Linux Installation

Since the original BIOS didn't allow non-signed programs to run a new BIOS had to be set. For this we used the Matrix flash programmer and various BIOS images.

At first it was attempted to install the 0.0.10 release version of Ed's Xbox Linux (Debian) using the cromwell 1.8 BIOS image. But the attempt led to a cryptic error message involving the inability to access the HDD due to the lock feature. This was the state in which our group got involved.

Through extensive research we found out that the 0.0.10 version was only suited for the Xbox v1.0, however our version was the v1.1. Through the course of this research we also found out that the Mandrake version was also only compatible to the 1.0 box. So we proceeded to the latest release of Ed's Debian 0.3.1, which was just released in march 30th. Luckily this version was fully compatible with the v1.1 box.

This version came with a new BIOS image, the cromwell 1.22dev, so we reprogrammed the flash memory with this new version.

However we found out that the Xbox DVD drive had a serious issue with CD media. Only a few CD-R were readable, and low speed CD-RW have had the best results. So after an enormous amount of CD-R being burned, our group used an old CD-RW to burn the boot image. The result was that the installation was now possible, but because the media was so old it took some time and the first attempt resulted in a crash. The second attempt, through SSH, finished without major bugs and finally the linux was installed, up and running.

We discovered that this distribution of linux, in order to not meddle with the FATX partition system of the Xbox, created files instead of partitions. A rootfs file, which was 2000MB in size, and a SWAP file of 256MB. The maximum size of the rootfs is set to 2000MB in order to prevent the destruction of any game file inside the xbox file system.

Later on we found out that this installation didn't include the kernell source codes, which would be very important for any device driver development. However on the files section of the xbox-linux project at sourceforge.net there is a intriguing file named rootfs_uclibsc_devel.tar.bz2. No information to this day have we found about the file, but it seem that it contains the source code for the 0.3.1 version of the Ed's Xbox Linux distribution.

Note: To install the Source codes on the Linux Distribution for the Xbox, Jukka Aho (from xbox-linux-users), and Ivan Hawkes (from xbox-linux-devel) recommended following these steps. This haven't been tried, because we couldn't establish an internet connection for the xbox. Ivan Hawkes recommended trying to Patch the 2.4.20 kernel and recompiling, though he warned us there are still some bugs in the patch.