Already Hacked My Xbox, Now I Want Freebsd On It Options

[alexlafreniere]

Okay, so I hacked my Xbox a while ago and put the UnleashX dashboard on it. Now I want to go all in and throw the FreeBSD Xbox port on it. I haven't been able to locate any tutorials on how to install it with an already softmodded Xbox, only if it's still locked up. Have any of you guys done this before or know how to do it? Any help is greatly appreciated.

EDIT: The ultimate goal here is to have a headless, always-on FreeBSD server that will live in my closet. I don't care about playing games or having a GUI.

This post has been edited by alexlafreniere: May 18 2009, 12:40 AM

[obcd]

I haven't done it myself, but it seems like there are 2 ways to boot into linux on the xbox.

1. Xbeboot.xbe. It's a linux bootloader that executes just like any other xbox application.
2. The Cromwell Bios. I am unsure if it would work, but you could try to launch that bios with the Phoenix bios loader program. It has to be a BFM (boot from memory) bios to get it working.

2. Was designed to have the option of flashing a modchip and run linux without legal problems. The Cromwell bios doesn't contain any Microsoft copyright related stuff.

I don't know if linux uses the existing fatx partitions on the harddisk, or if you have to create additional linux partitions. With a modchip and the Cromwell bios, the harddisk can contain anything. A softmod needs to boot into the M$dash before the exploit jumps in, so you can't touch the C and E partition structure.

regards.

[ldotsfan]

ftp://ftp.stack.nl/pub/freebsd-xbox/

Refer to this for details, reproduced a section here:

CODE

Hello everyone,

In order to aid people installing FreeBSD on their xbox, I have created
combined install/livecds to aid those willing to give FreeBSD/xbox a
try. The images can be used to boot a full multi-user FreeBSD
environment, but you can also boot directly into sysinstall to
install FreeBSD on your Xbox.

As I've recently merged Xbox support back to -STABLE, an ISO for
6-STABLE is also provided.

A list of the files and checksums is:

xbox-6stable-20060821.iso.bz2 - install/livecd for FreeBSD 6-STABLE
MD5 = 9afbab92bbb43a797753a941737ef0bb
SHA1 = 26908c6301484c133f23875a8136c2dbeb336e88
SHA256 = d67e51c2a37e14193a5cbfb49903899f60784e39f91888f8e0a48c85ee3eee46

xbox-7current-20060517.iso.bz2 - install/livecd for FreeBSD 7-CURRENT
MD5 = 82108c6112f8b39fb82e71fdc727704a
SHA1 = 83e40e292ac8ace395fcf199f1bb16b0a34531c5
SHA256 = 2176904283707273e7d62e31c516bc81c9a2021556bb84adbe23071ba9b8dd83

Some important points of attention:

(1) The loader used is Cromwell; the Cromwell version on the images has special
patches which do not appear in any official releases build [1]. Therefore,
if you already use Cromwell on your Xbox, please chain-load the Cromwell on
the images beforing attempting to boot FreeBSD.

(2) 'patched' dashboard (the Xbox 'operating system') versions can directly
boot the /DEFAULT.XBE file on the CDROM. The official Dashboard will
fail to boot this, however, as the DEFAULT.XBE file is not signed
with any Microsoft-approved key. Booting this file will directly
start the FreeBSD-enabled Cromwell.

(3) There is no loader support. Any tunables must be set using kernel
options (such as the root device to use)

(4) The xbox is very picky on the media used. If you get random panics
or hangs during installation, try another brand of media.

(5) If you keep experiencing DMA errors or timeouts, please use a 80 pin
UDMA IDE cable. As there is no loader support, there is no way to
force ata(4) to use only UDMA2 modes.

(6) You currently need an USB keyboard; I'm planning to add
dhclient(8) and sshd(8) automatic startup to the liveCD later.

Anyway, feel free to give this a try and report any problems back to me.
I intend to clean up the script used to build the ISO images in a short
while.

[1] Cromwell from xbox-linux.org CVS contains all patches required to be
able to boot the recent FreeBSD kernels. However, it does not
support direct booting from UFS partitions.

