system if you don't revert back to your old kernel... or compile a new one... unless you know what your doing*

1st things 1st! Now you must open up your Xbox *which I don't think I need to explain how to do*, take out the motherboard, and solder the 2x2 jumpers (one's on top, ones on the bottom of the mobo) pictures: http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/tsop.php . Now put everything back together, but leave the case top off, and keep the Xbox near your pc!

Now, download the Linux 2.4.20 kernel source from http://www.kernel.org *look in the archives!*, move the tar.gz or tar.bz2 file to /usr/src and extract. This should leave you with a folder named "linux-2.4.20". Next, get the "Kernel" folder from the Xbox-Linux team's CVS *sourceforge tells you how to get on their CVS server... just user kernel as the module name*. After doing so, move the contents of the "kernel" folder to the "linux-2.4.20" folder.

Go into the linux-2.4.20 folder and read the README.xbox file! Follow it's instructions to the point right before compiling the kernel! Next, run "make xconfig" or "make menuconfig" in console while in the folder. Configure the kernel as you normally would *I assume you have some knowledge about Linux*, remove USB support, and turn off all Xbox specific functions... Make sure to leave FatX support in though! When done, run *without quotes* "make dep ; make modules ; make bzImage ; make modules ; make modules_install ; make install" This will automatically do everything needed. Next, shutdown, and use the Xbox HD swap trick to unlock your Xbox's HD and connect it to your PC (Turn on your pc, wait for it to boot RIGHT BEFORE it gets to your Linux boot loader screen press the Pause / Break button. Turn on Xbox, wait for it to boot to the dash, unplug IDE cable from Xbox, connect an IDE cable from your PC into the Xbox's HD and press any key. Your pc should boot as normal, into Linux... except now it see's your Xbox's HD!

*NOW, BACK UP YOUR XBOX HD! MAKE AN IMAGE FILE OF THE HD!!! I don't know the command do to so under linux, but I used HDD Driver under windows to do it ... but seriously, if something goes wrong here, you can be left with a bunk HD if you don't have a backup!*

Now, make a new folder in /mnt (I used /mnt/xbox myself). Now, look in the /dev folder, you should see "hda50 hda51 hda52 hda53, etc..." *it may not be hda, it could be hdb, hdc, or hdd...*. After seeing what block device it is, type this command into console"
mount -t fatx /dev/hda50 /mnt/xbox" ... if it works, you will see no error message. Go into the folder in which you mounted the partition to, and guess what! You should see TDATA and UDATA folders!

Still need 007.....

[Another AC]

with nothing but an Xbox and Linux PC

Um, no!

It's true you don't need a memory card, but you still need 007 Agent Under Fire to do this.

I think it's less work and easier to do it with a memory card though. This method requires hooking the xbox drive up to your pc and a lot of recompiling kernel stuff.. the other way just requires you putting some files on a memory card (you can do it with a previously modded xbox or a couple of other ways) and that's it. Once you've got that memory card you can reuse it on each xbox you want to mod too. It takes about 90 seconds to get an unmodded-xbox to run linux with the memory card:

• Turn on xbox with no cd in drive, but with memory card in controller.
• Use the MS dashboard to copy the 007 save game to the harddrive.
• Put in 007 Agent Under Fire and reboot.
• Wait for lots of annoying intro stuff.
• Choose "Load Mission", pick the game off the hard drive.
• Linux boots!

Re:Still need 007.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

• ...
• Profit!!

Retard.

The problem with this...

[chadamir]

is that I believe the goal of the whole boot linux on your xbox without a modchip was to make it so you don't have to void your warranty. Also, this sounds like it has tons of potential for a bad solder and then some kind of power surge thus frying your xbox. I think I'll stick with my matrix.

Re:The problem with this...

[John Hurliman]

Have you looked at the images of the soldering? There are two pairs of contacts to solder closed, with about a millimeter separating them. It's literally two drips of solder in the right spots; no wires. An infant (or even worse, your average consumer) could do this.

Re:"Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[Sheetrock]

My guess is that the DMCA would have the same contented papery thoughts that other printed documents have, not to mention an intense dislike for fire.

Re:I'm gay!!!

[alwsn]

I think we're all pretty happy about Linux on an unmodded Xbox. This will only mean good things for linux users.

Re:It's tax time

[Anonymous Coward]

With a Bastard File.

But... why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please note : this is not flamebait or trolling!

I honestly just want to know - why would you want to boot Linux on an XBox?

I'm totally serious here. I've been out of gaming for too many years now, but... would you still be able to play XBox games on a mod'ed XBox running Linux (would you have to dual boot to do that)? Or... not? If not, then whats the point of running Linux on your XBox? Is it a really cheap way of hooking up w/ a cool looking Linux box? Or, is booting Linux on an XBox about the 'vandalism' vibe, of running a non-MS OS on an MS-made machine?

For all the hype in the media about running Linux on an XBox, why isn't there similar press about running Linux on, say, a Nintendo Cube (or, does that one already run Linux? or Unix?) I believe that Playstation already runs Linux... right? Anyway... the whole concept of 'run linux on your xbox' has always garnered a 'who gives a sh*t' from me, so I was hoping that someone could let me know why this idea gets so much coverage, contests, and attention from the tech community in general.

Thanks! :)

Re:But... why?

[NerveGas]

Because the X-boxes have semi-decent hardware at a reasonable cost. Microsoft *loses* money selling them, in the hopes that they'll make it up later in the software.

So... you get a very decent machine at a pretty low price, and Micro$oft loses money in the process. That's a pretty nice idea.

Re:But... why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reasons to do so:

#1. Because I can.
#2. Because it's cheap hardware and I want to find a use for it after I beat Halo and Fatal Frame.
#3. Because it's a form factor that looks nice next to my TV and makes a decent media center, playing network available MP3's and movies.
#4. Because I can, it's my damn XBox and this is another way to prove laws like the DMCA are pure bullsh*t.

Mostly though, it's all about 'because I can.' People want to boot this OS that boots on so many platforms on one more, just to say they did. After that, maybe people will find a use for that platform running Linux. It's all good.

Re:But... why?

[AvengerXP]

No that would be like asking a climber "Why do you want to use your stuff to go up a hill?"

Re:But... why?

[Euphonious Coward]

Because lots of people already have an Xbox, and would like to make it useful. They got it for xmas, or graduation, or something. Why let it go to waste?

The great thing about the 007 trick is that you can use it to demo Linux for anybody else who happens to have an Xbox with just a USB key and a CD.

Liberate that machine from MS slavery!

Re:But... why?

[ChaosDiscord]

Please note : this is

not flamebait or trolling!

Well, if Anonymous Coward says so, it must be true.

Well, I'm willing to yield that you're not trolling, but for some reason have ignored the approximately three hundred previous posts on the subject...

I honestly just want to know - why would you want to boot Linux on an XBox?

It will vary from person to person. Here is just a handful of the many, many possible reasons why. You might not agree with all of them, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that the person who believes in them agrees with it.

1. Because you can. Geeks like pushing things to their limits. I'm sure many of the geeks involved love their X-Boxes and just want to mess with them because they can. The same reason people put jumping hydralics on their cars, the same reason people put neon tubes in their computer cases, the same reason people recreate Star Wars in ASCII, the same reason people climb mountains. It's a challenge in an area they know. It's a chance to match wits, indirectly, against Microsoft's presumably smart security people. People often set strange challenges for themselves, let them enjoy themselves.

2. It tweaks Microsoft. Some geeks just love the opportunity to thumb their noses at Microsoft and this is a chance. You get to do something Microsoft really doesn't want you to do. You get a box valued at something like $300 for $200, subsidized by Microsoft. That gives some people a kick. It's not harmful (in the way, say, vandalizing Microsoft's property would), so what's the harm?

3. For some specialized tasks it's a suitable box. Sure, you can build a similarlly powered box for a similar price, but you'd be hard pressed to build a box with a stereo component form factor and as quiet as the X-Box. It would make a good network media player for videos and music. It would make a good station for running things like MAME or other emulators. It's not an awesome deal (and as technology continues to advance, it will be less of a deal), but for now it's a pretty good deal.

4. To play illegally copied games. Sure it's illegal, and I'm sure you would never do something like that. But some people don't care and want to.

For all the hype in the media about running Linux on an XBox, why isn't there similar press about running Linux on, say, a Nintendo Cube (or, does that one already run Linux? or Unix?) I believe that Playstation already runs Linux... right?

Indeed, Sony did release a version of Linux for the Playstation 2. The initial rumors were announced on Slashdot, the initial announcement made it onto Slashdot, and the ship date got announced on Slashdot. We got an in depth review, and an annoucement of a new distribution for PS2 Linux. That seems to have been reasonably well covered. Why no more announcements? Well, given that Sony handed the community a working version, there wasn't as much incentive to spend time hacking on it. Also, it was much harder to port given the lack of a hard drive. Notably, Sony's Linux for PS2 includes a hard drive.

Linux on the Gamecube? People are interested. The lack of a hard dr

Re:But... why?

[Ephemeriis]

You know, I'm really not all that certain that Microsoft is losing money on these systems anymore. Sure, when it first came out the specs seemed fairly impressive, and there was initial outlay for the fabrication equipment.... But looking at the components from today's pricepoint I really don't think MS is losing all that much.

It's a 700 Mhz Celeron processor, 64 MB of RAM, an 8 GB HDD, a DVD dive, and a custom mobo with video & sound on it... Plus the case. I'd be very surprised if components like that cost much more than the $200 they're currently selling the Xbox for. And keep in mind that at this point in time MS is turning out dozens of Xboxes every hour from custom factories with an assortment of bulk contracts...I doubt if they're paying anything remotely close to what we would be.

yrs,
Ephemeriis

Re:But... why?

[SatanicPuppy]

One word: Cluster.

The thing about consoles is this: THEY ARE SOLD FOR LESS THAN COST!!!

Sound incredible? Yes! But true! They expect to make their money and then some off the games. So they sell the hardware cheap, and there you are. You have hardware that costs less than it would actually cost you to build it, nearly unheard of today.

It's got everything you need, and more! All that hard drive is actually gravy! Video card? Gravy! All you need is the processor and memory.

Hook a dozen of them together for less than a top-of-the-line Dell! Ten grand will buy you 50(!!!) of the little things.

I won't HAVE to imagine a beowulf cluster of these little lovelies! I can actually have one in my garage!!!

When they all get remaindered because the playstation is still better, I'll buy 'em up cut-rate, build a massive cluster, and use the resultant computing power to pummel poorly secured Windows servers in an armageddon of digital irony!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Of course, that's just my opinion... ;)

Another problem is

[chadamir]

that you still can't use the xbox to play unsigned code without modifying it. So yeah you can boot linux, but I can't just bring some software I wrote over to my friend's house and pop it in and show him. He needs to have it modded which is still a big problem.

Shows Palladium is not going to work

[captaineo]

This wonderful example shows how even hardware-enforced media protection schemes aren't going to work, as long as there are any vulnerabilities in the "trusted" software.

e.g. say you have a DVD player program that is "trusted" and prevents you from taking a screenshot or recording anything from a DVD. If you can find a buffer overflow or any other kind of exploit in the program, you can just have it execute your own code (rip the whole DVD) at its super-trusted privilege level.

