Complete Novice Questions

[Sal...@googlemail.com]

I have got my son an Xbox for Christmas.

I have questions
Is it possible to run the machine as an xbox play xbox games and on
another occasion use it as a pc running Linux using the internet using
Pidgin wordprocessing on another.

Is thie above possible with a mod chip or will I loose the xbox?
I don't know how to solder

Sally Evans

[Jukka Aho]

Sal...@googlemail.com wrote:

> I have got my son an Xbox for Christmas.
>
> I have questions
> Is it possible to run the machine as an xbox play xbox games and
> on another occasion use it as a pc running Linux using the internet

Yes. Linux can be installed on the Xbox in such way that it is just
another option in the Dashboard menu, and does not affect the ability of
playing games in any way.

Just note that a tv screen is a pretty low-resolution display device, so
it isn't practical if you want to have a large desktop with multiple
programs running side by side. But it is fine for things such as light
web browsing, playing back web videos or other multimedia content,
e-mail, instant messaging, IRC, remote desktop sessions to a desktop
computer, SSH shell sessions, etc.

> using Pidgin wordprocessing on another.

I'm not sure what that means.

> Is thie above possible with a mod chip or will I loose the xbox?
> I don't know how to solder

It's possible with both a mod chip (such as Duox2) or, alternatively,
using a so-called softmod, such as UXE or Ndure (or the older and more
fussy MechInstaller.)

Mod chips are the more trouble-free option, but they typically require
soldering. (Perhaps you could pay some electronics hobbyist to do that
for you, though?)

You might want to check out the Xbox Linux website, the Xbox Linux
mailing lists (and their archives), and the Xbox Linux IRC channel:

<http://www.xbox-linux.org/>

Also see the following links:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+duox2>
<http://www.xbox-scene.com/modchips.php>
<http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox-tutorials.php>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+uxe>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+ndure>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+hdd+hotswapping>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=xboxhdm>

--
znark

[Jukka Aho]

Sal...@googlemail.com wrote:

> I have got my son an Xbox for Christmas.

Hmm. A clarification would be in order: is that the old kind of Xbox, or
a new Xbox 360? Because they're completely different devices. Everything
I wrote in my other post only concerns the old Xbox.

Here's the website for the Xbox 360 Linux project, though:

<http://www.free60.org/>

--
znark

[Sal...@googlemail.com]

On Nov 29, 9:56 pm, "Jukka Aho" <jukka....@iki.fi> wrote:

I haven't got the xbox yet. I will know more then.
It is not the 360 though, made sure of that

[Michael Schnell]

> I haven't got the xbox yet.

AFAIK, many game shops sell devices already equipped with a mod chip.

-Michael