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Building a Linux XBOX Cluster
Hack Jandy writes "Getting Linux to work on an XBOX became relatively easy a few years ago, and building an XBOX render farm became the next logical solution. Anandtech bought 8 XBOXes and clustered them into a neat project any hardware hacker could appreciate. Check out the results as Anand pits his 8-way cluster against some Xeon and Opteron workstations as well."
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of . . . errr, wait a second.
gorilla wearing a tutu.
What did you think I was going to say?
make it an LXXX-Box?
Here.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Finally a real hardware story! How many YRO stories did we have to slog through to get to this kind of meaty story?
Clustering XBoxes? What kind of maniac would even consider that kind of thing? My kind of maniac, I guess!
Click here to enlarge
I didn't even have to click it. I'm already there, man!
Somewhere out there in the world there are 8 little boys who are crying because they can't play Halo 2.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
it has a dark side, a light side, and it holds the universe together Oh and XBOX Beowulf clusters :)
to play Halo 2 on as many TV's as I can at one time!!!
Hard to believe a super fast $3400 SMP Opteron workstation has the performance of 6 xboxes combined!
If I only was rich and not a poor college student. Gentoo and the BSD ports would fly on such a beast.
It shows that performance has gone along way since 2001 when the xbox was released.
http://saveie6.com/
Okay, but how about my GameCube cluster? Or maybe a mixed system?
- Page 8
Amazing restraint by the good folks at Amandtech not to pander to the Slashdot crowd with an easy, "Imagine a...."A Beowulf Cluster
So far, we have played around a little bit with the idea of a stand-alone XBOX doing some neat things. But what if we want to actually make a high availability processing cluster across all of our Linux machines at once? This is the murkier world of XBOX PCs, distributed computing. There are a lot of really good documents detailing how to set up a secure, robust and stable Beowulf Cluster, but this isn't one of them. We only want to benchmark 8 XBOXes in parallel operation.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Now we have a Beowulf Cluster of bad XBox Beowulf Cluster posts.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
I remember something about selling mod chips being illegal, however I didn't follow the story very closely...
A low cost linux xbox for a server would be cool though, does anybody know if I could legally buy a mod chip to run linux?
You mean, a few years ago when they started selling XBoxes...?
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
I doubt they even tested the scripts as pasted:
... do
...; do
#!/bin/bash
for i 192.168.1.11 192.168.1.12 192.168.1.13
ssh root@i argv
end
should be
#!/bin/bash
for i in 192.168.1.11 192.168.1.12 192.168.1.13
ssh root@$i argv
end
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/cluster.php
i think this was on slashdot a few years ago.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
If you think about it, its a way to build a very large scaled out cluster using dirt cheap commody hardware. Where could something liek this be used? try your local high school or vocational school. Wanna build a cluster to give hands on experiance to the students? 20 cluster nodes for under 3 grand
I'd just like to point out that the point of a cluster is not to link together a bunch of cheap machines to save money; the time and energy required to write paralleled programs far exceed the cost of hardware. Rather, the point is to gather the highest end commodity machines you can afford and attain mainframe-level performance.
It's eXtreme XBox programming, one guy pushes the buttons, the other guy tells him what to input.
the spoiler? its not worth the time or effort - the XBox has too little memory to be effective at really anything...
= Grow a brain...
And slashdot has reported it exactly 200 times.
Guess what? XBoxes make shitty cluster nodes. Whaddasurprise.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
wasnt this done last year??
here?
but it is old news, from 10/10/2003:
On the stand of a multimedia-oriented Linux distribution called dyne:bolic, operating system author and maintainer Jaromil -- the moniker he prefers to be known by -- was demonstrating a hacked Xbox that can be used to offload processing tasks from a mixed cluster of PCs and Xboxes.
Price:
PC < Xbox + modChip
CPU:
Xbox < PC
RAM:
Xbox < PC
Cool:
PC < Xbox - (that's arguable considering you are adding to the Xbox sales figures.)
WTF? This one I just dont get (beyond why not)
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
Server's running fine. They must have switched it to the X-Box cluster.
Video Production Support
This is Kristopher Kubicki's article... who is in UIC's ACM club, the meetings of which I should get around to attending.
There are very stable software-only hacks to get a hacked BIOS installed. The best one is called UDE. I uses a buffer overflow in the font handling calls of the Xbox dashboard (actually a replacement dashboard). Then it installs its own BIOS and runs its own software.