Given that MS has a hard time keeping its HTTP server secure, I don't think buffer overflows will be too hard to find in typical razzle-dazzle media player programs :)

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[Billly Gates]

But the memory is protected and encrypted. One of the benefits (if any) of palladium is that its more secure. The reason why is buffer overflows are impossible with it if its signed.

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[x mani x]

Microsoft fully knows and expects that the first incarnations of Palladium will be cracked. The issue is that eventually Palladium logic will move from being a seperate chip on your motherboard to being right in your CPU's die. At that point it will become extremely difficult for even very talented hackers to break. When Palladium is integrated with your CPU, you'll need some very expensive equipment to find out what's going on inside the chip let alone crack it. At that point the cost of entry for breaking Palladium will be too high for individuals or even universities, and your only hope will be on a competitor to Intel/MS or whatever breaking the DMCA to crack their hardware (I don't see this happening).

-Mani

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

MS's answer to this problem will no doubt be revocation lists. I think of the Xbox as a dry run for Palladium, and the dependence on a trusted central server is the one thing that's missing. A Palladium Xbox would contact the mothership to verify any software it was about to load. If a bug like the one in 007 is found, MS simply revokes that particular image's permission to run until your box downloads the patch that repairs the buffer overflow.

Now I'm not saying full-blown Palladium will be hack-proof, but it will be a lot more difficult to break than this. I applaud the Xbox hackers' efforts to find clever ways for people to use their own hardware (MS's business model be damned), but they still have their work cut out for them.

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[Billly Gates]

Actually Palladium logic into the cpu, memory, video card, chipset, bios, hard drive, and cd-rom are part of the design. Its setup as a tamperproof nightmare that if one key is cracked the rest of the components will come in and reblock the code. Same is true for the xbox. Its a moddified pentiumIII and not the same ones at the store. However only the chipset, bios, and cpu are signed. The memory and hard disk are drm free.

However I believe preventing opensource and creating headaches for competition is really what Microsoft's goals are. Like you said Microsoft might expect it to be cracked but many bussinesses do not want to be sued by Microsoft under the DMCA and will pick Windows2k3.net instead of Linux for that reason. My guess is Microsoft will charge customers like Sun and Corel shitloads of money so their products are expensive. My guess is they will charge per pc so they can not rape the company but customers wanting anything but Microsoft. Staroffice and Wordperfect could be as high as $500 per pc with %90 of the profits going directly to Microsoft for the privledge of using palladium.

Then clueless users will falsly think Microsoft makes the cheapest and best products.

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[nick this]

This wonderful example shows how even hardware-enforced media protection schemes aren't going to work, as long as there are any vulnerabilities in the "trusted" software.

This is true as far as it goes, but you have to think that the goal (from Microsoft's perspective) isn't to lock hackers out of the hardware, it's to lock them out of the hardware only long enough to ship the next version, built on a platform immune to the vulnerabilities of the previous platform.

Look at the satellite TV folks -- once pirated satellite got out of hand, they just dropped the H cards and started shipping HU cards. Once the community started getting traction on those, they moved to the next version of smart cards.

DirectTV doesn't have to lock the hackers out forever, just make it hard enough to reverse engineer that they can move to a newer platform when the dam starts to break. So Microsoft can do the same thing. They can move faster than the community can, particularly when the protection is on die. Makes reversing it *really hard*... both expensive and time consuming.

So really, the security on Palladium doesn't have to be great, just good enough.

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[owlstead]

Therefore they might use OCSP. However, this requires an always on connection.

You don't have to crack paladium if the signed code is unsafe. With the latest virtual machines most code has bounds checking enabled (like Java) so buffer overruns will be more difficult to find.

It is actually possible to make palladium very safe in my opinion. Which opens a whole new playing field, with a lot of good and bad patches.

Have you seen my sig?

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[nick this]

I keep hearing over 50 percent of dishes sold are being used for stolen satellite access.

I think this used to be true, but not so much anymore. Once the emulators and hardware got to the point that joe sixpack could set up an emulator, they shifted to newer smartcards. I'm not 100% sure, as I'm not really in the satellite hacking scene, but those that I know that used to be stealing satellite are now paying for it. :)

And yeah, this was a failed attempt on Microsoft's part, but they can just chalk it up as lesson learned. The next version will be stronger, until it reaches the point that it isn't cost effective to hack. Imagine if it starts to take two years (or more!) to reverse the box rather than just six months. There is suddenly much less point to hacking it, if all you are going to be able to do is run a bunch of old lame games. Even for "free". There will still be hack value in it, but I don't imagine that Microsoft will have much to worry about at that point.

So I dunno... it just seems to me like if they can keep the box closed for two years or more, then they've won. And that doesn't seem like an unreachable goal, so long as they don't continue to make the same stupid mistakes they have with the xbox.

And you know that they aren't ignoring the beating the xbox scene is giving them. They'll come back fighting. They always do.

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[Minna Kirai]

This wonderful example shows how even hardware-enforced media protection schemes aren't going to work,

It only shows that the schemes won't work by merely technical means, and that they'll need the help of laws to make hardware media protection work.

Legal methods alone won't work, because people will ignore laws that are totally easy to break. And it's impossible to arrest/intimidate millions of people for a non-sexual, non-violent, drug-free, victimless crime.

Hardware methods alone won't work, because as soon as one smart guy deciphers the hardware, he'll spread his workaround to the entire world.

The combination of hardware and legal protections can work. If there are laws allowing for severe punishments to the handful of hackers who create the workarounds, and moderate punishment to people who distribute them, it'll be quiet possible to keep 99.99% of people unable to break their hardware "trust" protection. And then the "trusted" code side will have won.

Given that MS has a hard time keeping its HTTP server secure, I don't think buffer overflows will be too hard to find in typical razzle-dazzle media player programs :)

That assumption is shortsighted. Maybe it's true today, but it won't stay true. Microsoft currently has many buffer overflows in its software, for 2 reasons.

1. They have no financial benefit to secure code. People still buy their software (even HTTP servers), regardless of occasional vulnerabilities. BUT, in the future, on devices like the X-Box, they will have more and more incentive to secure the code, and they might start to move security up their priority list.
   
   
2. PCs and servers with Microsoft Windows are currently general-purpose computers, which the end-user sysadmins can and do install unpredictable combinations of their own software on. In an unpredictable, dynamic environment, it's hard to keep things secure. BUT, X-Boxes (and similar hardware offerings) don't need to allow users to continually change and update the software. The routines that do things like unpack disk and network information are unchanging targets. Given time, Microsoft can progressively discover and eliminate any overflow. Then, they will make it impossible for game developers to write their own code for these things, and only allow them to use approved APIs for dangerous situations.
   

Re:Shows Palladium is not going to work

[captaineo]

Do you see my point about buffer overflows though? It doesn't matter how secure the hardware is. At some point, there will always be a piece of software with "trusted" access to the unencrypted data. And that software will be vulnerable to traditional attacks that can let you inject code of your choosing, which will execute at its "trusted" privilege level.

You would be right if *all* "trusted" software moved into micro-code in the hardware, like a stand-alone DVD player, but I don't think that is what MS has in mind for Palladium. They will almost certainly have to offer an API for third parties to write "trusted" software - they are a platform vendor, and I'm pretty sure they see Palladium as an extensible platform rather than a one-off hack for Windows Media Player.

You might also argue that MS will mandate garbage collection, bounds checking, non-executable stacks, or other techniques for reducing exploits. But even with those in place, I still wouldn't bet you a cent that the software would be impervious to attack.

man,

[frodo from middle ea]

Are they running their web server on such an Xbox ?
Already slashdotted.....

Re:Wow.

[FatRatBastard]

Actually, it just may. If the price goes down to $150 (as the rumors are claiming) then I've just saved a boat load of money on my "media PC" that I've been meaning to build (but have been too lazy to actually get around to). A good box with TV out, sound and ethernet to stream my 10K+ mp3 collection. This def. saves me time and money.

*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...*

[csteinle]

Not very much, I would imagine. Given that's it a law. It's not even an object, let alone an animate one capable of thought.

Re:What is the point?

[spineemike]

How about a Linux window server that lets you send what's on the TV that the Xbox is hooked to to any PC on the network. That would be cool! Then you could watch TV (or anything) on any PC without needing anything else but the Xbox you bought and paid for!

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[The Bungi]

Does the word "metaphor" give you goosebumps?

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Pejorian]

I have to scratch my head at this too.

The XBox is a game machine, not a PC, and it is designed to run 3D graphics applications really well. I can only conclude that the "run Linux on XBox" thing is a "proof-of-concept" (or as someone else put it, "stick-a-finger-in-M$-eye" thing or a "wow-your-fellow-geeks" thing)

By the way, I consider soldering to be modding.

PCs are cheap and plentiful. There are many FREE Linux distros that can be run on them. And, HEY! you DO NOT NEED A MOD CHIP nor do you need to solder ANYTHING to run Linux on them!!

ya ya... -1 redundant.

Re:What is the point?

[MentlFlos]

So when did the xbox get a video in jack? Am I missing something here?

Re:"Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[alwsn]

I like that "Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...*" makes it sound as if the DMCA monster robot is going to come and attack me in my sleep if I mod my xbox.

While it's true that the DMCA is a law that clearly supports companies and not people, it would still be better to phrase this more along the lines "It will be interesting to see how this act is interpreted under the DMCA"

Because

[FreeLinux]

Because the XBox has

a powerful processor

enough memory

dvd drive

high-end graphics card

and more

All for only $200. You can't get a PC with the same specs for near that price.

Did you vote?

Re:Because

[stratjakt]

a powerful processor

A mobile celeron 733 powerful? A 1 gig tualitin celeron would be 40 bucks, with another 30 or so for a mobo.

enough memory

What's 64 megs of SDRAM worth? 10 bucks? I bet most of us have a DIMM collecting dust we could use. I know I have a dozen of 'em.

dvd drive

A crappy dvd drive, on which recordable media support is somewhere between terrible and none, depending on your luck.

high-end graphics card

To be fair, it's a GeForce 3 with another pixel shader. And with no real driver support past a plain-jane framebuffer. And I sincerly doubt nVidia is going to pony up some drivers for the xGPU any time soon.

and more

Yes, an 8, 10 or maybe 20 gig HDD depending once again on luck. A terrible (from a general use PC standpoint) bus configuration. No way to do key/mouse input without sacrificing a $40 control pad.

Seriously.

Cheap case + PSU = 40 bucks

mobo, 733mhz celeron, ram = 100 bucks

Crappy DVD drive = well, you cant buy one as crippled as the xboxes. But lets say 25 bucks for a used 8x.

Cheapest, smallest HDD you can get = 30 bucks.

Sound card and video = spend as much as you want. You can get xbox-linux functionality on anything with a framebuffer. But hey, spend the 10 bucks on a Riva TNT2 and you're already smoking X-linux. But I'll say 50 bucks for a SB PCI card and a cheapo video card with TV-out.

100+40+30+25+50 = 245 bucks for a similarly configured home-built machine.

Xbox would be the price of the box (200) + a memory card (40) + a copy of 007 (20?).

Re:Because

[NanoGator]

Because the XBox has

a powerful processor

enough memory

dvd drive

high-end graphics card

and more

All for only $200. You can't get a PC with the same specs for near that price.

- The XBOX processor isn't that powerful.

- The memory is pretty weak by today's standards.

- DVD drive isn't that interesting. DVD writers are not quite main stream yet (they will be soon, though) and your XBOX can play DVDs without Linux.