Item (2) is what you need, an Ndure based softmod will launch the dvd's default.xbe

[alexlafreniere]

Is UnleashX an Ndure based softmod? Will it be able to boot the FreeBSD install cd? Note this is the softmod used in combination with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, not Mechassault.

[Heimdall]

UnleashX is a dashboard, not a softmod. Splinter Cell and Mechassault are exploitable games used to install a softmod, but they can be used to install lots of softmods, some of which use NDURE to trigger the softmod every time the Xbox is booted. In other words, saying "Note this is the softmod used in combination with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" doesn't mean anything, because you could have used Splinter Cell to install any softmod. The actual softmod depends on the package you used - Krayzie and SID are the two most common, and the newer versions of both use NDURE.

Don't worry about it too much - if your Xbox is properly modded it should happily boot the BSD install CD or the live CD.

This post has been edited by Heimdall: May 19 2009, 01:45 AM

[alexlafreniere]

Okay so I burn the disc, pop it in the Xbox, and UnleashX reads the tray is empty. And yes, I burned two different CD's on two different brands of media. Anybody have any ideas?

[ldotsfan]

What media did you try? DVD-R and CDRW are preferred and the affinity of the media brand to the dvd drive brand is something you need to figure out for your particular drive - try reading this for a start. Have you tried other burnt disc before the FreeBSD disc?

This post has been edited by ldotsfan: May 19 2009, 02:17 PM

[alexlafreniere]

I checked the drive, I have a Samsung, which according the that link works with CD-R media. I tried a Memorex and a Sony CD-R, neither of which worked, and a Memorex CD-R I burned previously worked the first time with no problems. I'll just try burning another Memorex CD-R and a DVD-R and see if those work.

This post has been edited by alexlafreniere: May 20 2009, 02:57 AM

[ldotsfan]

I checked the drive, I have a Samsung, which according the that link works with CD-R media. I tried a Memorex and a Sony CD-R, neither of which worked, and a Memorex CD-R I burned previously worked the first time with no problems. I'll just try burning another Memorex CD-R and a DVD-R and see if those work.

I have 3 Samsung, all don't work with CD-R, they do work with DVD-R (as opposed to DVD+R) and CDRW. In some cases, I needed to insert a dummy file to push it to the 'edge' of the disc.

[alexlafreniere]

In some cases, I needed to insert a dummy file to push it to the 'edge' of the disc.

I'm having the same problem, the application I use to burn DVD's refuses to write the Xbox-FreeBSD .iso to a DVD because it's smaller than 700MB. How did you go about inserting a dummy file?

[ldotsfan]

I'm having the same problem, the application I use to burn DVD's refuses to write the Xbox-FreeBSD .iso to a DVD because it's smaller than 700MB. How did you go about inserting a dummy file?

Is that a xiso or regular iso file? For xiso, you'll need a xiso tool like qwix and instructions from here:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s=&...t&p=3899534
If a regular iso, use any iso remastering program, ie ImgBurn.

For Linux, off the top of my head:

CODE

dd if=/dev/zero of=dummy.bin bs=1024k count=1000

[alexlafreniere]

If a regular iso, use any iso remastering program, ie ImgBurn.

For Linux, off the top of my head:

CODE

dd if=/dev/zero of=dummy.bin bs=1024k count=1000

Two questions:

1. I dual-boot Linux and Windows, so a suggestion on an app that has this functionality for either OS would be great.

2. How big is the dummy file this command creates? The BSD image is a 200MB regular old .iso so it would need to be over 500MB to work.

[ldotsfan]

Two questions:

1. I dual-boot Linux and Windows, so a suggestion on an app that has this functionality for either OS would be great.

2. How big is the dummy file this command creates? The BSD image is a 200MB regular old .iso so it would need to be over 500MB to work.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
1. Already gave the instructions for Windows. In fact you can take any regular file in Windows of the right size, make a copy and rename it to dummy.bin for that purpose

[alexlafreniere]

Okay I got it working, the Xbox boots the DVD without any problems! Thanks to everyone who helped out in this thread.