planning your xbox retirement

posted May 12th 2005 8:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: xbox hacks

xbox cluster

I know this isn’t new, but today is a special day: the new Xbox is going to be officially revealed tonight on everyone’s favorite music-free music channel. This post is about what to do with your soon to be obsolete Xbox.

Xbox-Linux installs have become fairly easy; You no longer have to crack open the case. You can buy or build a simple usb adapter to upload a 2MB file on to the Xbox by using an exploit in MechAssault. After that you can boot a live Linux cd. Even after this your Xbox will still be able to play games.

What you can do with it is up to you imagination.

Use it as a front end for mythtv
Tuck it in a closet as a headless server
Install a variety of distros, like Gentoo
Upgrade the ram, hard disk, and add vga out
Install OSX as mentioned previously
You could even build a cluster

The best place to start on this journey is the xbox-linux wiki.

Read

Comments [30]

Reader Comments

Just keep in mind that if you choose to soft-mod your xbox with Mechassault (Go for it, it’s easy and painless!) make sure you don’t leave it unplugged for long periods of time, as you will corrupt the Microsoft bios, thereby turning your box into a 130 dollar doorstop until you buy a modchip! I mention this because I really did my homework before I decided to mod mine, but no one warned me about not leaving it off power. Imagine my dismay….

Posted at 8:41 am on May 12th, 2005 by word_virus

I was going to use mine as a deadly weapon, but this is good too.

Posted at 8:50 am on May 12th, 2005 by big al

Leaving the Xbox unplugged after soft modding with Linux corrupts it?

It doesn’t sound like it’s quite there yet.

Posted at 9:15 am on May 12th, 2005 by CDog

id love to see this hack done on the xbox360. think of the processing power!

Posted at 9:17 am on May 12th, 2005 by Yet another matt

With Xbox Media Center, Xbox will be around for a long time. I have 2 running at home and have modded atleast 20 for friends and the biggest thing people seem to want is the ability to watch things they download off the net, play music files, xlink, etc. In addition to XBMC, A lot of people like the emulators.. I’ve noticed kids who are too young to even have played a snes love the emu and roms. Im looking forward to the day when i can pick up a few more for under $100.

Posted at 9:25 am on May 12th, 2005 by naws

The clockloop problem isnt so much an issue anymore, but back in the early days of softmodding, yes, that was an issue. Basically, once the capacitor that kept track of the time lost all power, the clock would reset. When you would boot it back up, it would try to reset the time, however, with the softmod in place, wouldnt work. I have a newer xbox (1.6) and ive had mine unplugged for days at a time. My girlfriend has a first gen xbox and hers works fine too. Id say if you havea spare usb cable and thumb drive, find a copy of the original mech assault like i did and really unleash your xbox’s potential.

Posted at 9:29 am on May 12th, 2005 by nbcaffeine

#1… Thats interesting (and sucks as well). I’ve had my xbox unplugged for about 2 weeks before and when I powered the unit on, it went straight to the original xbox dashboard and asked for the time and date. After I set adjusted that, then rebooted the xbox, it put me back into EvoX fine. Not calling you a liar, but damn that sucks about your experience…

Posted at 12:36 pm on May 12th, 2005 by hecatomb

DO NOT GET RID OF YOUR XBOX. As much as I respect and love this site, your Xbox will NOT be obsolete if you are a Halo and Halo II lover. Not to mention, XBox’s are easy to hack and there’s ton of stuff out there for them. XBox Media Center… Anyways, why I say all this is because the new Xbox’s [xbox next]are NOT GOING TO BE REVERSE COMPATABLE according to reports (means they can’t play the current games). In addition, there will be no hard drives in them (Flash Drives instead). So, keep your Xbox, and remember that Halo never tends to die for some reason. (And neither does Burnout 3)

Posted at 12:42 pm on May 12th, 2005 by Shadowuw

keep up to date on the rumors shadowuw, there will be a 20gig drive on it. and it will be detachable for whatever reason, upgrades or simply take the save game to a buddies.

but i agree dont trash the xbox1 people. with all the homebrew out there it wont die for quite a while.

Posted at 12:50 pm on May 12th, 2005 by yackom

I’m about to buy an xbox to put either linux or xbox media center on it but i didn’t think myth tv would work because i wouldn’t be able to put a tv capture card in there… are you guys suggesting an external tv capture linked through USB? if so, can anyone suggest any good external tv capture cards?

Posted at 1:51 pm on May 12th, 2005 by rak

To #8
The backwards compatibility hasn’t been announced yet. Some hints have been dropped that the deluxe model WILL play older games. Also, I find it doubtful that it’ll have a 40GB flash drive.

Posted at 1:53 pm on May 12th, 2005 by REX DART, ESKIMO SPY

Rak:
The easiest thing would be to build a mythtv backend, throw it in a closet somewhere, and use some of the xbmc plugins to control it from the xbox. I havent done this myself, but there are people who have done this. I dont have cable, so my media is just streamed from the network. XBMC works perfectly for me.

Posted at 1:59 pm on May 12th, 2005 by nbcaffeine

seriously man, think of the processing power, with about 4-6 xbox’s, it could closely match the processing power of a 3 yr old intel celeron.

Posted at 2:54 pm on May 12th, 2005 by stevecrozz

the best use of the xbox is a gaming console. throw on all your favorite emulators, and copy a bunch of the best xbox games on there (there’s at least 60 games for it now that you could say are “must-haves” for gamers).

and there are still more games on the way, they say they have 12 more months of new releases. there’s bound to be a half dozen more excellent games coming out.

