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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...
-T
(not a troll, just making fun of them)
Hmmm now if I could only do it the other way around.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. -- FDR
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'll wait till Xbox2.. it's supposed to sport a PPC processor
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
It's just PearPC PowerPC Architecture Emulator installed on Xbox and it's painfully-as-hell slow atm, and especially on Xbox. Nothing to see, move on.
Why torture yourself with a MacOSXbox, which actually is PearPC running on linux which is running on Xbox hardware. I am sure the performance of it is abysmal.
This is sadder than those MacOSXP (people trying to change their windows into a Mac)
Stop torturing yourself with this. Get a real mac!!
Used Xbox: $99
OS/X: $130
Look on Bill's face: Priceless
(Seriously, that's one cheap Mac)
Apple had its own gaming system once, called Pippin.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
(Posting AC to not kharma whore)
.3.1.tar.gz. As of this writing, 0.3.1 is the most recent version. ./configure -enable-ui=x11 && --enable-cpu=generic. Even though the Xbox is an x86 processor, compiling with -enable-cpu=jitc_x86 will likely result in a failed compile. To explain, as of this writing, Xebian includes gcc 3.2 and gcc 2.95.4. PearPC will exhibit odd errors when compiled with any gcc between 2.95 and 3.3, so gcc 2.95.4 must be used. Unfortunately, gcc 2.95.4 does not work with the inline assembly used in PearPC when the jitx_x86 option is specified. /usr/local/bin on your computer should now contain a file called ppc. This file is the compiled binary.
PearPC and Mac OS X Installation
Downloading, configuring, compiling and installing PearPC
* You have software modded your Xbox and put Xebian Linux on it. You have purchased a copy of Mac OS X and made an image of it.
* Download the source code for PearPC at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pearpc/pearpc-0
* Use tar to decompress the file with tar -xzvf pearpc-0.3.1.tar.gz. A directory called pearpc-0.3.1 will be created.
* Go into this directory configure PearPC by running the configuration script as
* Type make && make install. If all goes well then
If you are unable to get a successful compilation of PearPC or do not understand the above instructions, you may download a precompiled version for the Xboxhere.
Editing the PearPC configuration file and formatting the hard drive image
1. Download the following: a blank hard drive image filehere, a Darwin image file at http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/image s/darwin-701.iso.gz, a PearPC configuration filehere, and a PearPC video driverhere.
2. Decompress the image file using gunzip macosx_2gb.gz. Note that this file expands to approximately 2 gigabytes. Additionally, use gunzip to decompress the pearpc video driver and configuration file. Decompress the Darwin image with the command tar -xzvf darwin-701.tar.gz.
3. Make a directory called macosx. Move the decompressed hard drive image, Darwin image, video.x video driver and macosx.pearpc configuration file into it. Then, go into the macosx directory, run the command pwd and write down the full path to it.
4. Open the macosx.pearpc configuration file with the plain text editor of your choice. Xebian by default comes with both vi and nano. If you have never used vi before, you definitely want to use nano.
5. I will refer to the path that was written down in step 3 as PATH. Make the following changes to the macosx.pearpc configuration file:
* a. Change ppc_start_resolution = "800x600x15" to "640x480x15".
* b. Change redraw_interval_msec = 40 to 200.
* c. Remove the # in front of #memory_size=0x8000000.
* d. Change pci_ide0_master_image = "test/imgs/linux.img" to "PATH/macosx_2gb.img".
* e. Change pci_ide0_slave_image = "/dev/cdrom" to "PATH/darwin-701.iso"
* Save your changes and exit.
6. Start PearPC by typing ppc macosx.pearpc. You should see the following screen:
7. Soon after this screen disappears messages will begin appearing in the PearPC window and you should eventually see the following:
8. Mirror what is typed in this screenshot. Then, type: q, q, and finally reboot. PearPC should exit.
9. Start PearPC again. Eventually you should see the following screen:
As in step 7, mirror what is typed in this window. In addition, when you see "Uncompressing Apple16X50Serial," shut down PearPC.
