“Today the Xbox Linux project announced that it had succeeded in fully booting Linux on the Microsoft Xbox Gaming System. The free operating system Linux is able to be booted either from flash memory, or (more easily) from a CD inserted into the machine. (The Xbox still needs to have a modchip fitted to allow it to run unsigned code; however these are widely available and start from $30).” Read the press release, see the screenshots and download it.
XBOX Linux 0.1 Released
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Do they get the $200,000 reward?
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/News/1133253
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/articles.php?aid=2002173045756
They are done with portion a) but b) is not yet complete. They have to get it to run without hardware modifications, right now it’s using the mod chip. I think they get $100,000 for the completion of the first half.
The link on the page leads to that project so I think they do. Not a bad pay day. LOL
my qustion is after they finsh freom all parts and you can
boot linux on the xbox wouldent MS or “might” just change
ther Xbox or add more protection to it plus i knew some pepole who woulden use a modchip so that they don’t lose ther warenty
Some many Linux fans hate microsoft so why would you pay Microsoft for the Xbox?
Well, try to buy the IBM PC components the XBox is made of for the same price. Go figure.
do you actually think that microsoft is making any profit on the boxes alone?
unless anyone buys the games, the xbox will be no more. Unless MS has some magic economics plan that I don’t know of.
Indeed, the hardware is sold way below cost.
buying an xbox only to run linux on it would be a tactical thing to do in the war against MS
Getting Linux to work on XBox would be the only way I would buy the machine. Just look at how much PC you get for $199!
And Yes, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo make most of their money selling the games. Margins on the games are big, hardware is the money loser for the companies.
And Yes, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo make most of their money selling the games. Margins on the games are big, hardware is the money loser for the companies.
Exactly. The machine itself is a loss leader, it exists to create a market for the games. If people are buying the box to run Linux on it instead, MS and company stand to lose a whole lot of money (which is probably the object of this exercise).
It’s been a rough week for His Billness… first Dell starts shipping PC’s with FreeDos, and now this. Gotta love it.
I have a friend who was a contractor at msft for awhile, and I don’t know if this is where his info came from or not, but he stated that msft figured they had to sell three games with the xbox to just break even. Less than that, and they were losing cash on the deal.
I am sure that must have been a year ago, or near the time the Xbox was introduced. At the moment, MS must be making a profit on the Xbox: very little design overhead (copared to the Playstation 2), large scale economics etc. it all makes the 199$ pricetag not only reacheable but even a little over the actual cost of the Xbox.
Did I mention they are now assembled in China?
I think they dont make any money, course they first sold it in Europe 479 Euro. And there a lot of people who want to make money. Like the wholesellers, the reseller, Intel, Nvidia and lots more. With 199$ you cant also pay for the marketing and stuff! Never!
LOL this is good. You can run but you can’t hide
hehe, there is no escape from Linux so MS watch out! 
Linux on PC, Linux on Mac, Linux on Amiga, Linux on PS2, Linux on XBOX LOLL Linux on PDA! Haha 
So here is a mission: Port Linux to human brain, and install it on Bill Gay’ts brain!
I also heard somewhere that MSFT lost money on XBoxes sold, but buying an XBox just to cost MS money is a waste of time. Sort of like helping to build a bridge by casting your lifeless body into 2 mile revine.
it doesn’t really matter if MS makes money on this now or in one year. They have such as massive and growing cash reserve that they can fund it for the next five years at a loss if they want. In fact, if their monopolies remain, they could fund this forever, and that is really the power of MS, endless and easy cash.
Now, if only the can remove the need for the modchip .. one can actually go out and buy the XBox
I’ve got the PowerPC edition of Windows NT4 here.
Anyone like to write some drivers so I can install it on a Powermac? 🙂
Even if M$ sells XBox below producing expences (who can confirm it though?), by increasing XBox sales 1)you decrease production costs 2)help M$ to report its success for market analyst and investors – which increases MSFT price and adds cash in Bill’s pocket.
And it plays video games! Remember that? Oh, and for $30 extra it’s an OK DVD player with an OK remote. It would be neat if it had a flash BIOS, but it likely doesn’t (to save money and thwart tinkerers). On the other hand, I bet a lot of the OS and GUI is stored on the hard drive, looking at all the special effects in the XBox interface.
Ah well, good luck to them.
