Introduction:
This is an advanced guide for installing Ubuntu to an Xbox360. I am assuming you already have Linux experience and understand the fundamentals. Anybody who is willing to write a guide for beginners can feel free to reference any information from this guide.


Prerequisites:
• Xbox360 with a kernel version of 4532 or 4548. (If your kernel version is lower then 4532, you will need to update using HD_DVD_10-2006.zip.)
• Hitachi 360 DVD Drive with modified firmware (Samsung does not work!)
• Patched King Kong disk with the new King Kong Shader exploit for XeLL.
• Cpasjuste’s Gentoo Beta Live CD found here http://downloads.sourceforge.net/free60/ge...on-beta.tar.bz2
You must use the above version, because the first one lacks the tools needed.
• Internet Connection (High Speed is preferred, since you will be downloading the install packages from the internet.)
• Microsoft VGA cable for the 360 is also recommended, since it can be difficult to see what you are doing on a TV.
• USB Keyboard/mouse.
• Made a backup your retail xbox360 drive. (This is very important; not doing so will make it impossible to save 360 content to the drive again!)

Backing up your Xbox360 Retail Hard Drive WARNING:
Before even considering formatting your retail Xbox 360 Hard Drive for Linux, you must take a backup of either the whole drive or just the key sector to be able to use it again for saved games and other 360 content. This can be done with disk tools such as WinHex. If you’re unsure on how to do this, do not continue!

Installing Ubuntu Linux using Cpasjuste’s Gentoo Beta Live CD:
This guide is assuming that you have already patched and burned a King Kong ISO and have the new beta live CD booting your 360 into Gentoo. If you are not this far yet, then please refer to other guides to accomplish this. You will have to login as root before starting or put sudo at the beginning of each command, same goes for the rest of the guide.

At this point you should be in Gentoo Linux. DHCP should have setup your network connection. To check type ping www.google.com into the terminal you should get a response if your network connection is up and running. If not follow these steps to manually configure your network connection:

Type:

Replace 192.168.0.2 with the IP address that you want to set.


Replace 192.168.0.1 with the gateway address that you want to set.


Replace 192.168.0.1 with the nameserver address that you want to set.

Now test your connection again, ping www.google.com you should now get a response, if you don’t get a response double check your settings.

Setting up the Hard Drive:
Type
This will bring up a graphical fdisk program.
Create your Linux swap partition:
Select New > Primary > 1024 > Select Beginning
Create your Linux install partition (you have to arrow down to free space first):
Select New > Primary > Let it use the rest of the free space and just press enter

Now you should have two partitions, sda2 should have the largest portion of space and sda1 should be around 1 gig to be used for swap space, if this is correct then arrow over to write, press enter and type yes. Then quit

Once that is done you need to format the install partition with:

Then setup your swap partition with:


Install Ubuntu to the Xbox360:
Now that your drives are formatted and partitioned, it is time to mount the install partition and make a directory to get started from:


Get the Debootstrap tools:


Extract debootstrap:


Change folder paths by typing:


Run debootstrap:


For the fastest installation, use a mirror closest to you. Mirrors are listed at
http://wiki.ubuntulinux.org/Archive.

Downloading the basic installation can take an hour or so.

Configure the Base System:
Once the download is complete change root to your new Ubuntu file system:


Create a custom fstab:


You will need to add these entry’s to your fstab:


Configure Networking:
You will now need to configure your network, below is an example. Make sure to use the settings for your network. (If you do not set a loopback as shown in the example, gnome will fail to boot correctly)




Edit resolv.conf to insert your nameserver, below is an example. Make sure to use the settings for your network


Now reboot the Xbox 360.

Booting into Ubuntu from the Hard Drive:
Since you are no longer using the live cd, you will need to burn this ISO that includes a kernel that will boot from the Hard Drive.
http://mydedibox.homelinux.com/ubuntu-inst...loader-sda2.iso

Boot this cd just as you booted the live cd. You should now be in Ubuntu Linux.

Adding users, groups, setting root password, and hostname:
Set a root password:


Create a user for yourself:


Create an admin group:


Add yourself to the admin group:


Add your username to sudoers:


Set a host name:


Installing Ubuntu Desktop (Gnome):
Make sure your logged in as root and type:


This also can take up to and hour or so. When it’s almost finished you will get a resolution setup screen, select 1280x768 as the default resolution with space bar, and deselect the rest. The setup will continue for ten or so more minutes.