- Your high end graphics card is limited by two factors: 1.) A maximum resolution of 720 by 480 @ 60hz, provided you have a progressive scan TV. 2.) Software to use it. What, do you really think games using that card will come? I haven't seen a PC Open Source project do that yet, this isn't going to change the playing field.

And more? Your computer is only as good as your ability to communicate with it. A TV monitor is a horrible interface for a computer. The text is fuzzy and game controllers are not ideal for computer usage. What you get is less of a computer here. The only distinct advantage to it (besides it's footprint, which I'll half-concede on) is it's TV out. I personally would like to have it so I can play DivX movies at near DVD quality. This cannot easily be done with a PC and it's Tv-out that doesn't do the right resolution and color saturation.

Give us applications, not specs. If it had a TV tuner card on it, you might be on to something interesting here. Home-brew PVR! Nope. Don't have that. So please, give me a valid application that the XBOX running Linux would be ideal for.

Re:Because

[Sawbones]

Unfortunately, you've just argued that for $15 more I can get the same setup in a tiny form factor case with less noise, better TV out (potential HDTV support) and isn't a freaking beige box sitting in my living room. It's the same reason people still buy Tivos even though MythTV exists.

Oh, and you don't have to mangle an xbox controller to get a keyboard and mouse working, you just have to mangle a controler extension cord (or try and form your own xbox/usb style plug).

Re:Because

[vex24]

The two reasons I could actually buy into for doing this:

1. Cheese off Microsoft by running Linux on their box.

2. Fulfill the dream of Linux lovers everywhere: Deploy a Beowulf cluster of Linux machines that costs $200 per node for the owner, and $100 per node to Microsoft, thereby reversing the Microsoft tax for a brief shining moment. :)

Re:Because

[DarkZero]

Xbox would be the price of the box (200) + a memory card (40) + a copy of 007 (20?).

Refurbished XBox because consoles are pretty durable and they obviously weren't owned that long, so there is probably no need for a brand new one = $130-$150

Used memory card, because once again, it hasn't been used that long or that often = $20? (actually $0 if you use ebay, since hardly anyone is going to sell their XBox without its memory card)

Used copy of 007, because few people want to keep it for long and its suckage will propel it into the bargain bin soon anyway = $10

That's $140-$180, plus it still plays XBox games, which a PC does not (a very small bonus, I will admit), and it also comes with a decent gamepad for emulated/freeware/abandonware games, which you did not mention in your PC list. For someone that's on the fence about whether or not they want an XBox console, I'd say it's a great deal. For someone that just wants a small media PC, I'd say it's a fair deal that also provides a weekend of enjoyable hacking, if that's their sort of thing.

And besides, putting a PC together is just a little bit easier than this really simple modding job. For a little more work, you could save about $100 and still get as much functionality as you need for a media PC.

Re:Because

[Iscariot_]

These types of mods aren't exactly for people who don't have an Xbox and are looking for a cheap PC. They are for people who already have an Xbox.

When the next gen of consoles is out, converting the Xbox to some sort of media center would sound like a great idea to a whole bunch of people.

-My two cents

Re:Because

[josephpate]

Oh, and you don't have to mangle an xbox controller to get a keyboard and mouse working, you just have to mangle a controler extension cord (or try and form your own xbox/usb style plug).

Or you could just buy this from lik-sang for 12.50 plus S&H.

http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=0&prod uc ts_id=2154

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[kwerle]

so why do folks sink lots of time and effort into this?

I already have an XBox.
It is connected to my TV and my stereo.
I want it to play MP3s from my server.
I don't want another box.

It can't be all that hard to understand.

TSOP?

[CanadaDave]

Isn't the TSOP just the name for a chip package type? I thought it meant Tiny Small-Outline-Package or something like that. Why are they throwing the word around like it has something to do with the funtion of the chip itself.

Re:TSOP?

[stratjakt]

Yeah, though I thought it was Thin-line Soldered On Package or some such.

The xbox' bios is a TSOP eeprom.

You'll also note they talk about burning an "ISO of Halo", when of course, the filesystem they're burning is anything but ISO 9660 (either UDF or Xboxes native system)

Re:TSOP?

[dissy]

> Isn't the TSOP just the name for a chip package type?

Yea, but look at the PC world.. ever hear someone say "Now go into your CMOS" ?
Same type of people :}

Re:TSOP?

[mikelieman]

TSOP = Total System Override Program

From the Bolo Books. Lets a Human shutdown a rogue Bolo if it ever goes out of control.

Sheesh, Don't they teach Literature anymore???

Re:TSOP?

[CanadaDave]

Good point, the CMOS one has always bugged me as well.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[tgd]

I'll tell you why I did the Linux/BSD on Dreamcast thing... (which never worked out anyway, unfortunately)... I liked the idea of a multi-use unit in my entertainment center that didn't have a fan, didn't look like ass, and could do reasonable streaming MP3's. As it turned out last time I looked no one had gotten a decent streaming MP3 player running DC native or Linux/BSD, so its been sitting in a box in my closet for the last year.

My RIO Player works fine now...

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[chadamir]

I believe you mean "personification." Do the words "Dictionary" and "joke" give you goosebumps?

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Jahf]

That $200 box is not engineered to look/sound decent in the living room and doesn't have an optical audio or component video output. To get a compact box with the same specs you're going to spend more than $200.

Besides, I don't need a full PC in the living room, but a good game machine that can double as a linux-based Ogg/MP3/MPEG/etc player is quite handy.

I've been heavily considering getting an Xbox for a media player, right now it's a wait-and-see as to which happens first ... an Xbox that can run linux (or Evolution X) AND still run on Xbox Live -or- DirecTV getting off their buts and letting me buy their media option on my HDVR2.

why so lazy?

[SHEENmaster]

The only think that will make me run linux on my xbox is if I can install a working system withou[t]> touching a screw driver.

If I bought an x-box; I'd mod it the first chance I got.

All you have to do is open a case(which any moron should be able to do) and solder some jumpers to get a working, usable, system.

Has anyone claimed that prize money yet, or does the X-box have to be completely unmodded?

Re:why so lazy?

[SScorpio]

The contest ends in December AFAIK. The complete prize money is for a 100% unmoddified system. You can get partial prizes for needing other things like 007 and a memory card.

If you go the memory card route you won't need to open your Xbox if you don't mind booting 007 each time.

The only way to get a complete solution would be to find Microsoft's private key. You can then sign a Linux executable as being bootable off a CD-R. Anyone could then download, burn, and run it on a unmodded system then. If you want to help find it, and take a shot at winning the money, join the Operation Project X project http://www.operationprojectx.com/main.asp. Who knows you might be lucky and walk away with a nice chunk of change.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[secolactico]

so why do folks sink lots of time and effort into this?

Why do people climb the Everest? It's not like they are going to settle there or mine for resources.

Smallest version?

[CrazyJim0]

Is there a .exe for Linux or Windows?

I just run the .exe and then I can flash roms over?

Re:Smallest version?

[TKinias]

scripsit an AC:

....osmosis is through water. Jerk.

Right. Otherwise it would work. Really.

Re:Boredom breeds insanity, part 344

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed linux on my dog. Things didn't go well!

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[R0b5D1gs]

What are your thoughts on Moderators that are trying to do a good job for the /. community. When ever I see that I have the moderator points it almost seems like a job reading slashdot. I have to read the articles(no, I don't always ;^) and keep tuned in closer then normal so all the good ones aren't already at their threshold.

Re:What is the point?

[MoonBuggy]

But what, exactly, does this do for me, besides letting me put a finger in M$'s eye?

You're a slashdot reader, shouldn't annoying Billy boy be enough for you? ;-)

Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems the mods don't know what a bastard file is. If they did know what a bastard file was, they would have modded you up as +1 FUNNY.

Stupid mods...

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[stratjakt]

Simple.

Linux is just the "front" that lets kids talk about how to flash the BIOS with a hacked version to play warez.

They act as though they have the moral high ground with all the linux jibber jabber, but go peruse the forums in the links and you can see what 99% of the kids are really interested in hacking the xbox for.

It aint linux, it ain't Tux racer, it aint backups or imports. It's just code for "warez" and we all know it.

Eg; a local game shop does mods, and sells imports. I was chatting with the owner one day, and asked him how many mods he does a week. He tells me 50 on a good week. I ask him how many import games he sells. He just kind of laughed and says practically none, they just keep them around to legitimize the whole thing.

Re:Wow.

[RatBastard]

Actually, there is one use that most XBox users might see as useful: With Linux running on your XBox you can FTP files in and out of it, letting you hack savegame files, or load hacked savegame files.

Re:Wow.

[cgenman]

Agreed. I've just built a Samba MP3 file server for the apartment using 100 dollars worth of the slowest parts available today... a television connectable DVD drive with a great graphics card would be a very, very sweet deal.

I can tell u what�s the point!

[dark-br]

"Why Xbox Linux?" Well I have a legitimate reason for wanting Linux on an unmodded Xbox.

My Xbox is going back to MS as they have attempted to fix a problem several times and have so far been unsuccessful. This time, they're considering swapping systems for a new one, which I'm fine with except for one thing: Loss of saved games.

They will not just swap drives as it would save them at least 5 minutes of work, so I will lose all of my info on the HD.

With Linux running on my unmodded Xbox, I could possibly FTP the data elsewhere and restore it on the new system. This makes so much sense to me that I wonder why there is no way of doing it by default.

Microsoft's idea is to purchase their Memory Units and backup this way. Problem is, since each Xbox comes with a hard drive, no developer tries to make the smallest possible size save file. I would need several MUs to backup my data. Plus, some files cannot even be copied to a MU which means they cannot be backed up at all.

Re:I can tell u what�s the point!

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Can't you just use a memory card?

graspee

meet the impossibles

[Naikrovek]

the cop says: "I want body armor the size of a handkerchief that can stop a howitzer."

the fireman says: "i want a firehose that weighs less than a pound that can fight fires 250 feet away."

the scuba diver says: "i want an oxygen tank that holds 10 hours of air, and fits in my back pocket - those backpack tanks are HEAVY!"

the hot rodder says: "i want a car that goes from 0-60 in 1 second with a top speed of 400mph in the quarter mile and i don't want to spend over $500."

the alwsn says: "i want to make some electronic equipment i own do something it was never intended to do without opening the case, changing anything, and i want it to work flawlessly every time."

ALL RIDICULOUS.

Re:meet the impossibles

[alwsn]

I never claimed that I wanted run linux on an xbox, I just stated the conditions that would have to be met before I would install linux. If they never happen, then I'll never install it.

A cop would use flawless body armor if it worked, but likely wouldn't use somewhat shotty armor if it involved gluing 100 Lb steel slabs to his shirt.

Some linux enthusiasts might enjoy this 100 Lb steel slab aproach, but I do not.

Re:meet the impossibles

[Minna Kirai]

the alwsn says: "i want to make some electronic equipment i own do something it was never intended to do without opening the case, changing anything, and i want it to work flawlessly every time."

ALL RIDICULOUS.

One of those things is not like the others- one of those things does not belong!

The 4 examples you give are examples of equipment that is impossible because it violates the laws of physics. The last example is a violation of the will of Microsoft- which is a much softer target to attack.

The X-Box is a stored-program computer. It loads programs and runs them. Since it can load software that wasn't conceived back when the hardware was built, it's what is called a "general purpose computer".