Posted at 3:08 pm on May 12th, 2005 by Bong Bong Gad

i want to softmod my Xbox using the Splinter Cell exploit but i can not find the files anywhere can somebody help me

Posted at 5:24 pm on May 12th, 2005 by jhsag

Seriously, you would have to be completely bonkers to get rid of your xbox.

In conjunction with Xboxmediaplayer, there simply is no other media playing device that offers as much bang for the buck. It’s a networkable, any format playing little bundle of joy. You will probably want to swap the fan for a larger, quieter one (swapped mine out for an 80mm), but we’re all hardware hackers here, right? If you don’t already have a standalone DivX player or HTPC, this is the cheapest route to go…

I haven’t even mentioned emulators yet. I actually boxed up my SNES and Megadrive (that’s a Genesis :) and put them back in the attic. Nearly every imaginable platform is well emulated, although it doesn’t really have enough grunt to do a N64 or PSX impression.

BTW, you can mod it complete free without mechwarrior (or any other exploitable game) if you’re willing to open it up (Torx 20 required) and hotswap the hard disk.

I plan to pick up a few before they disappear off the shelves completely – you might call me mad, but it’s every retro game console and the perfect entertainment system rolled into one for me.

The new Xbox won’t be as easily moddable I fear – it’s dissimilarity to PC hardware will probably cripple a lot of homebrew dev :(

Posted at 5:31 pm on May 12th, 2005 by Brunel Merleau-Ponty

amazing really, i dont have an xbox but i can tell the new xbox is bound to kill consoles.

Posted at 8:35 pm on May 12th, 2005 by raikura

i read that they may have halo 3 come out when playstation3 comes out.

it would make sense but can we reqally wait that long for halo3

Posted at 10:28 pm on May 12th, 2005 by andrew

dear #12…sir, you are an idiot…did you stop to think that an Xbox is a 3(or slightly more)-year-old celeron??

Posted at 3:20 am on May 13th, 2005 by Jessevd

thanks for pointing that out, im glad you think I’m an idiot, but dear sir did you realize that on the contrary you my good man are the idiot because that is precicely what i meant. good day to you, dear sir! :)

Posted at 3:25 am on May 13th, 2005 by stevecrozz

Won’t be throwing mine out either, XBMC is just too good. I’ll be waiting for the coming hacks of these next gen consoles though.

Eh hem, sorry to push myself all up in here, but #12/19 you said 4-6 xboxes would equal one xbox according to your comment in post #19………really don’t get that.

Posted at 5:17 am on May 13th, 2005 by The2ndclory

#1 The power goin off doesnt corrupt the bios. The mod exploits files neded by the dashboard to load. When it looses the clock it wants to reset that but can’t because the needed files were modified and won’t work. It’s called a clock loop and if you let it sit for a few hours it some times fixes it self. A better softmod is the UDE2. Goto xbox-scene.com and look in the tutorials and for more up-to-date info ask in the forums.

Posted at 8:28 am on May 13th, 2005 by the_baboon

sorry 21, the 4-6 xbox thing was really not intended to be a pricise calculation. My intention was to overeggagerate the lack of power in these xboxs.

anyone reading my post was supposed to quickly translate my words to read, “xbox is comparitively slow these days and not really worth clustering because old computer parts would provide more power for less cost”

Hopefully that finishes my thoughts, im not going to bother with any further clarification.

Posted at 6:06 pm on May 13th, 2005 by stevecrozz

how easy is it to install mythtv on your xbox? and what’s really required?

Posted at 3:49 pm on May 19th, 2005 by Ej

hey i am deciding to softmod my xbox for halo 2 using action replay and splinter cell. since this is a hacking website, i assume you guys wont be like all the other cocksuckers who want to rid xbox live modding. if anyone knows of any sites that could help me with this, or if you could help me yourself, i would greatly appreciate it………thank you

Posted at 10:55 pm on Aug 2nd, 2005 by david

I finally decided to get an xbox a while back just for the sake of XBMC. With the hdtv connectors and my bigscreen, I can watch hdtv rips of tv shows and nicely upconvert DVDs. $150 for a media center like this is a steal.

Posted at 5:30 pm on Oct 30th, 2005 by frank

hey,i have a problem with my XBMC.
I tried to change the start.wav with one of my own wav’s,but now my XBMC won’t load anymore… :(
My xbox starts fine, but then i get a black screen.
I tried to undo it but I can’t connect to my xbox anymore :s (I use flashFXP)
I can still play copied games.
I’ve been searching for 2 months now to fix it but still no progress…
PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! any ideas or solutions are welcom
thanks, David

Posted at 7:40 pm on Nov 4th, 2005 by david gerardi

I’v put Gentoox on my xbox (i flashed the TSOP with the cromwell bios) and it runs great.
(it’s ust sitting there nexst to my tv lately, but the project was realy fun to do).

anyway thads the story off my xbox

Posted at 9:04 am on Nov 24th, 2005 by Sánta

the xbox will be around long after the xbox 360 hype is over but when they make the xbox 360 chip i’ll be getting one to see if its any good

Posted at 4:18 pm on Feb 5th, 2006 by ZERO

To the guy that replaced his start.wav file in xbmc…

I did the same thing and had the same problem. For me it was worse because I had setup XBMC as my dashboard. When I did this and got the black screen, the FTP server wasn’t working either.

To fix this, I booted the Xebian CD, connected to it via SSH as root, mounted the E partition (hda50), my XBMC was installed in e:appsXMBC, luckily I had renamed my original start.wav, so i deleted the new one and renamed the old one back, sync, umount, reboot. Presto!

I think replacing your start.wav will work if you replace it with another wav file with the exact same specs as the original, but haven’t tried ;)

Posted at 2:57 pm on May 2nd, 2006 by pyrite