Configuring X:
Next you will need to download the xenon Xorg driver.
Type:


Then run the visual Xorg configuration:


Setup as follows:

1. Attempt to autodetect video hardware? > No
2. X Server Driver: Xenonfb
3. Generic Video Card > Enter
4. Video card’s bus identifier: Press enter for default
5. Amount of memory: Press enter for default
6. Use kernel framebuffer device interface? > Yes
7. Autodetect keyboard layout? > Yes
8. Keyboard layout: us
That’s if you’re in the united states, if your not then fill in your default layout.
9. XKB rule set to use: xorg
10. Keyboard model: choose your rule set based on the options
11. Keyboard variant: leave blank if you’re in the U.S.
12. Keyboard options: Leave as default
13. Mouse Protocol: ImPS/2
14. Emulate a 3 button mouse? > Your choice
15. Xorg server modules: Default
16. Write default Files section to configuration file? > Yes
17. Attempt monitor detection? > Yes
18. Use generic monitor if it doesn’t detect it.
19. Video modes to be used by the X server: 1280x768
20. Method for selecting the monitor characteristics: Medium
21. Monitors best video mode: Choose what’s best for your monitor.
22. Write monitor sync ranges to the configuration file? > Yes
23. Desired default color depth in bits: 24

Now reboot and you will be greeted by ubuntu with Gnome the next time you load the XeLL boot cd.

Have fun!!

Works perfekt! Tnx for a nice tutorial.

The only thing i added was "restricted universe multiverse" in /etc/apt/sources.list. It is only "main" after debootstrap.

Will try Feisty when i come home from work. Tnx again.

/BurgerBee

Ubuntu 7.04 Beta

Officially isnt Ubuntu supported on PPC after 6.10, but here we dont care about that

I was too lazy for reinstalling from scratch but that should problably work with this tutorial. Just change to feisty like below. Please post if you try it. I will do it next time.



I updated instead. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list



Update the packagelist and then do the upgrade



Got some small non-critical errors like missing multi-cast support in the kernel, but nothing special. It works fine directly. Will post again when I have done some tweeking.

BurgerBee, posting from Ubuntu 7.04 Beta

Thanks stonersmurff good tut and job

Nice work!

Post deserves to be pinned, or put in the tutorials section.

This is quite possibly the most valuable "first post" from a member I've ever seen. Thanks!

Absolutely awesome tut. Is it possible to format any sata hard drive to work with this since it erases all the ms stuff anyways? Throw a 300gb sata in there and you have a kick ass desktop.

Sure, it is possible to use any SATA hard drive no matter the size, just make sure you buy a 2.5 SATA laptop hard drive. Then its as simple as swapping out the retail 360 drive for your new one.

BTW: Since I wrote this guide there has been a few updates, no samsung support yet, but VGA scaling has been fixed. So if your using a VGA cable and want to go above 1280x700 resolution, use this boot CD in place of the one posted above:
https://home.comcast.net/~ssmurf/XELL-Bootl...er-sda2-new.iso

You might have to rerun Xorg config to choose additional resolutions, just follow the same steps as above, but select the new resolutions you prefer.

Have been thinking a bit about Xbox 360 optimization of Ubuntu. We want to keep up with the Gentoo folks :-)

Here is some non-scientific compiler tests I did. I dont think we can get speed gains like this but there should be atleast some gain from rebuilding.



So where could we start?

Like Gentoo you can go all the way from source with Ubuntu



and for dependencies



Maybe just go for ubuntu-desktop and dependencies this way? (Doesnt look like debootstrap will help much if we want to go from source.)

Another way is to find an build script and make a new unofficial PPC64 depository and hook up depootstrap.

Just some random midnight thoughts.

/BurgerBee

text based install still scares me, but that is a very good guide.

Totally agree. Respect

Tried installing with



Froze at "Configuring libssl0.9.8". Froze as in no keyboard, no mouse etc.

Ill try it once more b4 i get edgy and upgrade afterwards.

Worked on second try.

a bit off-topic but still....

Debian Etch 64-bit

I took a trip to the country of 64-bits over at http://debian-ppc64.alioth.debian.org/.

Debootstraped with...


and then ran it on...

(etch didnt work at this stage)

adjusted /etc/apt/sources.list again


and updated to Etch...


O well, they said 98% of the packages was built with autobuilder, but it felt more like 50%. This could be good option if you are after a LAMP-server or so. Not for the desktop atm. They should have credit for building and serving us PPC64 anyway. Tnx!

/BurgerBee

Edit: spelling

Great tutorial!

Any chance of installing linux on usb-disk yet?

I use component cables to my tv (doesnt support vga), how will this look?

a) yes it would, but usb isn't stable so we don't recommend it.
probably not good, it will look stretched

I have made a little script for this now. Warning this script will WIPE your Xbox 360 harddisk.

