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XBox (Games) Technology

Building a Linux XBOX Cluster 184

Posted by samzenpus from the imagine-a-xbox-cluster dept.
Hack Jandy writes "Getting Linux to work on an XBOX became relatively easy a few years ago, and building an XBOX render farm became the next logical solution. Anandtech bought 8 XBOXes and clustered them into a neat project any hardware hacker could appreciate. Check out the results as Anand pits his 8-way cluster against some Xeon and Opteron workstations as well."
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Building a Linux XBOX Cluster More

Building a Linux XBOX Cluster

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  • Beowulf Cluster (Score:5, Funny)

    by DreadCthulhu ( 772304 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:31PM (#10783732)
    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of . . . errr, wait a second.

    • Re:Beowulf Cluster (Score:5, Funny)

      by SilentChris ( 452960 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:55PM (#10784209) Homepage
      I can't imagine it. Halo 2 has been in my Xbox for the past few days and I'm sure as hell not taking it out.
    • Imagine a single XBOX doing all the calculations by itself.

    • Re:Beowulf Cluster (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Shishberg ( 819760 )
      Random question.

      Is there any sense in referring to "a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters of X" (X in this case is obviously "XBoxes", but same logic applies for all X)? That is, is, say, an 8x cluster of 8x clusters at best equivalent to a 64x cluster? Or are there situations where having some kind of (at least logical, if not physical) cluster hierarchy is an advantage, e.g. to isolate network traffic for closely related tasks?

      • You probably just want to implement a 2-tier network topology with a lower latency interconnect like InfiniBand connecting the second tier switches.

        Like, have 64 GigE (or 10GigE) to InfiniBand switches. Of course, you'd have a bandwidth bottleneck, as I doubt InfiniBand could handle 8 Gigabytes/sec., but that would be the idea.

        Now you can just make certain nodes into masters and then you have a sectioned off portion. Of course, this is somewhat inflexible, since if the needs of one application (one of t

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I can just imagine these guys reading a /. thread on xbox linux, and somenoe says:

      Imagine a beowulf cluster of these

      And they think, hmm, not a bad idea!

  • Imagine a (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:32PM (#10783734)
    gorilla wearing a tutu.

    What did you think I was going to say?

  • So does this... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:32PM (#10783736)
    make it an LXXX-Box?

  • Printer-friendly version (Score:5, Informative)

    by TCM ( 130219 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:32PM (#10783739)
    Here [anandtech.com].
    • My only gripe with the article is that they say it is necessary to have a mod chip. That's not true, you can break Microsofts vaunted "Trusted Computing Platform" with a copy of mechwarrior and a hacked savegame. I'm typing this on an unmodified XBox running linux.

      That slices $40-80 off the total price for the mod chip and adds about $8 back on for the used copy of mech from the local game store.

  • This kind of geekiness turns me on (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:32PM (#10783742) Journal
    Finally a real hardware story! How many YRO stories did we have to slog through to get to this kind of meaty story?

    Clustering XBoxes? What kind of maniac would even consider that kind of thing? My kind of maniac, I guess!

    Click here to enlarge

    I didn't even have to click it. I'm already there, man!

  • 8 People less playing Halo 2. (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3770 ( 560838 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:33PM (#10783743) Homepage

    Somewhere out there in the world there are 8 little boys who are crying because they can't play Halo 2.

  • Duct tape... (Score:5, Funny)

    by drclaw007 ( 765182 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:33PM (#10783746)
    it has a dark side, a light side, and it holds the universe together Oh and XBOX Beowulf clusters :)
  • to play Halo 2 on as many TV's as I can at one time!!!
  • Hard to believe a super fast $3400 SMP Opteron workstation has the performance of 6 xboxes combined!

    If I only was rich and not a poor college student. Gentoo and the BSD ports would fly on such a beast.

    It shows that performance has gone along way since 2001 when the xbox was released.

