thelinuxlink.net

I've stocked up on Cola for the weekend, and I wanna geek-out as much as possible because school is busting my ass in my everyday life, so in the weekends I will be rolling up my sleeves and turning on "Hacker Mode" and do stuff I love to do, like hacking around with the technology I have sitting around.

OK, here's the deal, I wanna see if I can get Slackware to run on my Linux dedicated Xbox (I have two of them, with the LinuXbox having had all Microsoft code in the box wiped out), but since Slackware doesn't have a LiveCD, or an installer, that are made for use with the Xbox I would have to cross install it, which means that I stick the Xbox harddrive into my PC, install Slackware, compile an Xbox kernel and stick it back into my Xbox. The problem I have is that I made a bet with a friend that if I can keep my computer running for 40 days, non stop, no reboots, then he would try Linux, so using my PC for a cross-install is not an option right now. So I was wondering, since Gentoo has a LiveCD that boots and works on the Xbox, is there a way to use that to bootstrap and install Slackware?

Sounds like you should start looking at slax: http://slax.linux-live.org/

This will allow you to create a custom based slackware live cd. Still, you may have issues trying to make a custom based system if you do not have another system to create the image from. You could simply create and image from your current system, but that beggars the question: Is your current system ready for xbox?

There are some live cd's already built that you can download from their site.

dann wrote:Sounds like you should start looking at slax: http://slax.linux-live.org/

This will allow you to create a custom based slackware live cd.

I have already looked at SLAX, and I even have my own customized version on an 8cm CD-R that I carry around in my pocket, it's a cool LiveCD distros, unlike the typical new Linux distro, SLAX does add some new innovations rather than reinventing the wheel.

dann wrote:Still, you may have issues trying to make a custom based system if you do not have another system to create the image from.

Well, I could just use VMware to sand box this process, which I already thought about, damn I need to get another system running

dann wrote:You could simply create and image from your current system, but that beggars the question: Is your current system ready for xbox?

Well, an Xbox patched kernel can work 100% fine on a standard PC, the Xbox patches make the kernel check whether it's running on a standard PC or an Xbox (Which is a legacy-free, Microsoft locked-down/crippled PC) and if the Xbox is detected, it takes into account a few PCI numeration bugs in the system and other stuff like the partitioning....

dann wrote:There are some live cd's already built that you can download from their site.

Yeah, but you know, some people, namely Linc sounds like he does, take pride in the fact that he's running Slackware, I'm not pretending to be a veteran GNU/Linux or UNIX user, nor do I at this time wish to hack the sourcecode at programmer level, maybe I can apply the Xbox patches manually but I don't write my own, I just wish to gain knowledge of things to do with computers and how stuff works, which is basicly the original meaning of the word "hacking", another reason I want to use vanilla-Slackware and not SLAX, and Slackware in general, is because as we all know, Slackware uses vanilla versions of pretty much all the software included with it, including the kernel, this way I can use the original CVS patches from the Xbox-Linux project and not having to mess with any already applied patches, for example if I were to make the SUSE Linux kernel run on my Xbox, I needed to manually go through the the kernel sources and apply Xbox related patches, but since I'm not a programmer I can't see if I'm messing with something that can brake, the SUSE Linux patchset is quite extensive as I understand it, if you look at the configuration options whel compiling your own kernel from the SUSE sources you'll see a dramatical increase in hardware and support for other stuff.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

dann wrote:There are some live cd's already built that you can download from their site.

Yeah, but you know, some people, namely Linc sounds like he does, take pride in the fact that he's running Slackware, I'm not pretending to be a veteran GNU/Linux or UNIX user, nor do I at this time wish to hack the sourcecode at programmer level, maybe I can apply the Xbox patches manually but I don't write my own, I just wish to gain knowledge of things to do with computers and how stuff works, which is basicly the original meaning of the word "hacking", another reason I want to use vanilla-Slackware and not SLAX, and Slackware in general, is because as we all know, Slackware uses vanilla versions of pretty much all the software included with it, including the kernel, this way I can use the original CVS patches from the Xbox-Linux project and not having to mess with any already applied patches, for example if I were to make the SUSE Linux kernel run on my Xbox, I needed to manually go through the the kernel sources and apply Xbox related patches, but since I'm not a programmer I can't see if I'm messing with something that can brake, the SUSE Linux patchset is quite extensive as I understand it, if you look at the configuration options whel compiling your own kernel from the SUSE sources you'll see a dramatical increase in hardware and support for other stuff.

Hacking actually originally ment learning how things worked then using code changing its functionality to whatever you need. I have learned a lot about how Linux works by using Gentoo and I just take apart random things such as my computer and various electronics and see whats inside and figure out how it works and sometimes I try modding it. Although I know that you won't run Gentoo. Sooner or later when you are hacking/modding you will need to get knee-deep in code so the more programming experience the better.

CptnObvious999 wrote:Hacking actually originally ment learning how things worked then using code changing its functionality to whatever you need.

AFAIR the original definition of hacking didn't neseccarily involve changing how things works by reprogramming it, you can do lots of hardware hacks, like solder some points or circuits together.

CptnObvious999 wrote:I have learned a lot about how Linux works by using Gentoo and I just take apart random things such as my computer and various electronics and see whats inside and figure out how it works and sometimes I try modding it.

I regularly play with the BSDs, and I really like them. To be honest I'd really like OpenBSD to run on the Xbox, now THAT would be cool!

CptnObvious999 wrote:Although I know that you won't run Gentoo.

Actually, I have it running on my Xbox right now, the Gentoo people have been so nice to officially support it, if you do a search for "xbox-sources" in Portage, you'll see what I mean. What I don't like thought is whenever you update Portage, it has to update it's cache and it sometimes take like 15 mins. on the Xbox, which pisses me off a lot of times whenever I wanna go check for a few quick updates.

CptnObvious999 wrote:Sooner or later when you are hacking/modding you will need to get knee-deep in code so the more programming experience the better.

Well, I primarily is interested is hacking hardware than the actual programming of computers, for example what I really enjoy doing is actually building the machines, wiring the cables to get the best airflow, putting in motherboards, and then like the sweet berry of the whole thing, put a nice robust operating system on that will work and work forever, or at least until the hardware fails but you get the idea.