Your hard drive image is now properly formatted, and you are ready to install Mac OS X.
Installing Mac OS X
1. Once again, open the macosx.pearpc configuration file. Change pci_ide0_slave_image = "PATH/darwin-701.iso" to the location of your Mac OS X image. Save the changes and exit out of the text editor.
2. Start PearPC in the us
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
THe main reason this works on the XBox is because it's already possible on x86 desktops using PearPC.
I agreed with one guy in this story about how AT&T switching to OS X would be prohibitively expensive, but it appears that AT&T found a way to get their OS on a $150 system. Good job!
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Sheeez, I can't even get OS X running on my Mac. Seriously, it's been in the shop of CompUSA wizards for about a month now. Maybe I'll upgrade to an X-box.
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.
How's this for getting your info straight:
They're emulating PPC hardware, they're not emulating OSX.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
It's much harder to emulate RISC (PowerPC) on a CISC (x86) than the other way around. Hence, VirtualPC runs better on a Mac than PearPC runs on a PC.
thanks to mirrordot.org
Guess what? I can also run PDP-11 software on my XBox! Or any other operating system, for that matter.
This was done through emulation. The blurb seems to imply that something incredible was accomplished, when all that was done was loading it into an emulator.
It may be pretty funny to see OSX running off an XBox on a TV, but it's hardly usable as it is. Call me when it runs natively.
I agree. I was at the forefront once. It really wasn't much different to the other three. Next time I am going to try for the fifth.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
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
Why would I want to put Mac OS X on my Xbox? I bought my Xbox to play video games, after all . . .
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
It's the Georgia Tech IT department getting ready to expell a student for having it's systems /.'d You would think that /. would look at the supplied links and do some filtering when it comes to links hosted by a University. But I guess that is asking too much. I hope Ga Tech students enjoy using pencil and paper while their computer systems turn to a pile of molten metal.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
but it does prove that nerds are at the forefront once again!
Not to sound like a dick, but nerds are at the forefront of what exactly? Nerdiness? Big surprise there folks.
Big surprise...
Hitomi Ikazuchi Dragon Clan Barbarian Monk
What it proves is that there are some people with some serious free-time on their hands...
There seems to be an inordinate focus on hack this, crack that, emulate the other and port an OS to the most outlandishly unlikely hardware possible. (Hey, look! I'm running OS/2 on my toaster!)
As a stunt this is really amazing.
As a project resulting in something useful, it is dubious at best.
I find myself in the same category. I'm just getting into PocketPC programming and my first thoughts are about emulators. Are we so lacking in imagination that we can't come up with any original ideas?
I guess the truth is that almost all the "low hanging fruit" has been picked, and now we must work much harder to come with an original idea. Shoulders of giants, etc, etc.
Just so I don't sound like too much of an old curmudgeon, I will say that it looks like these are students, and it is of course a great learning experience.
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/
Actually it's not.
Xbox (as used in this article) with a modded 128MB RAM and larger/faster hard drive + $300 retail (+ mod time)
Xbox = $149
HD = $100
Memory and mod kit = $50
Mac OSX 10.2 (as used in article) = $50
Keyboard = $20
Mouse = $10
Other materials such as soldering iron, wiring, CDs to burn Linux and Pear PC onto = $50
17" Screen or 19" TV $75 (minimum)
At this - you don't get easy wireless, iApps, a combo drive that burn CDs AND view DVDs and minus a whole host of other features.
You can get a nice refurb eMac 1Ghz and sometimes 1.25GHZ directly from Apple for $529 shipped on a regular basis in the special deals section.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Plus, you get the humor of running a Mac operating system on a MicroSoft product.
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
jeebus. do we really need a link to the "Revenge of the Nerds" movie?
freaking hypertext junkies... go play on a wiki.
