[mythtv-users] Can I still use an XBox as an XBox with XBoxMyth

[Joe Votour]

This post will kind of go off-topic, but if the
subject interests you, please bear with me.

You can still play XBox games, but it will depend on
the modifications that you make to your XBox.

There are typically three ways that you can mod your
XBox:
1. Via a software hack.  This exploits (usually) a
buffer overflow of some sort, and then changes the
version of the Dashboard (the green screen) on the
hard drive.  The modified Dashboard lets you boot
Linux, or regular XBox games.
2. After doing (1), you would then change the BIOS
stored in the XBox.  This would mean that it could
only be used for Linux (the Microsoft BIOS is no
longer present to boot XBox games).  Once the BIOS is
flashed, you no longer need the Dashboard hack, and
you can unlock, or even swap your hard drive if you
want.
3. Hardware mod-chip.  Most of the newer ones contain
their own bank of flash, so that you can flip a switch
and toggle between regular XBox and Linux.

Doing (1) and (2) will get you kicked off of XBox Live
(Microsoft can detect both of these), but should still
work for regular games, as long as you don't do
anything with XBox Live.  Every now and then, a game
might update your Dashboard executable (due to new
features), so you'll need to redo the software hack
again, if that happens.

Whether or not (3) will get you kicked off is still up
for debate.  Microsoft has recently introduced new
measures as part of Halo 2 (which I suspect will end
up in all new XBox Live titles) that supposedly even
mod-chipped boxes with on/off switches can be
detected.  While I doubt that this is the case, the
one thing that they CAN do is figure out whether or
not you've swapped the hard drive in the unit (this is
popular to store data of various forms, which I will
not elaborate on).

I haven't used XBox Live myself yet, and I have a
hardware mod-chip, and have not had a problem yet.  I
just flip a DIP switch (mounted on the outside of my
XBox), and that toggles the mod-chip on or off. 
Toggled one way, it boots the Linux Cromwell BIOS for
loading up Xebian (for MythTV), and the other way, it
boots the Microsoft BIOS for playing games.

-- Joe

--- Bill Chmura <Bill at Explosivo.com> wrote:

> 
> I am getting the impression that there is no way to
> "dual boot" the XBox as 
> still being able to play XBox games and also be able
> to start it up as a 
> Mythfrontend.
> 
> Is this true?  Any suggestions?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Bill Chmura
> 
> w. http://www.fistfullofcode.com
> w. http://www.explosivo.com
> 
>
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> constantly changing, interconnected nature of the
> whole of existence.
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