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."

Comments

Deja Vu All Over Again

[Whafro]

It's amazing how frequently I have these experiences of deja vu while reading Slashdot.

re: "transition"

[ltwally]

"...how one company made the transition from desktop operating system to embedded system."

So, what he's saying here is that linux has stronger roots in GUI's than it has in the embedded area. Hmm... interesting. Linux has been doing the embedded thing for some years now, and quite successfully... while you still read articles devoted to why linux still isn't ready for prime-time desktop useage.

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.

Re: "transition"

[imsabbel]

Er...
Linux was created by Torvards for use on his home pc...
I would call that pretty strong roots in desktop...

Old old old news

[JWSmythe]

God, this is old news...

I upgraded my TiVo about ... ummm ... 2 years ago, maybe? I had read the stuff on *how* to do it before that. I just hadn't wanted to break a perfectly good box.

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 /var (partition 9). He completely missed the purpose of the MFS partitions. Those are the interesting ones, which the audio/video is actually stored. Hmmm. Imagine that. Dissecting a PVR, and actually wondering where the V goes. :)

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.

Re:Summary of the article

[Anonymous Coward]

By using a 2.5"->3.5" converter

We call those "compressors".

He also could have started with an IDE to USB2 external enclosure, and left it connected to the Mini running whatever the whole time.

I have to seriously question his investigative methodologies. For example, Peter appears to have completely disregarded the significant body of pre-existing work, and as such, has come to erroneous conclusions about system functionality and limitations. For starters, had he done cursory research into the community's progress, he surely would not have come to the conclusion that a hardware hack was necessary.

I'd wonder what he'd think if he got his hands on a ReplayTV drive.