The manufacturer has attempted to cripple the device- to take away a capability it naturally had- in order to earn themselves some more cash. It was intended first to run programs, then as an afterthought, made to only run a tiny fraction of the many possible programs for marketing reasons.

It's not ridiculous at all to think that the code-signing restriction can be lifted from the XBox, without changing the hardware. Bill Gates could accomplish this in 30 seconds if he wished. US normal people might take longer, and it might be "illegal", but the probablities aren't so low as to be humorous.

(Unless someone imagines they'll brute-force the encryption, which is just funny)

Re:meet the impossibles

[Swiss_Cheeseman]

the alwsn says: "i want to make some electronic equipment i own do something it was never intended to do without opening the case, changing anything, and i want it to work flawlessly every time." Say hello to the dreamcast you tard. www.dcemulation.com No modding or anything. Simply burn a CD and it works.

Re:meet the impossibles

[darien]

I'm amazed no one's done the ob. Simpsons' quote yet:

"I want all my groceries in one bag! And I don't want that bag to be heavy!"

"Uh, ma'am, I don't know if that's possible."

"What are you, the possible police?? Just do it!"

Re:meet the impossibles

[way2trivial]

in order to earn themselves some more cash.
I think that's, "ANY CASH" as the Xbox is a money looser on each deck sold.
the only profit lies in selling games/licensing.
if everyone bought the box, and no one bought a game, production will end.

Re:meet the impossibles

[Minna Kirai]

No, "MORE CASH" is right.

For one thing, an X-Box isn't all that expensive to build. It's not like you get a $600 PC for $150. Buying a PC with similar capabilities today is just around $250, and by mass-producing specially designed hardware, Microsoft can easily overcome that price difference. Yes, the work to design the boards and set up the factories meant it was very expensive in the beginning, but today, X-Boxes are built cheap enough that MS breaks even on a few games. Microsoft originally spent ~$360 per X-Box. Today it's half that.

If amateurs were allowed to make custom software, most people would still buy the professional stuff (which is faster and more impressive technically because it has the backing of Microsoft. Without support from the hardware developer, you can't make a quality game on sub-standard hardware). That would be especially true for the first 2-3 years of the product's life, when the amateur developers were just getting up to speed. By then, the manufacturer should have a better system in the pipeline to replace it.

And, I think that's "LOSER".

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[RatBastard]

Via Mini-ITX case in a small box with 64MB of RAM and an old hard drive. Fully functional MP3/OGG/etc... living room PC for almost nothing. Install any OS you like. Built in TV-Out, sound, NIC, video, etc... Hell, if it finds a TV connected to the Video-out and no monitor it will boot with the TV as the primary display, even in "DOS Mode".

No need to solder anything. No voiding of the warranty. No giving MS any more of your money.

Why I'm doing this

[BigDish]

The most common question here seems to be why? Well, for my, XBMP is the answer. Few months ago, I installed a mod chip in a friend's Xbox. One of the first things he did was get XBMP running. Wow, all I can say is XBMP is the killer application for the Xbox. Just to run XBMP, I picked up a used Xbox and DVD remote just before the initial exploit was discovered, and I grabbed 007 off ebay for like $10. Though when trying to bridge the 2 resistor pads, I knocked another resistor off the board, so I need to obtain a replacement resistor (soldering iron I was using was WAY too big) to finish this project Really though, if you haven't seen XBMP, look at it. It is a killer app-ESPECIALLY for college students. For $150 or so I have a box that will play damn near any media file I through at it, off CD, DVD, or SMB share, and is designed to be hooked to the TV, with an interface designed for it too. To me, the Xbox with XBMP is the media PC Microsoft has been trying to create.

Re:Why I'm doing this

[Hollins]

Given that it lacks the ability to refuse to play files via DRM, this is almost certainly not "the media PC Microsoft has been trying to create".

What about running Windows?

[Rinikusu]

Why isn't anyone trying to get Windows to run on one of these things, as well? Sure, Linux is nifty and all, but some of us actually *prefer* using Windows. Just curious.

Re:What about running Windows?

[Vodak]

There could be a couple of answers to your question.

One, because the people who are toying with this are not trying to get their effort stopped. If they would try to get windows working on this they would be breaking one of Microsoft's little license agreements and thus will have federal authority to put a stop to this in many different countries.

Two, people know more about Linux then they know about Windows. If something at the kernel level needs to be edited in order to get the thing to work it is much easier making a half-ass patch on Linux then it would be on Windows.

Three, because there are more hard-core Linux geeks into console hacking then there are hard-core windows geeks. (because it's not trendy to be a windows hacking geek)

Re:What about running Windows?

[aderusha]

as soon as m$ open-sources windows, i'm sure somebody will compile it to run on xbox.

just don't hold your breath...

Re:What about running Windows?

[Papineau]

Because it's easier to change a driver for Linux than for Windows, especially when the manufacturer doesn't help, or just get it if that's the case. Actually, NetBSD might have been another try (doesn't it run on the Dreamcast already?), but I think more people are more familiar with Linux than NetBSD (and that doesn't mean BSD is dying).

Re:X-Box Running Linux is a waste of time

[aderusha]

show me another computer with 64mb ram, 8/10/20gb hard drive (depending on when you bought it), decent 3d video, dolby digital 5.1 sound, dvd-rom, and 10/100 ethernet that you can buy for $200 and i won't call your post a troll.

Re:What is the point?

[inkedmn]

i'd be pretty stoked to have a $150 mail/web server that's about the size of a small toaster, wouldn't you?

Re:What is the point?

[fobbman]

" I mean, ok, very cool...linux on my xbox. But what, exactly, does this do for me, besides letting me put a finger in M$'s eye?"

Hell, that's almost enough for me to go buy an XBox on the used market. Just to have an XBox running X...[evil laugh]

Re:What is the point?

[James_Duncan8181]

It has an ethernet cable and a copy of linux.

You know that remote windows thing in X that trolls are always bitching about? Might come in useful here. Just stream video down the network.

Re:Whats with all the blatent piracy news stories?

[Vodak]

This is not piracy, this is the true art of hacking. Getting something to work in a way it was not intended.

It's a flash chip

[Wesley Felter]

Isn't the TSOP just the name for a chip package type? Why are they throwing the word around like it has something to do with the funtion of the chip itself.

Because they don't know anything about hardware. Speaking as a programmer, I don't really blame them...

<rant>BTW, TSOP flash is the bane of my existence. Those pins are always getting bent when I take the chip out of the socket.</rant>

Reverse Engineering

[meta-monkey]

Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

Even if you didn't have to open the box and do some soldering, I think this would still violate the DMCA, because MS will claim that there's no way anyone could have discovered this method without reverse-engineering either their BIOS or the assumably proprietary 007 save game format and code.

Probably the only way you can get Linux or any other software to run on an unmodified XBox would in some way involve using MS's Xbox SDK. Most likely, that includes code that must be licensed from MS. I don't know that to be the case, but that's my guess.

Re:Reverse Engineering

[stratjakt]

IIRC, the eula with every game explicitly prohibits reverse engineering, disassembly, blah blah of anything contained on the game disc or any files it creates on the HDD or memory card.

Re:Reverse Engineering

[Vodak]

I would think that this would be a great case to contest the reverse engineering DMCA rules. Unlike the DeCSS it would be harder for Microsoft to argue that they were using this to copy games.

Re:What is the point?

[Colonel Panic]

I kind'a wonder what the point is as well...

I suppose you could make the point that M$ loses money on every XBox they sell so that they can create a market for XBox games and that by buying an XBox and running LInux on it you're helping to bleed M$ dry... However, on the otherhand, if you do buy an XBox to run Linux, the sales figures for XBoxen are incremented by 1 and the more XBoxen there are, the more the game companies will want to support it. So it's kind of a double-edge sword. ....and of course, it would take a long, long time to bleed M$ dry this way.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[ecchi_0]

Personally, I don't see how stores could survive like that. Installing modchips to play pirated games - games that they SELL. I'd think there would be more profit in selling multiple games to each customer than one modchip and no more business aside from the occasional hardware purchase. I like the way the Gamecube works - a region switch can be installed to play imports without a modchip allowing pirated games, and there's even a disc-based import booter available now.

BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[DickBreath]

Walmart sells $200 Lindows machines with more functionality, particularly factoring in the hard drive, so why do folks sink lots of time and effort into this?

I swear this question gets asked each time the Xbox-Linux topic comes up.

Because it's there!


Why did people used to buy Heathkit TV's when you could buy a pre-built similar TV for less money?

Why should some kid build a linux-workalike when there were already other OSes that ran on his hardware?

Why build a motorized car out of lego bricks when you can buy a ready made motorized car for less?

Why do people do pointless things? Model railroading? Build their own automobile from a kit? Fix their own car? Why does a kid with a soldering iron to spend $30 bucks on parts to build his own radio, when he could have bought a ready made transistor radio for $5? Why does my straight cute neighbor build all kinds of things out of wood when he could purchase ready made items? (Mailbox, Playhouse, Swingset) Why would someone spend many hours learning to program a simple no-frills text editor for the millionth time when many people already have notepad pre-installed?

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[NanoGator]

"Because it's there! "

I'm normally all for this type of stuff, but in this case a better reason is needed than that. These guys are wandering into DMCA smackdown territory, and their only real defense is going to be "there's plenty of legitimate reasons why I'd want to do this." Unfortuantely, these reasons don't appear to exist. The only interesting one I've heard of was playing DivX movies. Given the XBOX's TV hardware that's unique to it (PC's, even with TV out, aren't the same quality) that's a semi reasonable excuse. (Pity the DMCA says DivX DVD rips are illegal...)

The question 'why' in this case cannot be answered by "because it's there". It needs to be something like "because the XBOX has a unique capability that we should be allowed to tinker with.

If somebody can enlighten me as to that use for the XBOX running Linux, then I'd be happy to be a proponent of it. But right now, what I see are people picking a fight with Microsoft and hoping the community will defend them. Sorry. Not supporting that. Throw me a frickin bone here.

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[dissy]

> If somebody can enlighten me as to that use for the XBOX running Linux, then I'd
> be happy to be a proponent of it.

Well, in the case with BSD on the dreamcast atleast, I wanted that so I could write some software (be it games or whatever) and take a disc to a friends, pop it in their dreamcast, and showoff.

To do this the 'normal' way would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars for a sony devel kit, plus id have to pay a fee for each disc they pressed.
Fuck that.

Sounds like a good reason to get linux on xbox too.

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[KiahZero]

Why does everyone think DivX and associated codecs is only good for ripping DVDs? I used XviD to dump movies from my TiVo to CDs and free up HDD space. That right there is a great reason to have the hacked Xbox... you've got your TiVo to record and your Xbox to play.

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[norton_I]

Because it is there is the best possible reason for it, and one of the main reasons that the DMCA should be struck down. It doesn't matter whether any of the reasons I want to mod an X-box make sense to you, or to a judge, or can be justified financially. I bought it, and if I want to play with it, I should be able to. If I use it to pirate video games, charge me with that. If not, don't try to nail me with some phony circumvention nonsense.

Unfortunatly, it seems that "depriving a company of revenue" is now the equivlent of theft. If I find a use for and X-Box that doesn't require me to buy enough games for MS to make up the loss they chose to take on the box, or if I want to develop software for the x-box without licensing MS's development system and other software, or really do anything else that makes it hard for MS to make money, that has now become a crime. And it isn't just MS--our entire mentality seems to be shifting that corporations deserve to make money off of their products, and anyone who interferes with that must be doing something wrong, even if it is just making their product irrelevant.