–JM
it doesn’t really matter if MS makes money on this now or in one year. They have such as massive and growing cash reserve that they can fund it for the next five years at a loss if they want. In fact, if their monopolies remain, they could fund this forever, and that is really the power of MS, endless and easy cash.
1) They only have one monopoly which at the rate Linux is growing in east Asia, south Asia, South America and Africa, that monopoly would come to an end. Sure, they play a dominant force in places like the Internet, Office etc., but nontheless, it doesn’t make it a monopoly.
2) One thing I have learnt about Microsoft is that they don’t care how much money they have – they don’t want to continue losing money without knowing in the future making money. Simple as that. Also, another thing is that Microsoft never gives up in competing in a market they don’t have an influence, though matter how many times they loose. Take Pocket PC, and Windows NT for Servers for example.
But trust me, they won’t make a game console so it would be a $200 PC running Linux.
Besides, won’t this thing be slow because it runs from a CD? Like SuSE’s Demo CD thingy?
Oh, I forgot, wouldn’t the name violate trademark laws? After all, the word XBox isn’t generic and is a trademark by Microsoft.
the word XBox isn’t generic and is a trademark by Microsoft
I like the idea of LinuXBoX though
What I think would be great is if they can get a copy of grub and a micro dist, in a small partition to run without a mod chip.
That way you have the rest of the HD to partition as you like for linux or any other OS that you can get to work.
I know this will make it not run their games… I do not want to suport their try for a game console monoply, I just want a $200 linux box!
“1) They only have one monopoly which at the rate Linux is growing in east Asia, south Asia, South America and Africa, that monopoly would come to an end. Sure, they play a dominant force in places like the Internet, Office etc., but nontheless, it doesn’t make it a monopoly.”
Microsoft has, for all extensive purposes, a monopoly in office productivity suites as well. Their share is extremely high and one factor in maintaining the monopoly in their OS is the fact that you can’t use the dominant office suite on anything else, except OS X which they are now threatening to dump. In fact, i believe that MS makes more profit from office then from the OS.So yes MS h as two monopolies even though only one issue has been taken into court.
As for losing money, MS does not believe that they will lose money forever on xBox. Their business model to date in a lot things seems to be keep investing until you get it right even if that take four or five years. The point is that very few companies can wait so many years to “get it right” on so many things at the same time.
MS is being or has been extremely patient with
xbox
pocket PC
stinger, their cellular phone software.
.net
How many other companies in the world could run so many failing initiaves, in the short term, at once? not many. MS can run a lot more too if they’d like
So go out and buy your Xbox and use it as a linux machine. It’ll hurt MS but not much. If you really want to hurt MS then support Linux or OS X. that will sting a lot more because it threatens their foundation. MS is nothing without the TWO monopolies that feed all else.
I know this will make it not run their games… I do not want to suport their try for a game console monoply, I just want a $200 linux box!
Well, at the moment, I would prefer them over Sony.
But no company would ever get a monopoly in the game console market without buying out Nintendo. Dominant force (like PS2) maybe, but not monopoly.
mario sez:
I am sure that must have been a year ago, or near the time the Xbox was introduced. At the moment, MS must be making a profit on the Xbox: very little design overhead (copared to the Playstation 2), large scale economics etc. it all makes the 199$ pricetag not only reacheable but even a little over the actual cost of the Xbox.
————
I have no doubt they are making money on every xbox sold. It makes for good PR to say you are losing money on each unit to prospective customers. They can push the price much further down without hurting their wallets, no doubt about it in my mind; it’s a highly integrated design and manufacturing/component costs are very low for sure, partly due to the sheer number sold (though not coming anywhere near to Playstation2 sales, so far).
Wow, a gay joke on Bill Gates, REALLY mature…
Wow, a gay joke on Bill Gates, REALLY mature…
Well, some people think that being gay is a joke and deserves to be made fun of. Why is that opinion any less mature than the opinions of those who are for it?
First of all, what a great day today! The Premier League have started again! Second:
mario & kreechah:
Microsoft are loosing money on every unit sold. Search for some reports on google and see for yourself.
Actually they have been losing so much money on it that they wanted to renegotiate the deal with nVidia (which provides the GPU as you probably know) but nVidia refused. They where not making enough money because of the slow xBox sales apparantly and where not intrested.
