Author Topic: Xbox as a MD (Read 32771 times)

archived · « **Reply #30 on:** August 07, 2005, 08:19:12 pm »

sorry pal, feel asleep, to many late nights.... i would just download 1.1.0 instead of the 1.1.4 .... as i know the 1.1.0 works great!

Sorry i cant help you past that

archived · « **Reply #31 on:** August 07, 2005, 10:10:36 pm »

thanks, 1.1.0 did the trick.
However I dont know the default mythtv usernam/password/dbase for
mysql connects?

thanks
Mike

archived · « **Reply #32 on:** August 08, 2005, 03:30:34 am »

its

mythtv
mythtv

i think.... should be anyhow...

archived · « **Reply #33 on:** October 03, 2005, 02:37:51 pm »

Sorry to drag up this old thread, and even sorrier for being a total Pluto noob, but...

I'm a seasoned Xbox modder, and I'd also had the idea of using Xboxes as media clients. However, would I be right in thinking that this thread has wandered away from controlling the system using Plutohome?

I understand that Pluto uses MythTV, and that a MythTV frontend is available for the Xbox, but are those the only salient points in getting this working?

It sounds as though (from my cursory reading of the Pluto docs) that the 'Core' squirts a network boot image to each client on request. If that is so, wouldn't this necessarily be some Plutonian (!) flavour of MythTV plus other network stuff? How then would a local Xbox version of the MythTV frontend help?

Just trying to get my head around all this!

Cheers,
tamper

PS - Does anyone have experience of using X10 automation stuff in Europe? I'm not sure whether that kit is US voltage only...

archived · « **Reply #34 on:** October 04, 2005, 05:44:06 pm »

Actually it's not a 'plutonian' flavor of myth--we use the same myth that comes straight from them, prepackaged as a debian file. The network boot has no effect--as far as the media director is concerned it's a local drive, just like any other. This isn't our code, of course, it's just the way network boot works--it pulls its boot image from the core, and then mounts a directory on the core as it's local drive (ie root file system in linux-speak).

And the media director's don't have to network boot. So if you can get myth running on an xbox, you can also run pluto. our application is a 'normal' app like myth--it doesn't require anything special. Pluto even runs on windows (and symbian). In house we sometimes use windows pc's as our cores and clients, just without the network boot since that doesn't come standard in windows.

archived · « **Reply #35 on:** October 05, 2005, 09:34:52 am »

Thanks aaron,

That's all very positive. Does anyone know therefore if the Xbox can support wake-on-LAN, so that Pluto could fire up a remote Xbox, with that Xbox then booting its local Myth installation?

Aaaaand, what about the non media serving stuff like VOIP routing and home security? Is this done within Myth, or would it require Xbox support for other software?

Just let me know if I should be asking this stuff in a newbie forum

t

archived · « **Reply #36 on:** October 05, 2005, 10:58:37 am »

All the other modules (voip, security, etc.) are standard pluto modules in ansi c++. If myth runs on the xbox, so will all the other modules. In pluto, mythtv is one module.

archived · « **Reply #37 on:** August 23, 2006, 05:35:19 pm »

hi,

does anybody use a xbox with Pluto???

best wishes
markus

archived · « **Reply #38 on:** August 27, 2006, 08:33:11 pm »

when someone gets the xbox360 modded i will..

archived · « **Reply #39 on:** September 05, 2006, 02:27:31 am »

Bumping this thread again....

Has anyone actually done anything here for getting the XBox to run as an MD?
I started to work on it on the weekend and would be keen to work with others or find out where they have got up to.

Ideally I would see it work as follows;
* A new device template for Media Directors which is specific to xbox and preconfigured to use the nvidia drivers, xbox lirc stuff, disk drive and relevant software.
* Network boot from Cromwell bios (or xromwell executable) and comes up just like normal MD.
* Navigation with Controller would be nice too.

Issues to solve;
* Standard Xebian (Xbox Debian) release is based on 2.4 kernel.
* It is a patched kernel
* Getting Pluto to allow different kernels for MDs?
* Compatible software in the registry for installation into the XBox diskless file system.
* Enough memory to actually work?

What I have done so far...

I installed the basic Xebian system on a modified xbox just so I have a working linux version to see what is on it. This installed without any problems, so far only had time to have a little look at it.