    • Re:The benchmarks (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Keep in mind that the specific benchmarks used scale well with clusters. Many other workstation apps won't. For those you'll still want the $3400 SMP Opteron ;-)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • You can have it right now. Its the number one super computer in the world. The new IBM Blue Gene uses a bunch of PPC 440s. The same thing powering the game cude

  • Imagination comes in on page 8 (Score:5, Funny)

    by rjamestaylor ( 117847 ) <rjamestaylor@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:42PM (#10783799) Journal
    • Page 8

    • A Beowulf Cluster
      So far, we have played around a little bit with the idea of a stand-alone XBOX doing some neat things. But what if we want to actually make a high availability processing cluster across all of our Linux machines at once? This is the murkier world of XBOX PCs, distributed computing. There are a lot of really good documents detailing how to set up a secure, robust and stable Beowulf Cluster, but this isn't one of them. We only want to benchmark 8 XBOXes in parallel operation.

    Amazing restraint by the good folks at Amandtech not to pander to the Slashdot crowd with an easy, "Imagine a...."

  • Ugh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:46PM (#10783825) Homepage
    Now we have a Beowulf Cluster of bad XBox Beowulf Cluster posts.

  • Mod chips? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by goodgoing ( 810124 )
    I remember something about selling mod chips being illegal, however I didn't follow the story very closely...

    A low cost linux xbox for a server would be cool though, does anybody know if I could legally buy a mod chip to run linux?
    • Sorry, that if should be where :)

    • Re:Mod chips? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Ravadill ( 589248 )
      I know in Australia at least a judge ruled a while back that modchips are legal, and I know several large* companies that offer them here.

      *not large as in wal-mart, but large as in major electronic part suppliers.

    • Re:Mod chips? (Score:4, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:14PM (#10783975) Journal
      An XBox mod chip is essentially just replacing the BIOS with another one.

      So the hardware itself is just commodity parts. Even if some crazy US law says you cant sell it for the "intent" of piracy, you can get the parts legally at the local electronics shop. Kind of like smart card readers are perfectly legal - unless you use them to pirate satellite, then DirecTV drops "da hammer".

      Microsoft hasnt really raised a stink about it and has pretty much left the modding scene alone.

      Of course, the BIOS image you use may or may not be illegal. It'll either be a XBox bios hacked to play warezed games (illegal, copyright MS code), but theres the Cromwell bios, a GPLed replacement to boot linux up (legal). Chips either ship blank or with Cromwell.

      • Yes...and I love how the first thing you see when you boot with cromwell is a messing telling you to throw in the CD with bios.bin on it..

    • Re:Mod chips? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You don't need a mod chip to run linux. Thanks to a few buffer overflows in the dashboard, you can get it up and running without violating your warrenty and opening it up.

      Scope out the xbox-linux project on sourceforge. All you need is a usb->xbox controller cable and 007 (or MechAssault)

  • A few years (Score:5, Funny)

    by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:49PM (#10783847)
    Getting Linux to work on an XBOX became relatively easy a few years ago

    You mean, a few years ago when they started selling XBoxes...?

  • Their scripts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TCM ( 130219 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:49PM (#10783849)
    I doubt they even tested the scripts as pasted:

    #!/bin/bash
    for i 192.168.1.11 192.168.1.12 192.168.1.13 ... do
    ssh root@i argv
    end

    should be

    #!/bin/bash
    for i in 192.168.1.11 192.168.1.12 192.168.1.13 ...; do
    ssh root@$i argv
    end

  • playstation 2 cluster (Score:5, Informative)

    by frankmu ( 68782 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:49PM (#10783850) Homepage
    http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/cluster.php

    i think this was on slashdot a few years ago.

  • If you think about it, its a way to build a very large scaled out cluster using dirt cheap commody hardware. Where could something liek this be used? try your local high school or vocational school. Wanna build a cluster to give hands on experiance to the students? 20 cluster nodes for under 3 grand
    • it didnt work out as well as they had hoped. Limited memory and network bottlenecks made it good for some but not all crypto cracking, and not much else. They also don't think it would scale past 16 nodes. The article concluded that its more cool to use an xbox as a MythTV frontend rather than to make a cluster.
      • His point, though, was that one wouldn't build a cluster like this for performance, but for the technical experience and knowledge when under a strict budget (hence his suggestion that vocational schools might have an interest in this).