Boot up the livecd and click "Application > Accessories > Terminal". Type the following commands:



Reboot the box when you are told. Boot with https://home.comcast.net/~ssmurf/XELL-Bootl...er-sda2-new.iso and login as root. You will be asked for a new password. The rest of the installation and download will start automatically and it is about 600Mb. Select xenonfb when the script asks for Xserver-driver Thats all.

Read about it at: http://www.free60.org/wiki/Ubuntu7.04

Nice work. Im trying your new script now but im getting an error msg when i reboot with the cd.

can not open root device sda2
kernel panic etc.......

I have a new 100gb hard drive, unformated and untouched.

I followed the steps you said, but when it rebooted i had to do a "hard"(using the On/Off button) reboot on the 360, wont the files the script downloads be deleted once i do a "hard" reboot?

Or is there anything else im doing wrong?

Its working fine now burgerbee, apperantly it didnt find the hardisk the first time, so it loaded files into memory instead

Hard reboot or toggle power is needed. The box can not be restarted with the script, so that is normal. It is safe to turn of power when X is going down.

But that it cant find sda2 after reboot sounds strange. I have tested the script five times or so without any problem and the previous state off the harddisk shouldnt be a problem. Nore the size. Please just try to start from the begining and run the script one more time. Maybe there was some kind of download problem during debootstrap.

Report if you get the same error again please.

/BurgerBee

Edit: hehe you got it working while i was typing )

Indeed i did

Thanks for the quick reply

hey seaweed what did you have of hard disk 100mb

Heres the update bootloader cd to add support for Samsung drives: https://home.comcast.net/~ssmurf/XELL-Bootl...da2-samsung.iso

The new livecd for Samsung drive support is also finished and will posted soon at free60.org.

I use a small 1gb MP3 player.
First of all, when I run burgerbee's script, it gets the error message:
"can not open root device sda2
kernel panic etc....... ".
Maybe it's because of the size of the player.
The other question is how do I change the script so it will make a 200mb
swap partition and the rest for the Linux itself?

Thanks.

never mind, I solved the problem using cfdisk, but now after I installed everything,
the new bootable disk keeps saying the "can not open root device sda2 kernel panic etc....... " thing.
any idea?

Is this installed Ubuntu a 32 or 64 bit version ?

Let's assume I have a 250Gb WD BEVS drive and a sector from one of the X360 Elite drives... Would it be possible to keep the M$ data on that drive and use the space behind those 120Gig for Ubuntu?

If not, why not?

No one?


@ mikomraz: I guess your MP3 player won't be mounted as 'sda2'.... So Linux can't find it there.

This is very nice and useful. It's amazing how linux has become compatible with virtually any platform, including the Xbox, PS2, Ps3, and even the iPod Nano.

I once surfed a PS3 proxy server running linux. I hope that this detracts from the Micro$oft monopoly.

This is a great looking guide and very informative. If only i had not ever upgraded my xbox 360 and i could try this stuff out. I am so jealous of you all who run Linux on your xbox 360

CHan163, did you ever get your split XBox360 + Ubuntu hard drive idea working? I'd love to do that, too, since I don't have two HD enclosures, and would need to swap the hd every time (I remember reading that the SATA connectors are too fragile for frequent swapping.)

might not go here but anyways would it be possible to install a more user friendly OS like windows after this by installing the ubuntu to ur hard drive then get a windows 2000 or xp cd and install it to ur hard drive like a normal computer?>

moan.. Xbox360 = PPC
windows = x86 aka.. you need to a install linux op xbox360 && then in a virtual machine Windows.. so.. speed will be like sh*t

Would it be possible to intall linux to an external hdd so i do not have wipe my 360 drive?
Also could i play backups of my 360 games in iso form?
and are there any emulators for ps2, xbox, etc.?

there is an app called tiny xp and yes search the threads can be installed to thumb drives or external hd

HOLY S*** not only is linux possible its also my favorite distro. UBUNTU rocks

EDIT: wait before i get anymore excited, is it actually Ubuntu or is it xubuntu ect. , and is it mostly intact like are you able to change settings?

its Ubuntu 7.04 (not 7.10 won't start)

not xubuntu .. well you CAN install KDE or XCFE or whatever window manager you want..

Just a heads up,

Ubuntu 7.10 now works @ xbox 360.