Gamecube and PS2 (sony have their own manufacturing) are much cheaper than the xBox to build – something 185$ for a PS2 and 325$ for a xBox.
Although the xBox have the most impressive hardware numbers they have the worst games and aren’t using the capabilities of the machine. Games means everything in this market. Most people don’t give a damn about hardware except people like us that read sites like OSNews. This is also evident in endless PPC/OSX vs. x86/XP threads here…
You should search for yourself, but a quick search on google gave this links.
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/personaltech/0,39001147,39045626,00.h…
http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/0624/xbox062402.html
I was quite surpriced to see the numbers, 30 million PS2 sold, and 4 million xBox sold. That says everything.
A lot of people get confused about this, so here it goes:
Most game companies DON’T loose money on their hardware sales. Nintendo and Sony sell all their hardware at a profit. Microsoft, on the other hand, chose to sell at a loss ‘for a while’, so as to get a large install base, and then sell more games. Also, they thought they could get money back as the prices for PC components droped. Well, the prices haven’t dropped (infact, the RAM the XBox uses has gone UP in price), and nobody is buying massive amounts of games.
There were a couple articals in game mags, and even one some ‘wall street’ mags about how MS has already lost over $700 million on the XBox, but they are prepared to loose $2 billion, just to get into your living room. This is pocket change for them.
Two things. I can’t remember who the first company to sell videogame systems at a loss was (Nintendo and Sony never have), but I do remember that the Dreamcast was the best example of one that was. Segas plan was the exact same as MS, sell at loss, get in home, make money on games. That plan worked so well, that Sega no longer sells home console hardware.
Second, everybody always talks about the XBox, the PS2, and two a lesser extent, the GameCube. People have forgotten how huge Nintendo is in the home console market. I’m not a Nintendo fan, but the numbers are hard to ignore. So far, the GameCube has shipped something like more than 100,000 more consoles than the XBox, and their sold at a profit. ALSO, people seem to forget that the Gameboy (and GBA) make more money for Nintendo each year than the ENTIRE sales of the PS1 & PS2, XBox, Gamecube, N64, Dreamcast, and any other living room systems combined.
Just something to think about.
Kongo-Kim, I have read the reports, but I don’t believe everything I read. And those ‘unnamed sources’ and ‘estimated costs’ are just that. What’s released to the media is very selective, and often changed for maximum effect/sales.
I agree with you that games are the key. And there’s no doubt about the fact that xbox is far less popular than the ps2 (probably due to the PS2’s head-start, but the fact is it really has the games). Who knows if sales will pick up…
I still maintain MS is making a nice profit on each unit, but agree it’s not when it comes to the xbox operating division within the company as a whole, due to factors like marketing costs and the rest of it.
hellsh0k: But even is MS was prepared to lose money on this just to get into peoples livingroom, don’t you think they are wooried about the slow sales?
And about the GBA, it’s just amazing. How many GBA games does the average japanese kid own anyway? 20?
I read somewhere (in an interview with the Nintento CEO) that MS hade made a _gigantic_ bid to buy Nintendo before starting on the XBox project and the CEO wasn’t sure if they where joking or serious. They just laughed back. I find it nice to see Nintendo stand up against MS.
I don’t have anything against MS, but I like console games like Super Monkey Ball and I doubt anyone besides Nintendo would make a game like that. Rez on the PS2 is quite special too, but you get the picture.
My feeling is that most XBox games are PC games, and if I want to play a PC game I rather do that on a PC!
Well the future will be intresting anyway.
hmm the only monopolies i know of are city utilities and local phone carriers. so if “evil coporate” MS has most market share in office suites, it’s not like your forced to buy it or there isn’t any other option. maybe the competition just needs to stop bitching and make a better marketable product.
nor is anyone forced to buy an xbox over a ps2. the fact of the matter is the gaming industry itself is a near monopoly/oligopoly. we have 3 major distributors and no one else with any significant impact.
I think this is designed to get under the skin of MicroSloth. The average user isn’t going to buy a mod-chip, and the average user isn’t going to install linux, it’s just a PR campaign…. I have the give the linux people their props…. The linux people would probably have tried to convert XBox even w/o the reward
well i just bought an xbox and am damn happy with it, the games are just great. The graphics, sound, etc. Its all good.
