Calvin, As a follow up to this morning's email here's where I am now. Apparently I was making more progress than I had thought. The Cromwell BIOs was written correctly (unfortuantely in both halves of my DuoX2 through error of my own after a long day) but the Sorceforge version of Cromwell doesn't support my version of the XBox. The good news is that there is a test version for 1.6(b) versions. I have written David Pye requesting a copy as per this page:
http://www.xbox-linux.org/Version_1.6_Warning I had read this page but discounted it since I wasn't intending on doing the MechAssult stuff. In my case it's the stuff at the bottom that matters but since there's no way to know you have a 1.6(b) box without taking it apart I didn't know this effected me. I am hopeful that this will allow me to move forward and do the Gentoo-xbox install once Cromwell is up and running. I'll write back about what happens, hopefully in the next few days. Cheers, Mark On 5/4/05, Mark Knecht <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Calvin, > I'm am currently going through XBox mod hell. I wouldn't recommend > this to anyone feint of heart. > > There are at least 7 versions of the XBox, starting with 1.0, 1.1, > 1.2, ..., 1.6. There is also (apparently) a 'sub-version' of 1.6 > called 1.6b. There are also a truly scary number of possibly mod > chips. Choose one carefully. I'm using the cheapest. It would likely > had been OK if it came preinstalled with the Cromwell BIOS. Some of > them do. I suggest looking for that. > > I purchased a new XBox last Friday for a Myth frontend machine. I > knew it would be difficult. I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't work. > Here's the status so far. > > I got the XBox modified by a nice guy here in San Jose. He > installed a DuoX2 chip and put some sort of bootable BIOS on it. I had > been able to boot GentooX and Gentoo-XBox after that work was done. > After looking at Xebian, GentooX, Gentoo-xbox I finally decided that > since I use Gentoo elsewhere I'd go with Gentoo-Xbox. All the > instructions said I needed the Cromwell BIOS so I tried doing that > with raincoat. Raincoat loaded the Cromwell BIOS, but then the machine > wouldn't boot from the DuoX2 anymore. It will still boot with the M$ > BIOS. > > So far I'm out $150 for the machine, $25 for the IR/remote, $50 for > the mod chip + install and it doesn't work. That's $250. Probably I'll > get it fixed and running sometime this week but it's certainly not > painless so far. ;-) (Mostly my own making I'm sure.) > > My one comment about the XBox is that it's not silent. The fan in > them makes about as much noise as an older VCR when recording. This > makes me wonder if I'll leave it turned on and ready for use or > whether I'll end up turning i toff and seldom using it. > > Based on a fairly gloomy Monday morning my thought today, knowing > what little I know right now, is that I'd double the cost to $500 and > build something that's both based on a standard PC architecture and > BIOS as well as fanless and completely silent. > > So far it's an interesting (if depressing) use of time and I'm not > sure I'm going to enjoy the box when I get it done. Not a great > report. Go here only if you like this sort of thing. > > We'll see. > > - Mark > > On 5/4/05, Calvin Harrigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I've been looking for an economical way of setting up a couple > > frontends. I currently run a combo be/fe which has served me well for > > over a year. I though perhaps getting a couple used XBoxes would be a > > decent route. I've been skimming the archives and one thing that keeps > > popping up is a discussion/mention of versioning on the XBox. What is > > the easiest version of the XBox to mod to allow it to run mythtv? Does > > it require a hardware modification? How do the xboxes perform > > displaying SD TV encoded at 480x480? Any comments? Thanks for the feed > > back. > > > > Calvin > > _______________________________________________ > > mythtv-users mailing list > > mythtv-users@mythtv.org > > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users > > > _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users