Capitalism will be the death of the free market economy. (stolen from someone, I don't know who)

That said, I think there are a number of good (or good enough) reasons to use a hacked x-box. 1) as a media player in an attractive box with high quality A/V outputs and general purpose programability for future upgrades. 2) to develop your own x-box games or set-top applications without MS licenseing fees. 3) to run emulations of classic console or PC games on a large screen TV with a (relatively) nice controller. 4) To access simple general purpose computing from your living room.

All of these problems have other solutions, but none as cheap, convenient, and nice as a hacked X-box. And, if you also want to play games, they are essentially free, except for a bit of work, which might be valued higher than the X-box itself, but some people actually enjoy it.

I have actually considered using an X-box as sort of a low-power (as in watts) network server to do things like spool mail and do DHCP -- that way my "real" server could just boot up occasionally and grab mail and so forth. It would be nice to save some money on power (and A/C in the summer). Again, if there were a good low power complete computer system for a couple of hundred bucks with anywhere near the specs on an X-box, I would consider that as well, but there isn't (that I know of).

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[NanoGator]

"Why does everyone think DivX and associated codecs is only good for ripping DVDs? "

Who said DivX is illegal? I said Divx rips of DVDs.

Don't blow up at me about it, I do animation for a living. DivX is the best codec I've used to share my work with the community.

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[KiahZero]

True, but your initial post was phrased such that it was easy to take your meaning incorrectly... sorry. Personally, I like how ridiculously easy it is to get high-quality output with XviD. Pop open VirtualDub, use the default codec settings, and save as AVI. I never could figure out how to get good output with DivX.

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[NanoGator]

" I never could figure out how to get good output with DivX"

I might be able to help you. Try changing the 'Maximum Qunatizer' to 8 or 4. The lower the better. Mininum Qunatizer should be one or two.

I think what it does is it sets how big an area to compress, but the default's a bit high.

Note: Im not quite an expert here, I just picked htis up a few days ago. Your milage may vary. :)

Re:BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

[yandros]

An xbox-linux has great potential to lower the barriers to entry for games creators.

Imagine xbox-linux with network and controller support. High school kids writing python can now make games for the consoles that their friends already own.

Please note that I'm not saying that this is currently feasible -- the existing no-mod methods for xbox-linux are too complicated for pretty much everyone. They are getting better as time goes on, though -- that's the benefit of work like this.

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[fobbman]

Oh sure. It just WANTS you to think that.

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[The Bungi]

"joke"

Indeed.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Jahf]

Going offtopic ... this was in response to my .sig ... I think moderators and metamoderators who do a good job are GrrrrREAT! However, after seeing too many people who make claims like "I always mark negative moderations as unfair" (metamoderating) or just plain dumb moderations like a truly informative post getting knocked into score:0 hell, I just don't see it being worthwhile.

Besides, part of my .sig is an invitation -not- to mod me up ... my karma is as good as it gets (with no whoring in my past ;) and I can't redeem them for anything real, so I would much rather hear back from someone who might agree with me to get their opinion on things. Just as I'd rather hear from someone who -disagrees- with me rather than just get modded down, since otherwise I don't know what they were disagreeing with.

Most times that I get modpoints myself I end up wasting them because any article I have enough interest to read through I end up posting to before I get to the end, thereby invalidating my mod points.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[toast0]

you said: liked the idea of a multi-use unit in my entertainment center that didn't have a fan, didn't look like ass, and could do reasonable streaming MP3's.

Of course, the dreamcast does not fit this description, since it is has a fan... in fact i believe it was the first home game system with a fan.

Re:Wow.

[BigDish]

Some of the alternate Xbox shells also have FTP servers running, so you don't even need linux to do this.

What for?

[kavau]

This is meant to be an honest question, not a flame: What's the point of running Linux on your Xbox? Linux runs fine on a PC. Is it just the "because we can" factor, or are there any really useful things you can do with Linux on an Xbox that you can't do on a PC?

Re:What for?

[Vodak]

Regardless of what people will claim the development of these projects happen only because of the geek factor. The Dreamcast, the Playstation ext. the units are to low ended to run anything of meaning in the real world. As for the claim that they are cheap, so are PDAs... and the PDAs tend to have more functionality.

Re:What for?

[tweek]

Actually the xbox is of more use than any of the others. You've basically got a pretty decent spec'd PC in a small formfactor for $149 bucks.

Re:What for?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Was there a price drop? Last time I checked the XBox was $200.

Re:What for?

[dissy]

> What's the point of running Linux on your Xbox? Linux runs fine on a PC.

Thats like asking why even buy a game console, since you can run anything on your PC.

Yea, the whole family just Loves crowding around a 17" monitor at a desk, with 4 shitty joysticks connected to a USB hub, just to play some games with the kids.

Go ask MS why they made the xbox.. then go ask all the other console companys why they made their consoles at all.

That is why its good to have consoles, and run software on them.

I know how to write software for linux already, why should i be forced to learn yet another API, and on top of that pay M$ royalties for each game i make?

Re:What for?

[Jahf]

You can get a refurbed / used unit at alot of game stores for $149 (and if you're going to mod a box or add a bigger hard drive, why pay the "new" tax).

Plus, there is an unsubstantiated rumor that the Xbox will be lowere to $149 in the US to match the price drop that just happened in Europe, though it may be awhile before it happens.

Re:What for?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Ah, thanks for the info. The real question is...should I buy an XBox? I'm currently a happy PS2 owner and I think that if I were going to buy another console, it would be a Gamecube just to play Zelda. I've got a network adapter for my PS2 so I wouldn't invest in XBox Live and from what I understand, XBox Live is one of the main sellers of the system.

Re:What for?

[ces]

If you have to ask you just don't understand.

Why does someone do anything?

It's like asking a mountain climer, bodybuilder, or football fan why they bother.

Geeks like to mess with stuff. If we didn't we'd just plop down in front of the telly and watch "Survivor".

Some are probably doing it for the challenge. Some are probably doing it because they actually have an application in mind. Some are probably doing it just because they can.

Try rephrasing your question and you'll see my point:
"What's the point of running linux on your PC? Windows runs just fine on a PC. Is it just the "because we can" factor, or are there any really useful things you can do with Linux on a PC that you can't do with Windows?"

Re:What for?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can boot Linux, then you can boot anything. You can just use Linux as a program loader, if you're really lazy. Whatever.

That means that you can develop software (e.g. games) for the Xbox, without necessarily having to license their SDK.

The value of that that, should be obvious to any hacker. If you don't see the value in being able to program a computer, then .. uh .. I just can't relate to you.

But another consequence (non-hacker-oriented), is that if you can do this without requiring any hardware mods or expensive third-party stuff (e.g. that 007 game) then you can have a fairly large commercial market for your software but don't have to pay any royalties to the dark lord and also don't have to sign any bizarre contracts that contain heinous terms above-and-beyond the merely financial aspects.

Piggy-backing on Microsoft's marketing and subverting their business model, would have a delicious payoff.

1. You get to hurt someone who sucks. Why not wreak havoc on Microsoft? Why not smite, in the name of All That Which Does Not Suck, the primary enemy of personal computer technology? Why not cause damage to the force that has brought about so much homogeneity? Justice and vengeance are rewards all on their own.
2. They either have to put up with it, or change their business model (charge more for the computer and less for games). That would put them at a disadvantage to their competitors, which goes back to the "hurt someone who sucks" value.
3. Oh yeah: profit. Sell your game too all the Xbox sheep, without the royalty expense.

Re:What is the point?

[FatalTourist]

We need a new mod point: [-1 Asking "what's the point"]. Every single time there's some fun/crazy/not-too-useful/clever hack someone always asks that question and it gets modded up by people who were going to ask it. So I guess [-1 Redundant] will do for now.

Crap, I don't have any mod points anyway.

Why not upgrade the hard drive in this process ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, where's the point in hot-plugging devices which by design are not supposed to be hot-plugged (i.e. the IDE/ATA bus), "for safety" doing backups seemingly no less risky than the patches that follow this way afterwards, but then reassembling your Xbox with the tiny hard drive still in place, once the TSOP does hold a BIOS that should also support huge replacement HDDs of 120(+) GB (or shouldn't it)?
Sure, you still need the original hard drive to boot one last time before flashing the TSOP, but wouldn't it be easier to use the "first 007 method" (i.e. Agent Under Fire + USB memory stick) up to this point, power down the flashed Xbox, and then just replace the unchanged hard drive with a much larger unit (in other words, using the original drive as the very physical "backup" of itself, which you can still plug back in should the need ever be)?
Or am I missing something, as -minutes after the article has been posted- of course I haven't tried the method myself yet?

Re:What is the point?

[canadiangoose]

How 'bout getting a resonably fast PC with an amazing video card for a couple hundred bucks? That's the only reason I'd get an xbox. I don't play many games, but a PIII-700 (That's what's inside an xbox, isn't it?) would replace my pII-400 nicely.

Games for Linux on XBox and PS2

[RichiP]

I'd find it REALLY neat if some game write would write a game for Linux which will compile without much change for Linux/XBox as well as Linux/PS2 (and even Linux/PC). Or are there games out there now? I wouldn't mind buying an XBox or PS2 if someone would release/sell Linux games for it.

(They'd have to use the game controller, of course)

Re:Games for Linux on XBox and PS2

[beaverbrother]

Why would you want to buy one to play linux games when there are plenty of good games out for the PS2/Xbox. If you want to play linux-specific games, just get a linux pc.

Re:Games for Linux on XBox and PS2

[earthcrosser]

I wouldn't mind buying an XBox or PS2 if someone would release/sell Linux games for it.

If your willingness to purchase an XBox or PS2 hinges on the availability of Linux games for the console, you probably need to seriously re-evaluate your motives for playing games. Most people play games to unwind, or to have some fun... not to make some kind of statement about their choice of operating system.

Re:What is the point?

[ecalkin]

if the game companies find out/see/determine that some/many/lots xbox units are being made into linux machines it might make them reluctant to support games on xboxen. this could be quite funny...

e

Not a whole lot, indeed.

[Faust7]

You hit the nail on the head. From the beginning, the Linux-on-Xbox challenge was never about functionality. It was an ideological statement against Microsoft, nothing more, nothing less. The point was to boot Linux, not to get any real software running on top of it.

It's worth nothing that to all but the most passionate anti-Microsoft and/or pro-Linux geeks, ideology isn't a good enough reason to spend $150 (or whatever the deals are at now) on an Xbox that they won't even use for its intended purpose. Nor is it logical to compare the cost of Xbox+Linux to the cost of a real computer running Windows XP, as I've seen done so many times, because a market for the use of Xbox+Linux as one's exclusive computing device simply does not exist.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[stratjakt]

There are people who dont want their warranty voided, people who dont have a clue how to copy an XBOX/PS2 disc or dont have a DVD-R to do so, or people who are just plain honest, and dont pirate just because they know how.

He sells/buys used games, used systems, does repairs, sells hard-to-find accessories (he pretty much orders all of it through lik-sang at a discount, apparently he knows someone there since he's from Hong Kong, so you end up paying the Lik Sang price sans shipping)

He sells a ton of old stuff to people like me (Saturn, Jaguar, 3DO, TG16), and is about the only place to find such things within 1000 miles.

