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Mac OS X Running On Xbox
PasteEater writes "The good people over at XBox Scene have the scoop. Mac OS X has been successfully installed on a modified Xbox. What does this mean? Well, it's no Xbox Media Center, but it does prove that nerds are at the forefront once again!"
Wonder what M$ thinks is a bigger threat - Linux or OS X on the Xbox...
The first Apple gaming system?? How long do you think its going to be before Mr. Jobs sees the greatest and we get an iBox gaming system?
Even though it is running on PearPC (and thus slower than possibly imaginable), it is still impressive. Although, I just bought a used Beige G3/233 for $10 and I still have more memory (72MB) than the XBox in it.
I read through the entire article before this was posted here.
Very interesting, but I'm going to call foul.
Why out of all the screenshots is this one obscured? It's the most important of the screenshots out of the lot that was provided in the article.
I also thought TechTV had made it pretty clear that pearPC was almost unuseable on a machine below 2.5 GHz.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
What does this mean?
It means somebody has more time on their hands than I do. Yes, this is probably a useless hack, but I'll restate my theory on why modding consoles is a Good Thing(tm).
Rumor has it that the Xbox2 is in the works. Once the Xbox2 ships, the price of the Xbox will drop dramatically. At some point, you'll probably be able to pick up a used Xbox in a pawn shop for $50. $50 makes a nice price for a second computer like an internet terminal for the kitchen or some other similar appliance. So, some will say it's a waste of time to hack then and mod them in this manner, but once they're dirt cheap in pawn shops and Ebay, you'll thank the modders.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
(Can't RTFA 'cos it's slashdotted)
How could you ron OS X on a machine without replacing the x86 CPU with a PPC CPU, which would require replacing the motherboard, which would include switching from BIOS to OpenFirmware, which would require replacing the graphics card and some other crap.
And if this is the case, is it running on an XBox or is it a PowerBook that has been case modded to look like an XBox.
that or they'e really running Darwin on the XBox, which is a different thing entirely.
Once Xebian is installed they compile PearPC
In other words, they are emulating a Mac for it. That is like me telling people I got my Xbox to play SNES Games when all I am really doing is pulling up an SNES emulator on my xbox with Linux.
Then you would be hacking the OS instead, becaus AFAIK Mac OS is limited to the chips that Apple want to run it on.
:-)
There's always the VMware-like, non-emulating Mac-on-Linux - if Linux gets ported to the Xbox2, I wouldn't be surprised if other software gets ported too.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
the legal section in that in the EULA for OS X it states that you cannot install OS X on any non-Apple hardware(probably due to the whole clone thing that failed miserably), I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, but it's an issue they should have addressed.
Monstar L
Plus, you get the humor of running a Mac operating system on a MicroSoft product.
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
987mhz G3
i know it says 9x7 G3, but im not sure of the middle number
this isnt possible with pearPC
In fact, if OS X would check for the presence of approved chips, how the hell would Pear PC be able to boot OS X, except by duplicating the functionality of said chips which would be a) a lot of work b) probably illegal.
To run OS X on a XBox 2, you would basically need the following things:
No, Kangaroo is an aboriginal word which translates roughly as "I don't know", so when the "new world" explorers encountered kangaroos for the first time and asked a native what they were called, well you can figure it out from there.
Not quite as well known as Columbus incorrectly naming the Native Americans as "Indians", but another useless bit of trivia, none-the-less...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Depends on what you mean by "almost unusable".
The slowest machine I've installed Mac OS X on is a Power PC 604e at 132 MHz. It took 20 hours to complete the install. The resulting system was responsive enough in a Terminal window, but even pulling down a menu took tens of seconds. I wouldn't call it "usable". Mac OS X is optimised for the G3, and later versions than the one I tried (10.1) won't even run on a 604e.
On a G3/233 it took an hour or so, and it was usable.
If they took 10 hours on an Xbox with 128MB of simulated RAM, then they're emulating a G3 that's performing like a 604e... it may be a bit faster than my 604e/132, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Usability is in the eye of the beholder.
pearPC was almost unuseable on a machine below 2.5 GHz
10 hours for a Mac OS X install? Yeh. That's a good definition of "almost unusable".
Wake me up when they do it on the Power PC based Xbox-2.
Oh, and the speed the "About" box reports is totally unreliable, particularly on an emulator.
(I've always wanted to try out OSX, but I'm not going to spend thousands to buy a Mac..)
Old Mac Martin regularly sells G3/233-300 desktops and minitowers for $30-$50 plus shipping, and they run OS X fine. You might want a better video card, and Old World Computing has some PCI Radeon 9200s for under $150, but you could get a feel for it for a lot less.
My Mac at home is one of his, upgraded with a Radeon 7000, a G4/533 CPU (from OWC, again), and a 10/100 ethernet card.
Go to lowendmac.com and subscribe to the swap list, and watch what comes through.
If? When GNU/Linux gets ported to the XBOX2
"When"? The whole purpose of this Palladium/NGSCB/TCPA/Nexus thing is so that Xbox 2 doesn't get cracked and turned into a GNU/LinuXbox. Even without a full Treacherous Computing setup and with just the separation of executable and writable pages similar to that introduced in Windows XP SP2, version 2 of the so-called Windows XB can prevent MechInstaller style exploits from overwriting the kernel.