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Blowing TiVo's Lid
An anonymous reader writes "Taking things apart is just plain fun, but there's also a lot to learn about how to build a foolproof Linux-based appliance. Break out your Torx drivers and take a closer look at TiVo's inner Linux workings. Examining the TiVo system reveals how one company made the transition from desktop operating system to embedded system."
didn't i read this 2.5 weeks ago?!?
first posted on slashdot 7/6/05 - dang!
Cool :o.
Not that I care too much, but wouldn't something like this be breaking the DMCA (assuming you are in the good old US of A)?
I guess this is still news....
yeah, this is a repost.
- I owns TiVo box, I want to open it, I make a photo
- Oh, a hard-disk. Let's pull it off and mount it on a regular PC
- See here how I can use bzip2 to make a backup of the drive, BUT BUT! also to restore the backup onto the drive! Shit I'm geeky...
- Ok so now I tinker a bit and I find a bunch of partitions
- I mount the partitions and notice a bunch of init scripts
- I also notice a bunch of custom programs, written in whatever language does the job, but I decide it looks like a big mess
- I insert a phrase saying that I'm not interesting in modifying the thing, just study it. You never know with these lawyers...
- I conclude with vague statements about Linux philosophies
(- Additionally, I post a black-and-white photo of me showing my long hair. That's how geeky I am!)
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's amazing how frequently I have these experiences of deja vu while reading Slashdot.
Me: Hey Son, bring my toolbox.
Son: What is it this time?
Me: Dont worry. The Tivo box is gonna be alright.
Son: Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Dad is gonna blew something again. This time it is Tivo
Me:I will just open and see.
Wife: (looks at me)
Me: Ok, forget it.
Since when is Linux by default a desktop operating system? Calling it a server OS would be somewhat more appropriate but even then Linux doesn't really specialize in any markets even though it has been more successful in some so far.
Linus itself has stated that he tries to keep it useful for anything there's interest for and considers it as the one of the main reasons for Linux's success. There are quite a few embedded solutions based on Linux already out there so TiVo certainly needed to make no transition from the desktop to embedded.
Basically, what I'm getting at is this: I automatically lose interest in an article when its opening statement is ignorant about the topic. The author's opening line made the rest of his entire arguement null-and-void, as far as I'm concerned. Claiming that linux has more successful roots in the desktop GUI market than it does in the embedded market is one of the more ignorant things he could have said.
/dev/random
I know the weekends are always slow here, but, who turned this one into "link to IBM" day? For those that havn't realised, this 'news' article and the one before both come from our friends at IBM. Maybe they need their own /. icon?..
N/T
You know that right now thousands of Tivo Boxes are feeling the cold dead stare of there Geek masters and know that they might be the next!!! (Shiver!!!)
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein
1 Google stock quotes? ...?
2 FreeBSD an unknown giant?
3 The inside of a TiVo
4
5 Profit?
6 goto 1
Since it's written based on Linux, isn't there some obligation to provide source code? Is it available anywhere?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Er...
Linux was created by Torvards for use on his home pc...
I would call that pretty strong roots in desktop...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
This article: http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=sh owpage&pid=53 includes a lot more info about the history of tivo, specifically in regard to how it relies on open source software
every stain tells a story
This story was first posted back on July 6 when the article was first released.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
This article is a birds eye view of TiVo. It barely scratches the surface of the inner workings of the unit. He touches on things that people have known about for years.
What I would love to see is someone totally hack a TiVo, and come up with their own distro that is capable of running MythTV.
Yes, it may seem a little redundant, but with the future of TiVo up in the air, a lot of customers may have nothing but useless doorstops one day and having an alternate TiVo distro would be a great way to save them and keep them running. After all, why dedicate a PC to the task when you can have an embedded unit doing what it was designed to do.
It's official - even CmdrTaco doesn't read Slashdot!
#DeleteChrome
I have to agree with you. Just because the guy made one comment about a company going from "desktop operating system to embedded system" doesn't null and void the entire article!