The gain was mainly made due to the bi-endianess (is that a word?!) of the PPC chip, something that was lost with the G5 and the big reason MS has taken over a year to come out with a G5-compatible version of VPC. The other advatage the PPC has in emualating x86 is the register-rich nature of Motorola 680x0 and PPC chips.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Why not just go here?
What happens, though, when mirrordot gets slashdotted?
SiO2
I fail to see the point.
The XBox hardware is dated now, anyway. You could probably buy all of the components and build yourself an XBox-equivalent PC for about the same price (P3 processor.. GeForce3.. 10GB HD.. not too expensive, nowadays..)
Now, if PearPC would work at decent speeds on recent hardware.. THEN I'd be impressed (I've always wanted to try out OSX, but I'm not going to spend thousands to buy a Mac..)
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Another amazing breakthrough, someone managed to make an XBox function like a cheap, outdated, and under-powered PC. Oh wait, it is a cheap, outdated, and under-powered PC.
After reading the news about the Xbox being able to run OS X you may be asking yourself, "How can I do this as well, what do I need?"
Well, the answer to that question would be that you need to have a Xbox, obviously, and a way to run unsigned code.
In my experiences I have found that www.xbox-modchips.com provides quality tech suport, a good warranty, and overall great prices.
Right now the most Compatible chip in the market is the Xecuter 3 modchip. This can let you run the unsigned code required for a Mac OS X install.
In my opinion though, OS X needs a lot of proccessing power to run it's OS and requires a good bit of memory too, but the 733mhz proccessing power and the 64mb of ram that come with the Xbox may fall short behind on the minimal basis of running OS X on an Xbox.
Linux on the Xbox can do some great things such as, connect to your email server, browse the internet, run Linux apps, and even daisy chain several Xboxes together that are running Linux and make a 10,000 mhz machine. Linux on the Xbox has progressed very far, but how will Mac's OS X hold up like the current Xbox-linux Os's out today?
Only time will tell.
May this post be indexed by spiders, and archived for all to see as my Internet epitaph.
All they did was install OS X via PearPC on Linux running on the XBox. As far as I know:
...
1. Linux has been running on the XBox for a while.
2. It has already been demonstrated that PearPC can emu PowerPC on x86 and run Mac OS X (albeit slowly)
All they did was give instrux on how to compile PearPC for the XBox, which any seasoned Linux user could have figured out if they tried. Beyond that, wouldn't this be SLOW AS DIRT?!?! Even on a very fast x86 desktop machine, PearPC crawls like a gimp sloth w/ no hind legs. And wouldn't most XBox-Linux users probably also have a faster x86 PC that they could run OS X thru PearPC on?
I fail to see how this is interesting in the slightest. Maybe I'm jaded, but to me it seems there's nothing new here. Please move along
> It's much harder to emulate RISC (PowerPC) on a CISC (x86) than the other way around. Hence, VirtualPC runs better on a Mac than PearPC runs on a PC.
Hahaha. Oh please, CISC/RISC are old 90's buzzwords. The REAL reason why running a PPC on an x86 is harder than the opposite is that emulating a target CPU with more registers than the host occurs a serious performance penalty because you constantly have to swap register values to compensate.
can emulate any other computer.
We have known this for over half a century.
It's been done and but I wonder if it was worthwhile distraction from doing real work.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
...a really huge, black, uncomfortable mouse with several unreachable buttons.
It's a travesty! If Apple doesn't sue, I'll sue myself! It's an insult to the Mac!
Who moved my sig?
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.
There's no ROM of that kind in Macs anymore. That's the difference between New World Rom (original iMac and newer) and Old World Rom Macs. It's all in OpenFirmware now. And the barrier now is legal. You're not (techncially) allowed to install MacOS on anything Apple didn't make. They're not going to press it with some college students screwing around, but they probably would if someone started selling unlicensed clones.
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
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.
Oh, I think it's pretty well been established that it's a lemon.