        I would think, however, that commodity hardware would be a better idea; the total-cost for each XBox was around $180 (mod chip included), while an extremely low end system could be built for less (using old Durons, for instance, coupled with a few megs or RAM). It certainly
      • tis a shame, woulda been cool though. though the MythTV box aint a bad idea

    • Really, it isn't worth it. Just get a bunch of old desktop machines from your school and make a cluster. I did that for free, instead of blowing over a thousand bucks on it. It taught me a lot about Linux and clusters. There is some more information about it in my journal, the webpage should be back up soon too.

    • For 3 grand you can buy also some faster off the shelfs pc's that are 3 times(~2400 Mhz equivalient) faster that the x-boxes, have 1 Gigabit network interfaces. and you can choose if you use a HD or not. Use onboard graphics. and have more memory if you application requires it. I bet some people here can google up some of this projects in seconds.

      remember the $200 PC?

      (i know some of these projects, but they are in dutch. )

      The comparison to a high-end opteron/xeon is just not fair from the price perspe

    • it's a ridiculous idea tbh

      better to buy 8 EPIA 5000s & a bag of dimms and build a single custom power supply.

      no HDS to fail (5 hds = 1 failure per yer)
      no fans to stick
      no super duper VGA cards to heat up

      a 20 node cluster would cost pretty much the same and be a much better project than getting 20 HUGE xbox consoles modded, warranty violated, up and working.

      with the added benefit of an upgrade path, 1.2ghz being the current mini-itx top end

  • Hardly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kinema ( 630983 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:55PM (#10783878)
    a neat project any hardware hacker could appreciate
    Hardly! Running Linux or some other OS on an XBox might have been a neat trick a few years ago but now it's old hat. Hell, my grandmother could do it if I pointed her to a good website. Likwise with the Beowolf cluster. Such clusters aren't exactly difficult to construct anymore especially with the advent of projects like OSCAR [openclustergroup.org].

  • Just like to point out... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rubee ( 826908 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @10:57PM (#10783887)
    I'd just like to point out that the point of a cluster is not to link together a bunch of cheap machines to save money; the time and energy required to write paralleled programs far exceed the cost of hardware. Rather, the point is to gather the highest end commodity machines you can afford and attain mainframe-level performance.
    • whatever doing something because its just fun?

      also, some budgets are not exactly large. so stuff like this might help. once again referring to my previous example of a highschool. Would it be nice to drop 100K on a cluster to teach com sci students with? yes, practical, probably not.

      • Re:Just like to point out... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rubee ( 826908 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:08PM (#10783941)
        First off, I seriously doubt many highschools are teaching parallel computing as part of their computer science curriculum. Second, a decent cluster of 8 nodes or so can be had for less than 10k, well within academic research budgets. Third, I never said anything was wrong with it; I'm just saying its not something thats practical.
    • The point of a cluster is to get a given level of performance as cheaply as possible. Their $1600 Xbox cluster is not the cheapest way to get performance, as you say. You can get complete ~2GHz systems for $148... they're pieces of shit but they have a cdrom, 128MB ram, and a 20GB disk. So, unless you have a bunch of Xboxes lying around, there's no point to doing this. Save $400 or so, and get vastly more power. (10/100 NICs should cost you $5 or less, I got 10 of them at Fry's for $1 each one fine day not
    • Sorry, but I was told once that 'Anyone who says there's just one point is missing the point.' Like 'Moderation in all things, including Moderation', this is a favorite axiom of mine.

      In my case, the point would be to build the cluster. Period. Full stop. To. Build. A. Cluster.

      Since I don't need one at work, my boss surely won't pay for highest-end-commodity-machines. Since I might want to have a clustering credential on my resume or chase jobs involving clustering, I'd prefer spending a grand or

  • spoiler (Score:2, Insightful)

    by robpoe ( 578975 )
    the spoiler? its not worth the time or effort - the XBox has too little memory to be effective at really anything...

  • This has been done exactly 100 times (Score:3, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:03PM (#10783912) Journal
    And slashdot has reported it exactly 200 times.

