Homebrew Xbox 360 runs Ubuntu?

The day that we all know will eventually come could be upon us: a hacker called Cpasjuste claims to have managed to get his Xbox 360 to run unsigned code in the form of the Ubuntu OS. An AVI video coupled with a rather flimsy walkthough guide is the evidence, which, to us, looks convincing. Alright, so there is a dodgy cut near the beginning of the video, but that happens to be followed by a "patched" copy of King Kong being booted, and then a string of Linux command line text, and eventually the Ubuntu boot screen. The instructions for doing it yourself require that you own an Xbox 360 with an exploitable kernel, a flashed DVD drive, a serial adapter, a patched copy of King Kong, and a "Xell" loader and a "powerpc toolchain" -- whatever they are -- but if you've got all that and the whole thing isn't an elaborate hoax, then there's nothing else to say but the sky Microsoft's ability to patch is now the limit for homebrew on the Xbox 360. It's about friggin' time.

[Zach @ Mar 25th 2007 7:51PM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKNjEZsYEPo

[phez @ Mar 25th 2007 7:53PM]

...xenon was the gpu?

[ravuya @ Mar 25th 2007 8:46PM]

Xenon is the codename for the CPU, not the GPU.

I was probably going to err on the fake side of this until I noticed that the screenshot is reporting CHRP, so at the very least the person who made the screenshot knows *something* about the PowerPC.

[Casey @ Mar 25th 2007 8:29PM]

Can somebody please explain to me what the hell the benefits are of sticking ubuntu on an Xbox 360? I mean, you buy a game console to play games, right? I just don't get it.

[gxti @ Mar 25th 2007 8:34PM]

Think of it as a $400 3-core computer with HD output.

[schlomo @ Mar 25th 2007 8:55PM]

Well, it looks legit to me. I know the XeLL code is legit - it's openly available as the only Linux loader for 360 (stands for [Xe]non[L]inux[L]oader). The PowerPC tools are probably in a 360 SDK, but whether commercial or the XNA homebrew coding app, I don't know. The rest of the stuff is confirmed as working - shaders in King Kong (and other games) are known to be moddable, the DVD firmware hack has been in the wild for months, and the CPU update efuses have been discovered already... now all that's left is trying to find a way around the efuses so we can all downgrade to run Linux and start Folding the shit out of those PS3s :D

[JerkyChew @ Mar 25th 2007 9:13PM]

Let's say this is legit; Can we roll back our 360's firmware to the hackable version if we want? If they can port XBMC to this console I'd hate to be locked out because the stupid box went and updated itself.

[schlomo @ Mar 25th 2007 9:51PM]

no, it's already public knowledge that a kernel update 4552 blows an efuse in the CPU, so downgrading is NOT possible below 4552, which already fixed the Hyperviser security issue exploited by the King Kong shaders.

[dave @ Mar 25th 2007 9:13PM]

xb(360)mc .... bring it on :-D

[Karl @ Mar 25th 2007 9:15PM]

Linux is slowly going to appear on everything. Gameboys are next. :p

[Tony Rayo @ Mar 25th 2007 9:34PM]

A very old version of the Linux kernel is bootable via GBA, but it's pretty much useless.

- Tony R.

[??? @ Mar 25th 2007 9:41PM]

Judging from youtube, its a bit slow for a 3 core multi threaded cpu...

[Matt @ Mar 25th 2007 10:08PM]

It was a live cd so it is gonna be slow. And who cares if its slow or not? I dont see you running linux on your 360.

[Tony Rayo @ Mar 25th 2007 9:44PM]

It used a patched version of 2.0.39 for anyone interested =p. But yeah, non-crippled Linux under PS3 or XBox360 would be great. Although as far as folding I think the program currently running on the PS3 would run in a more optimized state than running on a 360 via Linux because of the coders behind it.

I would love it if full access to all of the PS3 (aka 3D graphics!) via Linux became a reality one day. I think it's only a matter of time before everything I talked about is done. Certainly M$/IBM/etc could code a client for their box that could run and possibly rival (I don't know, I'm not a CS major, thank goodness).

Let the 'sploits continue! - Tony R.

[akijikan @ Mar 25th 2007 10:08PM]

efuse? Is that a technical term? ;)

[Alexander @ Mar 25th 2007 10:17PM]

And I call time. Wow, I was off by my estimates by a whopping year-and-a-half on the Linux folks to get it running on there.

It can only get better from here. I'm thinking I may pick one of the units up 2nd hand and try my luck with it. I don't care about games--I care about being able to run http://www.linuxmce.com/ from my Xbox360.

Watch--Microsoft's sales will go UP from this month forward. Mark my words.

[tanner @ Mar 25th 2007 11:01PM]

Does this mean i could potentially play some games on the xbox that work with wine? (WoW, Steam games etc..)?

[ravuya @ Mar 25th 2007 11:23PM]

No -- Wine requires an x86 CPU. The Xbox360 CPU is a PowerPC.

[Chris @ Mar 25th 2007 11:01PM]

MS needs to get with the program and allow homebrew. Sony figured out how to allow homebrew (and not just linux, technically) on the PS3 without allowing "backup disks" to work, why can't MS?

game consoles these days are so much more powerful than they used to be. Having one, especially at $300+, just for games is complete waste.

[samuraicommando @ Mar 25th 2007 11:21PM]

Just get a ps3 it runs linux out of the box you noobs.

[xxdesmus @ Mar 26th 2007 12:29AM]

Irony at its best.

Some asshat calling people noobs, and yet they are recommending a PS3...too funny.

[tanner @ Mar 25th 2007 11:30PM]

damn

o well maybe some good linux games will pop up for it.

[John Branca @ Mar 26th 2007 1:32AM]

That's not irony. People need to stop misusing the word.

And the PS3 allows you to do Ubuntu as is, you don't have to void your warranty.

[xxdesmus @ Mar 26th 2007 8:30AM]

I understand what irony is my friend. I wasn't even vaguely misusing the word in the way I was implying it, but thanks for the constructive comment.

[chris @ Mar 26th 2007 2:20AM]

PPC chain, hmm wonder if they can get OSX to boot :)

[Patrick @ Mar 26th 2007 3:11AM]

"That's not irony. People need to stop misusing the word."

Actually, it could be a form of dramatic irony, for a specific subset of people. There would be a discrepancy between what was said by the poster, and what is generally understood by the audience. In essence, the audience has more information than the speaker, and can recognize the mistruth of the speaker.

[cmspaz @ Mar 26th 2007 10:40AM]

"I wasn't even vaguely misusing the word..."

Except for the part about it being not ironic. The word you were looking for was incongruous.

And I may have to get my own 360 now, instead of using my roommate's.

[xxdesmus @ Mar 26th 2007 10:47AM]

Irony can be an individual thing. In my opinion his comment was ironic, enough said.

[g3n3tiX @ Mar 26th 2007 10:11AM]

You guys know Cpasjuste means "It's not fair" in English right ?
(I should know, I'm french)

[WTangoFoxtrot @ Mar 26th 2007 11:54AM]

OSX will follow soon, remember the hacker at the German hackers conference who 1st displayed this hack in the 360 last year, he showed a screensaver running on the 360 that showed Linux and Mac OSX coming soon.

[bobdole @ Mar 26th 2007 9:37PM]

I wonder why his "clear" command didn't work.

[WTangoFoxtrot @ Mar 27th 2007 10:05AM]

ABOUT TIME !!!!
i might even get a 2nd 360 just to run this as i need a powerful desktop and you cant go wrong with a 3 core 400$ computer :)