He also sells pokemon cards, Dragonball Z/Anime movies and dolls and crap (about the only imported stuff he actually moves).

For the most part, considering 20 feet down the mall is a Toys R Us, and another 100 feet the other way is a Best Buy, he cant compete just selling games anyways.

Re:Wow.

[RatBastard]

Yes, but you need to mod your XBox to do this. The 007 method lets you access the files on your XBox without picking up a soldering iron, accidently soldering the wrong trace, accidently leaving you mod chip on and getting your system banned from XBox-Live!, or any of many other possible problems.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[miratrix]

Mini-ITX isn't exactly cheap especially if you want a nice case to go with it. The VIA CPUs are not fast enough to watch DVDs with and slim DVD drives aren't that cheap either.

If you want to build a comparable machine using available parts, you'll have to send at least twice the cost of XBox.

Dreamcast $50

[FatalTourist]

Your example defeats your point! A new DC costs $50, you can probably get a keyboard (or adapter, or make one) for $10, $5 RF adapter, and then get a crappy TV from a yard sale for $5. Customize NetBSD for yourself and you have a fun little server. Cram it anywhere! Put it on the network at the office and hide it in the ceiling!
I'd like to see Walmart try and sell me a server for less than $100.
And of course when you get bored you can take the server down and play some sweet games on it (they sell for peanuts now).

Re:Dreamcast $50

[pork_spies]

Customize NetBSD

Ugh! Use Linux. It has sound support and even a filesystem for the VMU (memory card). See LinuxDC.Net for more details.

Re:X-Box Running Linux is a waste of time

[RatBastard]

1. 64 MB of shared RAM, that can not be upgraded. Ever.
2. 8/10GB drives are so cheap they aren't funny. Hell, most people I know are giving away, or lacking any takers, throwing away 10GB drives. No one cares about drives that small.
3. Decent 3D video that can't be fully exploited, and uses system RAM.

And $200.00? You forget about the cost of the mod chip, and the cost of having it put in, unless you want to do it youself. And then there is the complete lack of a warranty in case the thing goes belly-up.

But it's your money tp throw away.

The clerks of the world . . . .

[ysaric]

kid: g1bb0r m3 my m0n3y b4ck, f4gg0rz. My k-r4d Xb0x0r 15 fux0r3d.

clerk: uh, ok. You got your receipt?

Receipts are all powerful. Clerks are dumb.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[ecchi_0]

That does make more sense :). I've heard that there was a modchip for the PSX that allowed any region game to be played, but still checked that it was a valid PSX game. Could this be possible on other platforms? I'm thinking, since Microsoft loses money on Xboxes, that maybe they themselves could sell such a chip for less than the cost of an import Xbox (though I'm sure people would complain about that too...). Problem is, with very little Japanese Xbox support I doubt there would be many games worth getting it for.

Re:What is the point?

[kasperd]

X

Oh all those X-words. And none of them really has anything to do with X.

• Mac OS X was not released with X but some other windowing system.
• The XBox was not released with X but some other windowing system.
• And Xnews doesn't run on X.

Re:What is the point?

[usotsuki]

Hey, *I'm* the red-headed stepchild! *g*

That's basically it, though, flipping M$ the birdie.

-uso.

Re:What is the point?

[molarmass192]

He's right, without some kind of video encoder the "remote TV" thing is simply impossible, the encoding hardware simply isn't there for it.

I was thinking of hacking an XBox for media center type application (playback only) but for $100, I can get a VIA EPIA board with video out, 5.1 audio, and standard USB ports. $30 for 256MB of memory, and $79 for a better looking Strata case. Also, MS can claim to have sold another XBox if I don't buy it in the first place. Granted with the XBox you get an nVIDIA GPU (read OpenGL support) but to output to a freakin' TV screen??? Not worth the extra hassle in my book.

If you want a computer, buy a computer

[badfish2]

If you want to buy a game console, buy one.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[kwerle]

At the risk of being redundant:

I already have an XBox.
It is connected to my TV and my stereo.
I want it to play MP3s from my server.
I don't want another box.

No network on DCs.

[RatBastard]

Unless you got really lucky and found one a while back, you will not be getting ethernet on your Dreamcast. While the DC might be cheap, the broadband adapter is as reare as hen's teeth.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[robotbrain]

You can switch off several of the newer modchips and revert to the orginal BIOS on several of the newer modchips when you want to go onto XBox Live. This is regardless of EvoX and/or linux installed also.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[arbitrary nickname]

The XBox has an incredibly good TV-Out compared to most video cards It's also much quieter than most PCs. It makes a far better media player than my (much more expensive) Shuttle SFF system....

This also requires 007: Agent Under Fire game

[quakeroatz]

Hello? This hack still requires 007. It's a good thing timothy is reading the stories he posts.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[MoonBuggy]

Why do people climb the Everest? It's not like they are going to settle there or mine for resources.

Note to self: climb Everest, build house and mine snow in order to annoy random guy on /. who I've never spoken to before.

Surface-mount newbie

[lushman]

As a self-confessed surface-mount and soldering newbie, can I ask if soldering is absolutely necessary for this trick? Could something such as a conductive pen successfully bridge the contacts? I have seen this used to bridge contacts on the AMD Duron/Athlon, and it seems like a similar process. For my mind, the pen is mightier than the soldering iron.

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if "Information wants to be free" then "The DMCA wants to be an asshole".

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[csteinle]

Yes it does. As do the words simile and connotation. In fact, all forms of non-literal expression give me an urge to run screaming from the room and dunk my head in a bucket of freezing cold water. I just can't handle them, you see. For I am an idiot, with no ability to handle sarcasm or irony.

Oh wait. That's you, isn't it? :-P

Re:What is the point?

[NetCurl]

Or you can look at it this way: Mac OS X was the 10th revision of the Mac OS.

Therefore, none of the items on your list is the 10th anything...

What's in a name anyway? Google, Yahoo?

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[MalleusEBHC]

No giving MS any more of your money.

Considering that MS sells the XBox at a loss, as long as you don't buy any games, I don't see how this could do anything but hurt them. When they get cheaper, if they are still being sold for a loss I will look at buying one to mess around with and hack up.

Re:X-Box Running Linux is a waste of time

[amccall]

/me wanders over to pricewatch

nforce motherboard - $52
1.2 Ghz Duron - $33
20 Gig HD - $36
8x DVD - $30
256MB PC2100 $19
250 Watt ATX case - $20
Total: $190

Now the differences:
This system has 2d/3d driver support, not some crappy frame buffer(or limited 2d).

This system doesn't require any soldering or special tricks to get working.

This system has 4 times amount of RAM as the XBox.

This system is upgradable, in every component.

This system doesn't require a game ($20), or any special hacks to get a keyboard working.

If you want a small formfactor fanless computer, replace the nforce2 motherboard with a Via ITX, and then you can have an even smaller, less noisy box than the XBox itself.

Drive me crazy, please!

[evil_one]

I hear so many people talking about the TSOP. "the TSOP this," "the tsop that" - TSOP stands for Thin Small Outline Package.
It's just a flash chip. You can get much more than memory in TSOPs.
Why don't people call it what it really is?
How about "the flash chip" or "the firmware chip"?

Conspiracy Theory

[riclewis]

Just thought of this...

Has the fellow who first figured out the 007 hack come forward with his real identity yet? Seems like awfully good fortune to find this vulnerability lurking around.

<Conspiracy Theory>
I can't help but wonder if Microsoft didn't plant this 'hack'. Follow me out here--MS doesn't really care if Linux runs on XBox. Sure it's a black eye, but it doesn't hurt their bottom line. But--all of a sudden there's a flaw in the closed system, and it's in --gasp-- a program written by someone other than MS. Now when future software is released for the Xbox (or Palladium) MS can use this 'incident' as an excuse to call for complete code disclosure from 3rd parties

I can hear Microsoft saying "You need to show us all your code so we can test it--otherwise how can we be sure it won't break our 'perfect' security system?"...
</Conspiracy Theory>

I don't mean to say this to take away from the guy who came up with this, but it's just an interesting, plausible scenario.

Re:Conspiracy Theory

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Why would they want complete code disclosure? Since when is Microsoft pushing to see everyone else's source?

I'm just curious where you're getting this idea - maybe I'm missing a dot in the puzzle.

Re:Conspiracy Theory

[EpsCylonB]

yeah your probably right, and don't ever take your tin foil hat off.

Re:Conspiracy Theory

[DarkZero]

They have to give all of the code over to Microsoft anyway because Microsoft, just like Sony and Nintendo, has an extensive reviewing process for all of the games on their console. This is why so few console games have crash bugs and such when compared to the PC. The company that runs the console verifies that the product is ready for market before licensing it for it sale and the game cannot be sold until that time. If any company bypasses this and just releases a game to market without consulting the console manufacturer, they can be sued for breaking various licensing and copyright agreements, such as the licensing agreement that came with the XBox SDK that they had to use to make the game.

This bug probably slipped through the reviewing process because A) it is an obscure bug, B) the XBox has a lot more avenues of attack than a PS2 or GameCube because of the hard drive and ethernet card, and C) Microsoft's reviewing process seems to be a bit less extensive than Sony's or Nintendo's.

Re:Conspiracy Theory

[Dave2 Wickham]

I just M2d one of your moderations as "fair", but I still have to disagree :). You don't have to give the code to Nintendo (at least) if you make something for the Gamecube - see the GC Action Replay. Datel had a bit of a job getting the DVDs mass-produced, but I highly doubt they had the cooperation of anyone at Nintendo.

XBox Media Player

[billstewart]

For those of us who don't recognize the acronym XBMP, it's apparently the XBox Media Player. Besides the Sourceforge site, there's also some information at www.xboxmediaplayer.de (auf English.)

Of course, you can also get a DVD/CD player from your local big box retailer for $59 these days :-)

What about SUN

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has crushed sun from it very powerfull days. Microsoft could end the xbox project any time they like just place a way for open source linux to run on it. Number one linux prides it self of being able to run on almost any thing. That is hand helds to mainframes. PS2 and Dreamcast can be made run linux.

IBM and Sun are American companys are you say that they are wrong. Sun run the open office project the most useful open source project to date in my opion. IBM runs many small open source projects too.

Basicly wake up microsoft has made enemys it is now paying the piper.

And the game has not began yet just see some time gnome will come to windows then the war will be on.

Basicly this is war with IBM and SUN and other companys supporting linux the battle will only get stronger.

And you call it RIGHTFUL profit. What about ripping Netscape off and destory them. Basicly it is come back to them. You undermine someone else proft just because they are not prepare to give up there product. If any american company is truely great it is cisco if anyone can beat what they have they allow the company to use there brand name ie for a fee of course.

And if any IT company is a Saddam with thugs it is Bill Gates and Microsoft.

Basicly the Microsoft Thug acts are long and harmful. Breaking global aggrements, keep secrets and being pig headed. Yep Microsoft has done all of the above.

Now you are just as fool who belives what you are told with out finding the truth.

No-Solder Jumpers instead of Solder?

[billstewart]

So Are you saying that you can use jumpers instead of solder? Are they standard jumper widgets like disk drives and PC motherboards use, or some different mechanical construction? (Since I don't own an X-Box, I haven't diassembled one to find out...)

Maybe the things do work loose after a while, but I'm not planning on shaking the box around a lot, and I'd be *much* more comfortable buying something and adding a couple of jumpers than buying something and soldering on it.