    Guess what? XBoxes make shitty cluster nodes. Whaddasurprise.

  • Already Done? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mmmjoy ( 666918 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:03PM (#10783914)
    wasnt this done last year??

    here? [slashdot.org]

  • Where's the cheese? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ratso Baggins ( 516757 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:04PM (#10783917) Homepage
    Compare Wal-Mart PC to the Xbox for this application

    Price:
    PC < Xbox + modChip

    CPU:
    Xbox < PC

    RAM:
    Xbox < PC

    Cool:
    PC < Xbox - (that's arguable considering you are adding to the Xbox sales figures.)

    WTF? This one I just dont get (beyond why not)

    • Yeah...I agree with you although it should be noted that you do not need a modchip to run linux, so your figures may be off. An xbox running linux used to be a pretty good value, but the price of the console hasn't dropped as much as comparable PC parts. There is something to be said about running linux on as xbox though. When I only had one PC, I used to dual boot with windows and linux. My 3 room-mates and I played a lot of battlefield 1942. That game hogs resources like you wouldn't beleive so havi
  • This is Kristopher Kubicki's article... who is in UIC's ACM club, the meetings of which I should get around to attending.
  • So, now that the Star Wars Special edition has 'updated' my pre-live xbox and patched it, will I still be able to mod it? (I'm assuming my options have been reduced to a modchip rather than a non-destructive hack) I left my original xbox (patched) alone and bought the second one to futz with...Damn you Lucas and Gates!
    • You can downgrade the dashboard (the interface you see at boot), allowing you to install Linux or whatever. http://www.xbox-linux.org/Software_Method_HOWTO

      The difficult part however, is acquiring the downgraded dashboard (which you can install via the Mechassault game).
      And no, you don't need a modchip to install Linux on your xbox.
      Don't plan on using Xbox live if are going to trick out your xbox though.

      check out www.xbox-linux.org for more info.

  • Why pay for a modchip? (Score:5, Informative)

    by mprinkey ( 1434 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:14PM (#10783980)
    There are very stable software-only hacks to get a hacked BIOS installed. The best one is called UDE. I uses a buffer overflow in the font handling calls of the Xbox dashboard (actually a replacement dashboard). Then it installs its own BIOS and runs its own software.

    Here [xbox-scene.com] is the skinny. I use this to launch XBMC and turn the xbox (w/ remote) into a very nice media center for every tv in my house. Plus, it plays games.

  • factor in the GPU (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mo ( 2873 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:19PM (#10784005)
    Note that these tests only uses the computing power of the main processor, while the GPU is sitting idly by doing nothing. With a little effort, and perhaps the use of some tools [stanford.edu] that harness the computing power of the gpu, these clusters would get a lot faster. It may not help in tasks like the distributed kernel compile, but things like parallel raytracing which can use the massively parallel floating point capabilities of the xbox graphics card could really benefit here.

    In the future, the playstation 3 will really provide an opportunity for some enterprising cluster builders for couple of reasons. First, the initial release of most console hardware is where the manufacturer sells them for the biggest loss. Sony actually makes money on PS2s now even if you don't buy any games, but when they release the PS3, they'll be selling at a loss and your performance-to-cost ratio is going to be huge. Secondly, if the architecture decisions behind the PS3 make it anything like the PS2, it will be much easier to harness the vector engines for general purpose calculations (compared to other graphics cards). Most of the horsepower in the PS2 (and potentially in the PS3) is in it's parallel vector engines. While the general purpose processor is reasonably fast (300 mhz mips), the vector units can dispatch a ton of parallel floating point operations which enable it to run games that would crush a 300 mhz pentium with a comparable circa-2000 graphics card.

    • Re:factor in the GPU (Score:5, Informative)

      by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:50PM (#10784169)
      Except that the Xbox GPU can't do floating point. It's a DX8(Pixel Shader 1.x) class GPU, so it's limited to short pixel shaders in the 32bit(RGBA) integer space. Future consoles will no doubt be able to make use of the GPU like you anticipate, but the GPUs in current consoles predate the modern technology needed.
      • Not to mention that the 64MB of RAM in each of the cluster nodes make it pretty much useless for any heavy computation. As has already been concluded: XBox sucks for clustering. It makes a really nice media player though.