Mwahaha and of course it was subbmitted before the artical was on osnews
Glenn
aka Ducker
Although the xBox have the most impressive hardware numbers they have the worst games and aren’t using the capabilities of the machine.
More recenly xbox claim to have sold more like 8 millon thats a few months old. After the xbox price drop the increase in sales in xbox was the biggest ever on any console. Xbox sold more units than any new console (including ps2) in first 8 months and more games.. Sorry cant be bothering finding the link since if you know so much youve prob read it.
Xbox ROCKS.. And its true despite the games looking better than gamecube and ps2 they still arent using the full capabilities, bungie said (‘Halo 2 will be much better using pipelines not even used in halo 1’) The authors of DOA3 said “If we realised how powerful the xbox was we would have used 10x more polygons”
So yeah if you want a console that allready looks crappy and wont look any better over the next 2 years get a ps2. The gamecube will look better for another year.. but it will take 2 years to fully take advantage of the xbox.
Xbox rocks!
PS halo won game of the year.. beating all ps2 and gamecube titles.
Glenn
kreechah: I have no doubt they are making money on every xbox sold. It makes for good PR to say you are losing money on each unit to prospective customers. They can push the price much further down without hurting their wallets, no doubt about it in my mind; it’s a highly integrated design and manufacturing/component costs are very low for sure, partly due to the sheer number sold (though not coming anywhere near to Playstation2 sales, so far).
<sacarsm> My God, you are sooooooi right! We better inform the SEC about this – the world biggest software company is cooking their books! Not another corporation! They are telling their shareholders that their XBOX unit is making loss! Oh no!</sacarsm>
Be realistic…. why would Microsoft lower its already low share price? People who cook their books normally make unprofitable things look profitable.
Kongo-Kim: They where not making enough money because of the slow xBox sales apparantly and where not intrested.
The lack of profits actually came from gamers not buying new games (sure, Halo sold a million copies… that’s not enough to cover the cost). But it seems more and more companies are making games. But most of the new games comes from the PC, not the console competitors… meaning less people are interested in buying the XBox.
hellsh0k: […]but they are prepared to loose $2 billion, just to get into your living room. This is pocket change for them.
The pocket change is 5% of their money…. But they would make LOTS of money once they become the top.
I still maintain MS is making a nice profit on each unit, but agree it’s not when it comes to the xbox operating division within the company as a whole, due to factors like marketing costs and the rest of it.
Sure, we believe you… NOT
There is no sense in trying to make the XBOX look unprofitable. First, investors would shy away. Then potential consumers WOULDN’T buy a piece of hardware that MIGHT be discontinued, and then the overall extra tarnish on the company’s already bad image.
I don’t see any sense in Microsoft lying to their shareholders…
Kongo-Kim: My feeling is that most XBox games are PC games, and if I want to play a PC game I rather do that on a PC!
Of course, a PC with similar specs and the XBOX would cost at least 2x the price of an XBOX…
chad: hmm the only monopolies i know of are city utilities and local phone carriers. so if “evil coporate” MS has most market share in office suites, it’s not like your forced to buy it or there isn’t any other option. maybe the competition just needs to stop bitching and make a better marketable product.
OH FINALLY! Somebody who see things the way I see them. The only monopoly Microsoft owned is the desktop OS monopoly, if you disregard Apple as a competitor. But that monopoly is coming to an end very soon…. Sure, they are the dominant forces on many markets, but people who don’t understand the meaning of monopoly should call MS’s products (like Office) monopolies.
Plus, I notice, no competitors manage to outsmart Microsoft. Of all the three companies that filled anti trust claims against Microsoft, Be was the worst. Heck, it didn’t even have a good web browser. (Yeah, yeah, it is a nice platform – but you pratically can’t do much on it in the first place).
30 million PS2 sold, and 4 million xBox sold. That says everything.
Sony had a huge advantage with PS2 because it was backwards compatible with PS1 games and had an established position as a console leader. When Xbox first came out (later than PS2), it only had like 10 games, all of which were about $55. I don’t think Microsoft expected to overtake the PS2 with its first console, but you can almost be sure that they will be in a better position come round 2. BTW networked multiplayer Halo is fun.
I can almost justify buying an Xbox now.
I don’t care whether MS has a monopoly or not. These things have a way of coming unstuck.