Put the xromwell executable on the same box enabling me to start it from the menus. This has an option for network boot.

Manually added the XBox to pluto, using the default template and with the correct MAC address.

Tried a network boot to see what happens (didn't expect much at this stage). Found the server but complained about the pxelinux.0 file or something like that (need to check exact message at home for those interested).

Tried to rebuild a kernel image for the Xbox using pluto kernel source. I had to use the old source as the current source is not available from the pluto repository at the moment and I didn't want to get it from standard kernel source as I am not sure at the moment what is different in the pluto version. The source requires pathcing for Xbox and I built the image on my core rather than on the xbox linux installation. Build completed without any problems. Note I used the kernel configuration that gets patched in by the Xbox patches. I am pretty sure that the Pluto config and the Xbox config might have to be both examined and merged to get an optimal build. At this stage I was just experimenting though.

At this stage I ran out of time so had to stop there but the next steps would be...
* Manually alter the configuration so that the Network boot from the Xbox is given the correct kernel image. This shouldn't be too hard as a one off but may need pluto help to have it stay that way after a reboot. I suspect that this may nee script modification.
* From what I can gather from Pluto scripts there is version checking to ensure that the kernel version on the MDs exactly matches the core. Not sure why this has been done exactly but suspect it is to only have one set of software that can be pushed out to the MDs and be sure to work. Assuming that I can get the current kernel source and patch it successfully I don't think that this should be a major problem.
* Get the thing to network boot and see where it gets to...

Assuming that it works then I would concentrate on getting all the bits to work correctly and ideally have this setup captured by a new Xbox MD device template which does it all for you.

Another option may be to not have a diskless MD and have the OS install actually on the XBox. As far as I know diskless MDs are still not supported even though there seems to be checkboxes for it on the MD screen etc.

Anyone got any further that wants to share or anyone have any comments.
I don't have a lot of time at the moment to play around with this but will try and put in some more time over the next few nights.

regards
Darren

archived · « **Reply #40 on:** September 06, 2006, 01:33:13 am »

Update for anyone that is interested...

XBox uses etherboot to do the network boot (or at least it does from the xromwell executable). This seems to not like receiving pxelinux.0 as the first delivered file. Still trying to determine how all this actually works.
Changed the dhcp.conf to deliver the vmlinux file from the kernel source directory and the file is accepted and it seems like it attempts to load - but then it obviously gets an error (can't see one though) and comes back to the xromwell screen.

Tried a few different files as the boot file that is sent across - didn't seem to like any of them. Google found a dhcp.conf that had conditional entries depending on whether etherboot was calling it or pxe. Need to investigate why this is and what etherboot expects.

If anyone has anything to add, please feel free.

archived · « **Reply #41 on:** September 06, 2006, 05:10:07 pm »

good idea to use a xbox as a md was thinking about it my selfs.

i asume a standard xbox whit 10 gig and a modchip will do the trick

(bought it for 40 euro

i preffer a diskbased md above a network setup.
anyone got it working already ?

archived · « **Reply #42 on:** November 20, 2006, 08:05:16 pm »

is it hard to setup a xbox as a Media Director (or maby it can use XBMC)

archived · « **Reply #43 on:** November 21, 2006, 12:15:15 am »

I have stopped working on it for the moment - getting my other MDs working properly became a priority.

I think it would be better to have them network boot as it provides a few advantages and Pluto staff has advised that a disk based install does not work - although I don't know why (I think it is just not supported)

It is quite easy to get Xebian (Xbod Debian) running on the XBox. My problem came with Etherboot (which was invoked via Menus in software) would not accept any boot images I gave it, but my experience here is quite limited.

The kernel configs that Pluto uses and Xbox needs were not that different but apparently they have changed this in the most recent release so I would have to compare them again and reproduce a combined config.

All this is do-able, it just takes time that I don't have right now.
I think it would need to use a local swap file as well, which again is doable but would take time to get working.

Feel free to give it a go. There is quite good information on the net and I am happy to help out where I can.
Hopefully, will get to put some time into it in a couple of weeks.

regards
Darren

ps: There is no reason why you can't use XBMC as the MythTV client, but it will not be a Pluto MD, just a MythTV frontend.

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Author Topic: Xbox as a MD (Read 32771 times)