Bonus: XBox 360: Modified Gentoo For Easier Booting


[XanTium] passed this along to me, and did a nice job of writing it up. You’ll still need those old kernels, but here’s the scoop:

“A modified Gentoo LiveCD and new KingKong Shader Hack have been released for the Microsoft Xbox360 console that will allow you to boot Linux on your Xbox360 pretty easily! The new shader hack no longer requires a serial connection on your 360 and will load the XeLL bootloader directly from DVD. Once the bootloader ran you can insert the ‘Xenon’ modified Gentoo Minimal 2006.1 LiveCD and run Linux. As this hack uses the Hypervisor Vulnerability it will only work on Xbox360 consoles with kenrel 4532 or 4548 (downgrading is not possible at this moment as Microsoft blew-up eFuses in CPU to prevent kernel downgrades), to run the shader hack you’ll need the Xbox360 King Kong game (modified with thew new shader patch mentioned above) and to run this modifie d game disc you’ll need to flash the Xbox360 DVD-ROM drive with a modified firmware.”

Guitar Hero Guitar Controller


[Chuck] sent me this How-To on building your own custom Guitar Hero controller. I love the idea – the stock controller is a bit small for me. This one was built for a Child’s Play fund-raiser, so maybe you can score it and help get some games to some kids in need.

Remember, there are just 20 more days to get your entry in for the Design Challenge!

One Handed Xbox Controller


I’m going to have to poke Ben to tell me about these things when he finishes them. He’s released his one handed xbox controller. This one was built by request of a veteran of Iraq. He re-designed the layout and re-positioned the entire right half of the controls to make the controls available to a one handed user.

How do you get a SUMO bean bag, an iPod, and some sweet hardware to hack on? Submit a design to the Hack-A-Day Design Challenge. You’ve got 22 days to submit your design!

XBox HD-DVD-ROM On Mac And PC


HD-DVD drives are getting closer, but aren’t terribly easy to come buy – yet. [Dan] over at uneasy silence let us know that he cracked open an XBox 360 HD DVD Drive and plugged it into a windows box and a mac. With a light application of some drivers, they got the drive working pretty easily – the snag? You’ll need a mini-ata adapter if you want to mount it internally. (And there’s apparently no HD-DVD software support for mac… yet.)

[you can just use it as a USB drive.]