But if I was a USA citizen, I reckon I wouldn’t be so quick to hand over the USA’s technological lead as embodied in MS to the rising forces of the far east. haven’t you lost enough jobs to them already?
I have been watching the numbers of PS2 sold vs XBox. The only week that XBox outsold the PS2 was when the price dropped. Since then XBox has been losing out to PS2. Last weeks figures was approx 10000 PS2 sold vs 4000 XBox.
Someone said that PS2 have 30 million sold and XBox have 4 Million. Well I am certain that the gap is getting bigger not smaller.
Cheers
David
I guess it’s nice for Linux to be able to boot on the Xbox etc. But I’d be surprised if Linux users and Xbox users are same kind of breed. Those who play consoles are obviously people who don’t like bloat, such as offered by any Windows or Linux version out there.
The only thing that has happened here is that Linux has given billy some more attention and perhaps affected sales in a positive way…
All the sales figures I’ve seen show the Xbox as a poor third behind both the PS2 and the GameCube.
A PC with the same specs as the XBox would cost twice as much, but it would also be considered a bottom range PC in all departments except the Graphics card. It would have been top of the range a little under 3 years ago, again with the exception of the Graphics card which was last years top of the range.
What about linux on a gamecube? sure there’s no HD, so it wouldn’t be like a normal PC, but if you could get a decent linux distribution on one od their cut down cd’s (and have it run off it too) then it would make a great little portable workstation.
Having a computer that size running linux would be really cool – and remember it’s a power pc chip, so that should help any linux porting effort.
MIcrosoft is cooking XBox-2 .
They don’t really care that somebody put Linux on XBox-1 .
They’ll release XBox-2 and LinuxXbox project has to start over. The only win for Linux on XBox project is when Microsoft say “I quit”. That’s the ultimate goal – to beat the big bad Bill.
But I seriously doubt Microsoft quits the gaming business.
They may sell it to nVidia at the end if things gets really bad – when nodoby buys it XBox for game but only for home firewall project. Which is unlikely. This news may actually brings XBox back to profit – when all those gamers will buy XBox saying ‘I can put Linux on it, if I want’ without actually putting Linux on it – ‘Oh, i don’t have spare $30 now for that thingy’.
Most game companies DON’T loose money on their hardware sales. Nintendo and Sony sell all their hardware at a profit.
Actually, I checked this out – PS/2 made a loss on each console for the first few months of production. GameCube is the only console in the market that is sold at the real price and Nintendo also makes money from the hardware.
Gleen: PS halo won game of the year.. beating all ps2 and gamecube titles.
Who couldn’t like Halo? The people who hate the game actually hate the platform and the company behind it not the game. I like the game – but it doesn’t make me buy a XBOX and that game – heck, I don’t even have money to buy a quality NIC card.
Datako: But if I was a USA citizen, I reckon I wouldn’t be so quick to hand over the USA’s technological lead as embodied in MS to the rising forces of the far east. haven’t you lost enough jobs to them already?
Most of the jobs created by the XBOX production is already in the far east. Face it, just like America took over Europe, Europe took over the Arabs and the Turks, the Arabs took over the Romans etc…. it is happening again.
The power of cheap labour.
Beee: The only thing that has happened here is that Linux has given billy some more attention and perhaps affected sales in a positive way…
If people bought the XBOX just to run Linux, I doubt Bill would be happy. The people who bought XBOX to run Linux would probably won’t buy much games. That’s were Microsoft plans to make money…
David Burnett: It would have been top of the range a little under 3 years ago, again with the exception of the Graphics card which was last years top of the range.
The graphics card is in the same family as NForce, GeForce 2, GeForce 4 MX.. certainly not top of the range last year.
vlad: MIcrosoft is cooking XBox-2 .
I rumour which also consist of Microsoft using ATI’s graphics card, AMD processors, and integration of MSN TV…. Yeah, “I believe” in such a thing actually exist.
And even if it does exist, it wouldn’t come out for the next few years.
vlad: when all those gamers will buy XBox saying ‘I can put Linux on it, if I want’ without actually putting Linux on it
Most gamers wouldn’t be interested in Linux. But in the first place, Sony sells a Linux kit for the PS/2.
Does this xbox linux project plan not only to run the linux os on xbox but also allow the users to run their xbox games on the xbox while linux is running?