Re:No-Solder Jumpers instead of Solder?

[Mikeytsi]

You solder jumpers to the board instead of soldering the traces together. Then you can create or disconnect the link at will.

Comparative costs

[billstewart]

You can get a pretty comparable machine from Walmart in the low $200's range, except for the DVD player, and those are in the $50 range. Until MS drops the price, which I think is still $199 in the US, they're still pretty close, though of course the Walmart box is conveniently expandable.

Huh?

[/dev/trash]

The DMCA is a law, it has no feeling.

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[Blind Linux]

Wow, that's a flame-worthy sig, dude! :P

There's not much difference

[billstewart]

What's the difference between a PC and a game console? Peripherals are a bit different, and expandability is much different, but they're basically the same thing, and if the game console does the job you need and has almost all the same parts, why not go for it?

What a Modded Xbox can be used for

[phreak03]

I recently installed a xecutioner lite mod chip in my xbox (1mb rom), and have found tons of awsome uses for it for $200 i can buy a set top box divx player (kiss technologies), or i could buy a $50 or less modchip and a 150 refurbished xbox (EB) First, it makes for a great NES/snes/mame gameing machine, despite the D-pad being a little crappy second Xbox-media player can play XVID/WMP files/OGG/DIVX/mp3/jpg's/bmp's you can sort your music into playlist/folders with alblum art for the icons even, you can have slideshows with background music unfortunetly your going to have to find it allready compiled illigaly under microsofts compiler XDK (look of efnet, xbox channels for it) third, you can backup games to the hardrive, so if you scratch/loose games a lot, you don't have to worry about where they are or what you did to them you can backup your games, and then use burned copies while your legit copies sit in a safe somewere, you can backup your saves, and trade em with friends (all done thru FTP) Heck, for those of you too lazy to set the clock, will find there is an app that does it automaticaly online for you if you also boot with linux you can have a webtv like thing, and spending 7$ for a controler extender, and soddering/electrical tapeing it together with a spare usb header i have, yeilds a usb converted (and you can atually mount those things into the controller as they do have a hub) throw in some cathode lights, and a cooler fan, and you have a party in a box

Impossible is done every day.

[Groo Wanderer]

There was an old quote on l0pht a while back, before they went corporate and scrubbed the site with the wire brush of PC-ness, that went something like:

"That problem is strictly theoretical" -Microsoft
"L0pht, making the theoretical possible since...."

What you are decrying is innovation, not MS style word corruption, but the real thing. My parents bought a building in the 70's. It was ~75,000 sq feet, 30 foot ceilings, and a HUGE air conditioner, but almost no heater. It was built in the 1950s to house a computer. I shudder to think what it cost, much less cost to run. Today, my $27 timex wristwatch has over 10x the computing power of that HUGE computer, runs for about 3 years on a button battery, and never breaks, can work under water to 100m, survive heat, cold shock, and me beating it.

Looking down the list of 'rediculous' things you mention, that is far and away 'more rediculous' than any of the things you mention.

For another example, my roommate has a bullet proof vest. Another friend makes plate mail armor. The plate costs ~$2500 and takes months to build. A .45 will put a hole in one side, a bigger hole in the soft squishy thing in the middle, and a bigger hole in the back. The bulletproof vest will stop it, and probably only leave you with a big briuse and possibly a cracked rib or 3. The vest cost less than 1/10th of the armor, weighs about 1/100th of the weight, and is more readily available.

Rediculous!

So, what is your problem with innovation. The very best things that you use came from the same spirit that the people doing XBox hacks have. I mean, why bother with things like transistors, antibiotics, lasers, nuclear power, and CIA mind control lasers. Oops, you aren't supposed to know about that one.

Rediculous!

Before you decry cool stuff that others do, I suggest you try the following in order.

1) Take a deep breath.
2) Try ignoring things that bother you.
When that fails
3) Don't bitch at people doing things you don't like.
4) Move out of your mother's basement
5) Do something usefull yourself.

Rediculous!, I know.

Seriously, the world needs more cool things, be they useful or frivolous. Strange things come from seemingly random events, and noone tends to see the next killer app ahead of time. Don't be a roadblock.

-Charlie

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[jcast]

For another example, my roommate has a bullet proof vest. Another friend makes plate mail armor. The plate costs ~$2500 and takes months to build. A .45 will put a hole in one side, a bigger hole in the soft squishy thing in the middle, and a bigger hole in the back. The bulletproof vest will stop it, and probably only leave you with a big briuse and possibly a cracked rib or 3. The vest cost less than 1/10th of the armor, weighs about 1/100th of the weight, and is more readily available.

Nononononono. Better = costs more. Didn't you know that?

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[esper_child]

On that same note thinking about where technology will be tomarrow and then crying about it today is a bad way to go. Everything must be done in its own time, and at its own pace. Accellorating the course of things is bad, and will create bugs in the way things work. You can't go from ENIAC to Earth Simulator in one sitting. Baby steps are needed for all improvements in technology.
On a sidenote, can the bulletproof vest stop a lance (I was going to say sword but I have shredded field plate with one before). No? I thought not, but then again it wasn't ment to. Btw, scale is a better protector in most situations than plate will be, and can be made bulletproof. Plate, while looking cool, is a general pain in the butt compared to a good scalemaile.

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[jcoleman]

At least the guy knows how to spell "ridiculous."

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[mingot]

As a sidenote to your sidenote: STFU dungeons and dragons nerd.

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[Decimal]

On a sidenote, can the bulletproof vest stop a lance (I was going to say sword but I have shredded field plate with one before). No? I thought not, but then again it wasn't ment to.

And then again, when tipped with Depleted Uranium and fired from a launcher at 1,000 MPH, both seem rather useless, huh?

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[jcast]

Why do I get the feeling I'm being stalked?

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[esper_child]

who said anything about D&D? I use these things in real life. Ever heard of the SCA, you know the people who do the ren-fests?

Re:Impossible is done every day.

[mingot]

Aye. Worse than the dungeons and dragons people. Halp!

Why?

[A55M0NKEY]

Microsoft has encrypted the XBox up the wazoo to prevent just this sort of thing. And hacker types spend untold hours to put Linux on their Xboxen and succeeded despite the attempts to stop it.

This has probably been asked but I am going to ask anyway: Why put Linux on an XBox? XBox sucks compared to the PS2. PS2 has way more gamez and a kewl blue LED! Who the heck would buy an XBox in the first place?

I'd buy a PS2 for a teenager so they could have a DVD player and a gaming station, and a Linux box to write book reports on in their room for cheap, but seriously, do you think a kid would want an XBox over a PS2? Come on!

Re:Why?

[jcast]

See the post above yours. As for why the XBox specifically: why not? It's annoying to some of us if there's a platform in use that Linux doesn't support. That alone would be a sufficient reason to me, were I a kernel/hardware hacker.

Re:Why?

[jcast]

When was the last time I had mod points? About a week ago. HTH. Btw., I think you're stalking me. I'm not sure whether to be flattered.

Finger in MS's eye...NOT!

[Geekbot]

You are going to pay MS for a machine that is all locked down. You are going to screw up that machine and buy another one. You are going to spend hours and cash to get the unit to run linux and or hacked games. To "poke" MS in the eye you are going to buy an XBox from MS and you are going to buy 007, which will send more money to MS. You will defile linux by making it an excuse to give MS a stronger market share. You are going to get XBox in the news more often than Nintendo or Sony.
I can understand the thrill of hacking. Isn't the real definition of hacking to get a machine to do something it was never intended to do or to do it better. And to those genius's with enough time and money to throw into figuring this hack, in all honesty..Way to go!
However, to those who think they are somehow getting something for free out of MS, or helping out Linux, or "poking their finger in MS's eye", give it up. This shows people that linux can be hard, it shows people that MS gets boxes sold, even to geeks, and it shows software companies, that geeks will buy Xbox software, just to get linux running. And with the prices of computers, Xbox Linux can hardly be considered a bargain.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone seems to have also failed mentioning that you get a fully functional on the fly dolby digital encoding chipset... note that the nforce by nvidia which is the only one that will do it will cost u as much as the xbox, this one just also happens to come with a tweaked to the max gaming system with modified geforce4 with writable hardware effects, hdtv ready out, and ir in...
if u cant see the point, then u obviously are too lazy and non-observant to do this, why are you here wasting your time...

Mr.Big

Graphics performance on consoles...

[CreateWindowEx]

...requires coding explicitly for that platform. That's one "secret" of why consoles seem to have better graphics performance than a PC with similar specs. While someone could probably write a good OpenGL driver for the Xbox (due to its similarities to a GF3), you would need inside information or have to do a lot of reverse engineering. The GameCube would probably be a similar case--its GPU would probably be a pretty good match with OpenGL.

However, I don't think it would be possible to get a generic OpenGL implementation to run well on a PS2, even with inside information--with its 300 MHz CPU and no L2 cache, single-texturing, 4MB VRAM, no hardware clipping, etc, it would perform very poorly on platform-agnostic code and data. It would also be very slow to convert 32-bit textures into palettized on the fly unless you did a really crappy job of it. The PS2 will perform poorly unless you carefully structure your game around it's unique needs, and memory will be very scarce if your driver has to copy and translate your geometry and textures into a hardware-friendly format. PC-based graphics cards are designed around running DirectX and OpenGL efficiently--the PS2 has no such requirement. You might have a chance for some performance at the expense of memory if the game drew huge portions of the world into a display list, allowing the driver to convert this into a big DMA chain.

You've all seen how the first PS2 games often looked worse than Dreamcast games, and these were from professional developers who were coding for the PS2!

I suppose if you just wanted to run Minesweeper or something you'd be okay...

Been there, done that...

[MsGeek]

Take a look at Buttercup. It's getting a GeForce 4MX 440SE 64MB with 64MB DDR. It has 512MB RAM, the highest an i815 motherboard can go up to. And it will probably do much, much more than anything a modded XBox can do. And even though the case is a bit bigger than an XBox, it isn't much bigger than a VCR or an audio receiver. Put a TV tuner card in there with MythTV and you have a TIVO.

Re:Been there, done that...

[PasteEater]

Yeah, but what XBox games can it play?

Re:What is the point?

[adamruck]

yeah I was thinking the same thing...
what comes after B?

That's not what he said

[StupidKatz]

The fact is, the vast majority of the vocal followers of this project want to use copies of games that they didn't pay for.

Wait, did I just call all the fans of this project crooks? No. The vast majority of the vocal followers are, however.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Mupp252]

Umm.. how about tough shiat? Learn to be flexible, add another machine to your TV and stereo, and stop trying to blame Microsoft for ruining your dreams of the ultimate entertainment center. If you wanted a gaming system that did things near to what you specified it might've been easier for you to buy the Playstation 2 with that Linux add-on.

Don't get frustrated (and redundant) just because you made a bad purchasing decision!

They LIKE being /.ed !!

[anagama]

They like being slasdotted!. From a comment posted after the article (how's that for RTFAing?):

guys ... a link to this topic was posted on slashdot ... so, me may have a bit of a server overhaul ...

(I didn't think this was slashdot worthy, but hey ... when you make front page on your 3 most visited sites *slashdot, xboxhacker, xbox-scene* ... it puts a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart =p

_________________
I don't like p00!

--pSyCo

JTAG Anyone??

