Boot a CD and Make Your X-Box Join the Cluster

jaromil writes "Last week at the Linux Expo UK in London the dyne:bolic distribution was shown to boot on a XBOX console automatically joining a cluster of other PCs on the fly, there is also an article on ZDNet UK covering the story." The article also discusses some of the issues with getting unsigned code to run on the X-Box.

Before you ask...

[toothfish]

There is a torrent [dyne.org] for the dyne:bolic distribution.

Don't know about Ogg.

The /. story and the article are both incorrect.

[drinkypoo]

jaromil writes "Last week at the Linux Expo UK in London the dyne:bolic distribution was shown to boot on a XBOX console automatically joining a cluster of other PCs on the fly, there is also an article on ZDNet UK covering the story." The article also discusses some of the issues with getting unsigned code to run on the X-Box.

First: It was not shown to boot on an XBOX console. It was shown to boot on a hacked Xbox (Note correct capitalization) console. This is important information and should have been included in the story submission.

Second: The ZDNet UK article claims that clustering Linux on Xbox requires using OpenMosix. This is untrue. You could use Mosix! Or, you could use one of the other clustering packages available. Beowulf clusters come to mind... At least the ZDNet article points out that it's a hacked Xbox, however.

While knowing it is hacked would seem to be simply an assumption for any /. reader, who is assumed to know that Xboxes are hackable, and must be hacked to use them for this purpose, there is the possibility for a buffer overflow bug in the DVD-ROM accessing code, and so we need to know how the boot was carried out. Indeed, on a site known for its technical discussions, this piece of technical information not being included is so grievous an error as to be ridiculous.

You could sum this whole comment up, unfortunately, as "thanks, taco!"