Here is the skinny. I use this to launch XBMC and turn the xbox (w/ remote) into a very nice media center for every tv in my house. Plus, it plays games.
Note that these tests only uses the computing power of the main processor, while the GPU is sitting idly by doing nothing. With a little effort, and perhaps the use of some tools that harness the computing power of the gpu, these clusters would get a lot faster. It may not help in tasks like the distributed kernel compile, but things like parallel raytracing which can use the massively parallel floating point capabilities of the xbox graphics card could really benefit here.
In the future, the playstation 3 will really provide an opportunity for some enterprising cluster builders for couple of reasons. First, the initial release of most console hardware is where the manufacturer sells them for the biggest loss. Sony actually makes money on PS2s now even if you don't buy any games, but when they release the PS3, they'll be selling at a loss and your performance-to-cost ratio is going to be huge. Secondly, if the architecture decisions behind the PS3 make it anything like the PS2, it will be much easier to harness the vector engines for general purpose calculations (compared to other graphics cards). Most of the horsepower in the PS2 (and potentially in the PS3) is in it's parallel vector engines. While the general purpose processor is reasonably fast (300 mhz mips), the vector units can dispatch a ton of parallel floating point operations which enable it to run games that would crush a 300 mhz pentium with a comparable circa-2000 graphics card.
My Xbox renders frames along with an Athlon 2600+. and an Athlon 750. I'm planning to add more to my
/audio streaming 'set top box'.
network once they drop in price even further.
The XBox will happily support USB wireless LAN etc, and running Freevo makes a fairly slick video
It rips DVDs at 10-15 frames per second so I keep it busy crunching away on my DVD collection when it's not being used for other things.
It will also play XBox games, but I don't own any of those.
Its really quite a useful little machine to have around, although the lack of 3D drivers really limits it's true potential.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Doom 3 jokes? Alright, I'll take a stab:
Finally, now I can play Doom 3 on my XBOX!
You can downgrade the dashboard (the interface you see at boot), allowing you to install Linux or whatever. http://www.xbox-linux.org/Software_Method_HOWTO
The difficult part however, is acquiring the downgraded dashboard (which you can install via the Mechassault game).
And no, you don't need a modchip to install Linux on your xbox.
Don't plan on using Xbox live if are going to trick out your xbox though.
check out www.xbox-linux.org for more info.
ok take a deap breath and repeat after me, ok ready?
Mi..dol, I hear you can get it at your local drug store.
Aie.
The last thing we need is a beowulf cluster of beowulf cluster jokes.
Although..... man.... just imagine.
In the Beowolf part of the story they mention a "Hard Drive Blaster". Never heard of such a thing - anyone have an idea what this is and how much it costs?
Greg
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
Does anyone have a clue as to how hot a room would get operating eight or, sheeze, sixteen theoretical XBoxes?
I would imagine that equatable desktop PCs in a cluster probably have the XBox cluster beat in terms of CPU power delivered per degree, though I could be very wrong. Anyone got any idea?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
has anybody done a "reverse" hack that would permit X-Box games (like Halo-2) to run on a higher performance PC (Not X-BOX)? Also, anybody hacked in a higher performance CPU to an X-BOX?
From the so caled 'article'...
:)
One of the better features of the XBOX is its small footprint in a "stackable" design.
The machines do not stack entirely well as the top of each XBOX is slightly curved.
...which is it? So not stacking entirely well is a better feature? I'm confused
That should be an xbox not "a xbox".
Why? In school (over here in Germany) we were tought that an is only used in front of words that start with a vocal. X does not seem like a vocal to me.
Beside that, the idea of a xbox cluster ain't that great. For $210 or less you get a new PC that has more power than the xbox and does not need so much work to get running.
For 3 grand you can buy also some faster off the shelfs pc's that are 3 times(~2400 Mhz equivalient) faster that the x-boxes, have 1 Gigabit network interfaces. and you can choose if you use a HD or not. Use onboard graphics. and have more memory if you application requires it. I bet some people here can google up some of this projects in seconds.
remember the $200 PC?
(i know some of these projects, but they are in dutch. )
The comparison to a high-end opteron/xeon is just not fair from the price perspective, however it is an interresting experiment. (And it leaves you with 8 modded xbox to play halo the next week in the anand labratory)
There's only 3 reasons you'd buy a modchip for an Xbox (pick one).