Install script @

http://www.free60.org/wiki/Ubuntu7.10

thanks ssmurf

Well I don't think this can be done yet but can't hurt to ask. Would it be possible after installing ubuntu on the HDD to boot directly from the HDD with out the use of the xell boot cd? Looking for a way to use the dash to select it and boot just like a demo game.

Reason I am asking is because I have a few 360s I got off ebay and were dead. I fixed them but a few had a swapped DVD drive and of course no DVD Key that matched. I keep looking for ways to boot up linux without the use of the DVD drive. I could get it all installed of a working 360 and then hope to boot it from the HDD on the systems that needed the DVD key. From that point I can get the key off the motherboard.

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks

how would the speed suck? I thought the 360 had 3 core 3.4 ghz PPCs? I can run windows + mac fine on any core 2 duo machine. Qemu greatly speeds up emulation speeds when using ubuntu as well. The only problem i can think of would be the ram.

Bonus!

As a matter of interest how was the Gnome issue fixed?



Utar

libfbdevhw.so from 7.10 is replaced with the libfbdevhw.so of 7.04

after you install Ubuntu, how do you put the original 360 save game files back on the hdd, assuming you've created a backup image of the hdd prior to the installation of Ubuntu?

how about a philips, benq or liteon?
im just asking because i got really tuned up by the guide, i'd love linux on my xobx, allways been a fan of the os, but now im torn because my drive isnt the one described, what would you have me do, leet 1.post-guide?

Thanks in advance and sorry if i missed a smilair question...

cheers
-Menzis0

btw: love the guide

Run debootstrap:

bash: debootstrap: command not found

im pretty sure im doing everything right, this is my 2nd attempt and i got the same error the last time (on a different box).

i noticed there where 2 unextracted files in the dir (pic) making the usr/lib/debootstrap and /usr/sbin directory's invalid so i tried extracting the 2 files and it didn't make a difference (pic), so beyond that im not sure whats going wrong.

Edit: Spellcheck

Try:

Couldn't edit my previous post, so...


You'll need to execute this in your '/mnt/ubuntu' directory:


Then from here, you can now execute the debootstrap:

It all seemed to install great using the script at http://www.free60.org/wiki/Ubuntu7.10

There is one problem I am having, I selected the wrong screen resolution. Is there a way I can fix this using Ctrl + Alt + F1? It seems like a lot of work to reinstall it all just to fix that simple little mistake

Thanks for any help

EDIT: After doing a bit more searching I found that this works

Press Ctrl + Alt + F1
Login as root using your pass

and then using this command
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Anyone have up to date install instructions? I've followed free60.org for the 7.10 install and used the boot cd they link to. However, when I go to boot up with it, I get an irq 36 errors that repeats for ever. I can complete the install by keeping track of what i type, and had it fully working minus the desktop.

It dawned on me, that maybe i needed the old v.21 xell boot cd after I read about recent updates in the kernal. So I attempted to start from step one on free60.org and made it thru formating the drive again, but it's not stuck at not being able to make the /mnt/ubuntu directory. I have no idea what happened and have tried numberous times to cfdisk, which appears to delete it, but then when i continue and try and mnt sda2 and the ubuntu folder the command prompt freezes. It's almost like the hard drive got corrupted and the only thing i can think of is to take it apart and stick it in an external and format it with windows or something.

I just need to know which directions to follow and which xell boot cd to use. It appears there is conflicting info on free60.org. I have both 2.6.21.1 and 2.6.24.3 xell boot cds. I forgot to mention, before trying to start over I did boot from the 2.6.21.1 cd and there was no errors as the 360 booted everything up, except for the desktop not starting.

Hi mate..

Recently got a hold of a Xbox 360 with kernel 4532 and had to try out this guide..

I used the scripts on free60.org and tried several guides but it just wont work damnit..

After Ive run any of the three different scripts on free60.org or the manual way that you describe in your guide, I get this message: "Complete, please reboot with SDA Bootloader" and I did so, it goes into panic mode after it has loaded the kernel.. Says "Disabling IRQ#32" as well as "Disabling IRQ#36" in a unending loop.. Help?!

I used this guide: http://www.free60.org/wiki/First_Steps
and this: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=595543

Ive tried to boot it even with harddrive disconnected, internet cable disconnected, tried burning the Xell disc 5 times now on different speed, nothing works

What is going on?

The Xell disc youve linked to is offline so I used the one Free60.org links to.. it boots, loads the kernel but disabling IRQ#32 and #36 keeps coming up .. something about "nobody cares, disable irqpoll in options"

This is really annoying as I was so looking forward to this and spent 12 hours on this XBox 360 now trying to get Linux to work on it.. The LiveCD works just fine, so it doesnt make any sense..