[pair-a-noyd]

Has anyone tried to jtag into an xbox yet??
It's common proc. for hacking DVD players, DTV and E* IRD's.....

With jtag you truly own it, nothing is sacred..

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Joseph Wharton]

DCPlaya is a fantastic MP3/Ogg/MOD player for the Dreamcast. There's no streaming support yet, but the player is open source and the author is working on a plugin API, so we could see it very soon. I use DCPlaya all the time now and I think it's the best DC MP3 player out of them all, including the commercial ones.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[kwerle]

Umm.. how about tough shiat?

Ummm, how about jackass?

Learn to be flexible, add another machine to your TV and stereo,

"Neat, but why bother?"

I already have an XBox.
It is connected to my TV and my stereo.
I want it to play MP3s from my server.
I don't want another box.

"Neat, but why bother?"

stop trying to blame Microsoft for ruining your dreams of the ultimate entertainment center.

I never did.

If you wanted a gaming system that did things near to what you specified it might've been easier for you to buy the Playstation 2 with that Linux add-on.

"Neat, but why bother?"

Unless I bought the xbox to play xbox games, which I did.

"Neat, but why bother?"

Don't get frustrated (and redundant) just because you made a bad purchasing decision!

"Neat, but why bother?"

I'm happy with my xbox. I'll be happier when I'm running linux on it, too. Which I will be just as soon as my xbox to USB cable and USB memory stick arrive.

Do you get it, yet? Have you read the subject? Have you read my response? I think that sums up "Neat, but why bother?"

Re:"Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[mrseigen]

Thanks. That comment made my last cup of coffee the second one that slashdot has fired onto my keyboard. I'm going to start billing.

007 ?

[Salsaman]

My name is Torvalds, Linus Torvalds.

Home Brew

[FunkyELF]

I wouln't go as far as to say 99.9%. You are forgetting all of the excelent homebrew programs out there for the xbox. They are the only reason I bought an XboX. I don't use it to play warezd xbox games, I use it to watch warezd divx dvd rips and listen to warezed mp3s with xbox media player. And to play warezed super nintendo roms with Xsnes9X. Haven't tried to run linux on it. It'd be nice to browse the web on my tv sometimes, or to play tux racer :), but I don't play on doin that untill I can run linux for a year on a PC without messin somethin up.

Re:*Wonder what the DMCA would think about this...

[Erik Hollensbe]

An asshole looks like this: *

Re:What is the point?

[BlackHawk-666]

Check the USB ports on the front of the box ;-)

245 USD 200 USD

[@madeus]

As you said to build a better machine costs considerably more (it's utterly obvious and simple really).

130 UKP is not a lot to pay for this spec of system, in fact you won't find any other new similary capeable system this cheap in any other retail outlet.

Don't underestimate the speed of the system, the optimisations to processor and memeory mean you'd need to spend twice that to get a system which can deliver the same frame rate in something like Unreal Tournament - and the speed is not simply due to the raw power of graphics card, it comes from the other design elements which are noticeable when running main stream productivity applications.

That's why people want to run Linux on it - it's cheaper than buying a similar PC simly because it's more efficient.

(Also: Don't pay 40 USD for a memory card - that's way too much, and for 007 - you can get it for less than 20 UKP, so I'm sure you can get it for less than 20 USD.)

MS Linux for XBox

[nonos]

If MS makes a Linux port for the XBox, this one will work on un-modshipped ones. Will Microsoft win the $100K price ?

Re:What is the point?

[MentlFlos]

Yes, I have thought of that, but he clearly indicated what parts are needed. A USB video in dongle is not one of them. (also, they don't have a very good frame rate from what I've seen.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[DarkZero]

I just checked Ebay and they have some used XBoxes going for about $130. That's a Linux box with a 700mhz processor, 64MB RAM, a GeForce 3, a 10GB hard drive, TV-Out, and an ethernet card for $130, provided that you can find a friend somewhere with a mod chip. It's an extra thirty bucks or so if you need to get your own solderless mod chip. To me that seems like a pretty good deal, especially when you take into account the facts that used consoles usually turn out to be more durable than used PCs and that you can reliably get the same hardware over and over for roughly the same price without hunting for bargains.

And that's just the useful side of it. Some of us just think that prying open a console, seeing how it works, and generally playing around inside of it is worth the price of admission all by itself. It's an interesting weekend project.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[yandros]

I don't believe that you missed the very first item in his list: ``I already have an xbox.'', so you must have chosen to ignore it. Shrug.

Now, I believe that most people bought an xbox to play games, with an aside of ``and other home entertainment purposes'' (i.e. playing CD's, DVD's, etc). Given this as a starting point, is there something wrong with the idea of `Tux Racer on the XBox'? Maelstrom on the XBox? Frozen Bubble on the XBox? Random-other-linux-game on the XBox? Not-yet-written, free software, open source game on the XBox?

In general, this hack (and the non-hardware-intrusive one before it) provide a way for people to make xboxes better able to do the sorts of things that many slashdot readers [like to] do. What's so hard to understand?

Easy but slow way.

[Andy Dodd]

Use two-pass encoding. This way you know that your rate control variables are always at their optimal setting. Highest quality for any bitrate is this way, at the expense of 50-75% longer encode times. (The second pass goes quicker on more recent DivX versions that allow you to save the motion vectors to a file, the second time around the codec doesn't need to do motion estimation a second time.)

In the end it's faster, since you don't have to constantly tweak the RC settings depending on source material via trial and error.

Question about the first article

[Andy Dodd]

From the first /. article (March 30, linked to from this one), the poster mentions, "Apparently you can even build this memorycard yourself using a standard USB memstick.", regarding Xbox memory cards that are accessible from a PC.

Where can I find more info on doing this? I can't find anything about memory card mods on xboxhacker or xbox-scene so far.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Pejorian]

I just went to the website of a computer store just down the street from me. I could go out and buy a full system (except monitor & OS) with an AMD XP1700, 256 MB of RAM, 32MB video card, 10/100 LAN card, and CD for CAD$415, which is $285 of "your" dollars. That's brand new, and that's a way better system than an unmodded XBox. The same system with a 16x DVD player and USB 2.0 will cost $305 USD. Then you have to get a TV-out card for another $40 US, but the system you end up with is hugely superior to the XBox, both in upgradeability and flexibility.

Of course, I can't argue with the "interesting weekend project" aspect. I like doing that stuff too. But don't try to use the financial argument with me...

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Hast]

So you are surprised that a system which cost about 2.5 times more is "hugely" superior?

First off all, you don't over design.

If you want a box which plays music, video and some games than you don't go out and buy a Cray supercomputer to do it, do you? If an XBox can do the job then use it.

Second, that XBox has a nice remote and RGB and SPDIF out. That puts it ahead of any standard PC I've ever seen. (Actually I've never seen a PC with RGB out. And my nVida GF4 4200 looks like shit on the TV out compared to my XBox.)

Finally, again, "don't try to use that financial argument". You spend 2.5 times more on something which is less suited for the job. Are you in marketing? ;-)

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[DarkZero]

Then you have to get a TV-out card for another $40 US, but the system you end up with is hugely superior to the XBox, both in upgradeability and flexibility.

If you're on a budget and all you need is a small media PC to take the load off your other PC, why would you spend $215 USD more for more than you need? Comparing a $345 system to a modded XBox is like comparing a laptop to an iPod. Sure, okay, the laptop is "hugely superior" to the iPod... but all I want is something smaller and cheaper that plays MP3s, not a full system that costs more than twice as much!

In your analysis, you forgot that the XBox, even modded, is not really a PC. It's a derivative of the PC that serves a specific function. When modded, an XBox plays media files, emulated games, and Xbox games. If all you need a second computer for is to play media files, emulated games, and you also feel like having a game console and/or weekend project, it beats the cheap PC, much like the way an MP3 player can beat a laptop.

You also neglected the concept of a budget, which is sort of important to the financial argument. For the person that is attracted to the $130 modded XBox, the fact that they don't have $345 to get something different may factor into the decision. After all, I'm sure I'd get more bang for my buck with a Big Ugly (satellite) Dish instead of a little DirecTV midget dish... if I had the cash for a Big Ugly Dish, that is. Which I don't.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Pejorian]

Sigh,

Your "2.5 times" is too high, even for the comparison we're making. An used, unmodified, M$-restricted XBox vs. a brand-new, under-warranty computer?

Sure, I'll buy your argument if all I wanted to do was play some music, watch some disks, and play some games. But I can buy a $60 DVD player that plays MP3s, DVDs, VCDs, and will even do slideshows of JPEGs, all with digital audio and component video. So an used XBox, for 2 times that price, will let me play some games as well. w00t.

But we're not talking about that. We're talking about turning an XBox into a computer by hacking it to boot Linux. That means you're voiding any warranty that you might have had, and if you're buying used, there probably isn't much left anyway (and who knows what shape it's in? It is used, after all! That "nice" remote might have been chewed on by someone's dog)...

If you really want to go the financial argument route (siighh), let's compare apples to apples (not Apples, silly, that's another argument! ). A new XBox, according to Amazon, is going to cost you $200, plus a DVD-playback kit, which will cost you another $30. Ok, so we're talking $230 already, and you haven't even modded it yet. That's going to cost you another $50, and you're probably going to have to solder some wires. That will also make it impossible to use the Live service, so if you wanted to play games online, oh well...

So! Aren't you CLEVER! You've created a fairly inferior computer (8 GB HD?? 64 MB RAM??) that will run a fairly new and shaky version of Linux. That's cool! You've saved yourself at least $30 by doing the soldering yourself!

The $305 machine I described will even be cooler if you throw another $70 at it and get a wireless keyboard and mouse. Then you can stick the box anywhere out of sight (and hearing) and be able to *additionally* play DivX movies and streaming Internet radio (which I'm listening to through my stereo right now) chat with friends all over the world, browse the 'net, manipulate photos, check your e-mail, and all the other cool things real computers can do, using a tried and tested, feature-packed, easy-to-install Linux distro.

Again, I think it's a very cool thing to do as a hobby project. But please, don't try to tell me it's an economically sound thing to do! An XBox is not, in your words, "suited for the job" of being a good Linux computer...

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Pejorian]

Hi DarkZero,

Please see my (huge) reply to Hast. To do what you're describing, I'd just buy a $60 DVD player, but that's not what the article was about. It was about booting Linux on an XBox.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Hast]

A nice remote as in a remote control, moron.

Re:Neat, but why bother?

[Hast]

First off, comparing a modded XBox vs a DVD player.

A modded XBox will let you stream videos from a standard computer. A $60 DVD player will not. To me a standalone DVD player is useless, even if it plays MP3 and some DivX formats. (As there are about 5 of those out right now, and a bunch of other formats as well. Usually stand alone boxes only play one of these formats.)

Now regarding turning a XBox into a standard PC being a stupid idea I agree with you. But I already have more computers in large boxes than I need. I'm not suggesting that you buy an XBox and mod it instead of getting a normal PC, I'm suggesting you do it in addition to your PC.

If you can put together a machine which fulfills the requirements of
* Standard stereo component form factor
* Remote control
* High quality SVideo or RGB (prefered) out
* SPDIF/composite digital audio out
* Can play all standard video/audio codecs

If you can do that for less than $300 then modding an XBox is something which should be reconsidered. If you can't, then perhaps an XBox is a good idea in any case. BTW there is talk about an upcoming price reduction for the XBox (and PS2) with about $50. That would make the deal even better.