1. You have an Xbox version 1.6 or higher.
2. You want to turn it off to play on Live.
3. You like wasting money.
ALL Xboxes prior to the 1.6 have a reflashable BIOS chip (referred to incorrectly by Xbox modders as a "TSOP" due to the packaging of the IC itself). There's several ways to do exploits to run Linux to run the Raincoat reflashing software, the easiest of which is a gamesave exploit. You can build a memory card reader/writer (to transfer the gamesave) in about 5 minutes by splicing together an Xbox joystick extension cable and a USB cable. You can find an exploitable game at a used game shop, at Blockbuster or on eBay. Solder two points together on the motherboard to enable the write lines and you're good to go. I've lost count of how many Xboxes I've modded this way. Works perfect every time.
All this info is on Xbox-Scene, it truly surprises me AnandTech made a $75 X 8 mistake.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
There are actually a few execeptions to this. The "sounding" of the first syllable is more important than the spelling.
For example, we do not say "an used hairbrush", we say "a used hairbrush". I believe any vowel making the sound of "you" or "won" forces us to use "a".
Conversely, when we are refering to the letter X, we say "an X", because X, when spoken is 'spelled' "ex" - and we place "an" before anything that starts "ex". Thats about the best explanation I can come up with, and I am sure there are more exceptions to the rule.
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
You can't do any decent rendering when you're stuck with 64Mb of RAM. I work at a visual effects company and all the machines in our farm have at least 2Gb in them.
I can just imagine these guys reading a /. thread on xbox linux, and somenoe says:
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these
And they think, hmm, not a bad idea!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
it should be
#!/usr/local/bin/rc
for(ip in 192.168.1.11 192.168.1.12 192.168.1.13) {
ssh root@$ip $*
}
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Ok, so back in the day an Xbox was cheap for what it was but these days? Buying PIII 733MHz, 128MB, 10 gig HDD's in bulk you can get them for £35-£40 (~65 dollars) making them, at most, half the price of an X box. No mod chipping required, bigger hard drive and a real P3 chip instead of the bastardised half celeron found in the X box.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Precisely what the parent of my original post was looking for.
To me, Cxbx or WINE are "API emulators".
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
We're talking "clustering", not "distributed" computing: i'd like to see these experiments with an OS that was designed to be distributed from the ground up, e.g. Amoeba (http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/amoeba/).
And those rules and exceptions are just the tip of the iceberg! I really admire folk who pick up English as a second language (well, those who are actually good at it!).
When I was learning German, I was pleasantly surprised at how logical that language was. Past-tense always sounded a bit silly to me, but for the most part it all just made sense.
How, exactly, is it that people can site approximately accurate statistics about antiquated non-PC/Mac hardware, yet still get mixed up about the timeline of relatively recent PC-class hardware?
The 300MHz Pentium II came out in 1997. Near as I can find, the newest 3D accelerator was the Voodoo Rush.
By contrast, my machines at home, both 750MHz Durons, came out in 2000, and came with Riva TNT2s.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
While I agree with your mentality, by buying an Xbox you aren't really supporting MS. If you buy a used Xbox, MS gets none of the profits. And with a new Xbox running at $150 and MS taking a loss on each one, technically it is subsidized computing paid for by Microsoft.
As long as the person buys no games for the Xbox....they are actually sticking it to MS by buying an Xbox lol
Mod points are pointless when you browse at -1.
real geeks prefer ssh!
With a single modchip, you can overwrite the xbox's TSOP with the linux bios.. then you can unplug the modchip, and use it to flash an unlimited number of xboxes, so it is cheaper than what anand calculated..
How do you write in Linux on XBox? With the gamepad, or am I missing something?
The X-Box controller ports are a goofy proprietary shape, but are actually using standard USB connections.
A simple adapter allows you to plug in an ordinary USB keyboard & mouse, and such adapters can be found on a wide variety of hacker sites if you don't feel like making one yourself.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If your stupercomputer goes down, you just get in on the X-box class action lawsuit...
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Ok, the solar powered flashlight and the helicopter ejection seat have been knocked down a place in the list of useless inventions. ;)
Well, when you got the X-Box for free (friend went overseas and gave it to me), yeah it's cost beneficial.
Plus, this is just a hobby for me, and while I agree with you that the X-Box is no speed demon for rendering, and is memory limited, the point is it is a versatile little machine, which can be easily clustered and is capable fo doing 'real work'
Of course you can get more 'bang for buck', but if you are capped w/regard to absolute expenditure - e.g. if you only have $500, then the XBox stacks up pretty well in my view.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long