I mean really, it's no trivial matter to create a custom piece of hardware from scratch, make it run Linux, and make people have no idea that they're not just using another random hardware device.
Claiming that linux has more successful roots in the desktop GUI market than it does in the embedded market is one of the more ignorant things he could have said.
I would say putting words in the authors mouth and misrepresenting him would be one of the more ignorant things a person could do.
The article author never said "desktop GUI market" he just said "desktop market." So relax! If you think it's so easy to build a Linux distro from scratch for an embedded device, then let's see you do it!
God, this is old news...
I upgraded my TiVo about
Even my journal on here covers more than his did.
http://slashdot.org/~JWSmythe/journal/98940
http://slashdot.org/~JWSmythe/journal/99310
http://slashdot.org/~JWSmythe/journal/99319
I've done lots more than this. I have 3 TiVo's upgraded, hacked, and working now. Two are at my house, one at my girlfriends. It's nice when people give you "broken" boxes, just to find out they weren't all that broken. One did have a completely failed modem, but that was easy enough to deal with. (Hmm, how do you do a fresh install with no modem? Magic. hehe)
If he would have read up a little on the subject before making himself look like a complete freakin' moron, there are two pairs of boot/root partitions. 3/4 and 6/7 . They do this for upgrades. If you're using the 3/4 pair, the upgrade gets installed into the 6/7 pair. things that must survive through upgrades are kept in
It's very likely to have a boot/root pair empty, or just to confuse our winner a little more, both of them populated, but having different versions of the OS in them.
And... He did his examinations of the partitions the hardest way possible. There are plenty of boot CD's, which give support for the TiVo partition table (ya, ya, apple), and a few other customizations, to make things easy.
Oh, and his comment saying S2 is worse that S1 for hacking is just stupid.
God, I hope he didn't actually get paid to write that crap.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Linus created Linux the OS and Kernel. The GUI was an ad-hoc solution built on X.
If you want to answer the question of whether or not Linux is better on desktop or embedded, you should probably ask the question, "On which can I distribute binaries?"
you can see the inside of a HD TiVo.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Now if just someone would publish something on the Dish PVR. I'm sure it's written in Java, and judging by when the hard drive spins up late at night, I'm betting its running Linux with a late night Cron task cleaning things up.
What I don't understand is why he even bothered with this type of activity. Given a mountain of knowledge about Tivos, including partitions and OS dissection on the net, why not build on that? Simple search is not good enough? What's going to be next, "our expert have dissected a frog and found out this squishy part to be its stomach! Hooray!" published in medical magazines?
Hyperom.com
using the Leapfrog wireless A/V transmitter http://www.smarthome.com/7656.html and wireless internet, I have done some wonderful tings with my tivo... The leapfrog has a wonderful picture but does not support HD. It broadcasts through a cinder block wall very well. It also broadcasts outside my house. The tivo box stays where the Coax connection is. ;)
I wish the day that someone posts the necesary mod to use the Tivo outside the NTSC system or just english PAL.
I want PAL-N for Argentina !
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
Linus created Linux the OS and Kernel.
...yep... Linux as both my development box and the embedded OS target (both Geode and XScale processors). Linux is not "better" or "worse" running in either context.
Are you sure about that? My Linux (the kernel) history is a bit rusty, but I was under the impression that Linus only created the kernel. At the risk of overstating the obvious, Linux the operating system ("GNU/Linux" as it is sometimes referred to) is a compilation of the kernel and third party utilities.
The GUI was an ad-hoc solution built on X.
I'd hardly call it ad hoc; X11 with a window manager is anything but.
If you want to answer the question of whether or not Linux is better on desktop or embedded, you should probably ask the question, "On which can I distribute binaries?"
This statement is disingenuous. Being "better" on the desktop has nothing to do with the target platform.
I do embedded development, using
-Scott
My other sig is a Glock