        If you make a cluster of cheap PCs you could add graphics cards and use as "co-processors" though. That would be a pretty impressive hack. To my knowledge noone has tried to make programs which are both clustered and use "GPGPU" ideas. (That's not saying it hasn't been done though.) Base i
  • My Xbox renders frames along with an Athlon 2600+. and an Athlon 750. I'm planning to add more to my
    network once they drop in price even further.

    The XBox will happily support USB wireless LAN etc, and running Freevo makes a fairly slick video /audio streaming 'set top box'.

    It rips DVDs at 10-15 frames per second so I keep it busy crunching away on my DVD collection when it's not being used for other things.

    It will also play XBox games, but I don't own any of those.

    Its really quite a useful little machi
    • "My Xbox renders frames along with an Athlon 2600+. and an Athlon 750. I'm planning to add more to my
      network once they drop in price even further."

      Erm, with only 64 megs of RAM in an XBOX, is that really all that cost-beneficial? Maybe I'm doing more detailed stuff than you're describing, but I can barely stay within the gig I have now.
      • Well, when you got the X-Box for free (friend went overseas and gave it to me), yeah it's cost beneficial.

        Plus, this is just a hobby for me, and while I agree with you that the X-Box is no speed demon for rendering, and is memory limited, the point is it is a versatile little machine, which can be easily clustered and is capable fo doing 'real work'

        Of course you can get more 'bang for buck', but if you are capped w/regard to absolute expenditure - e.g. if you only have $500, then the XBox stacks up pretty

  • 40 comments and no... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @11:27PM (#10784042)
    Doom 3 jokes? Alright, I'll take a stab:

    Finally, now I can play Doom 3 on my XBOX!
  • In the Beowolf part of the story they mention a "Hard Drive Blaster". Never heard of such a thing - anyone have an idea what this is and how much it costs?

    Greg
    • Here's one that'll duplicate to 10 IDE drives at a time, and runs $6250.

      Just google: hard drive duplication

      You'll find a few different sources for such hardware on the first page.
  • Does anyone have a clue as to how hot a room would get operating eight or, sheeze, sixteen theoretical XBoxes?

    I would imagine that equatable desktop PCs in a cluster probably have the XBox cluster beat in terms of CPU power delivered per degree, though I could be very wrong. Anyone got any idea?

  • Grammar (Score:1, Troll)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 )
    from the imagine-a-xbox-cluster dept.
    That should be an xbox not "a xbox".
  • From the so caled 'article'...

    One of the better features of the XBOX is its small footprint in a "stackable" design.

    The machines do not stack entirely well as the top of each XBOX is slightly curved.

    ...which is it? So not stacking entirely well is a better feature? I'm confused :)
    • as in a very simple frame or modification can hold a stack together, either tabs protruding from the {top|bottom} or a set of verticle bars while allowing access to all ports and plugs
      • Sorry, that one went over your head...I'll try to aim a bit lower this time :)

        Still doesn't explain how a "'stackable' design ...does "not stack entirely well"

        Either it stacks well or it doesn't stack well...if it stacks well, then feel free to credit the design. If it doesn't stack well, don't say it has a stackable design. Cleary, the xBox lacks a stackable design.

        The car we tested has good driveability, yet we found it is not good to drive....
        • it is able to be stacked, but not particularly well, too many may become unstable and it would have poor resistance to falling over if jostled. as opposed to the nintendo 64 and super NES (as well as the uncommon later version of the NES) which are unstackable due to protrusions (carts) on the top.

  • The Modchip Myth (Score:3, Informative)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:45AM (#10785787) Homepage
    There's only 3 reasons you'd buy a modchip for an Xbox (pick one).

    1. You have an Xbox version 1.6 or higher.
    2. You want to turn it off to play on Live.
    3. You like wasting money.

    ALL Xboxes prior to the 1.6 have a reflashable BIOS chip (referred to incorrectly by Xbox modders as a "TSOP" due to the packaging of the IC itself). There's several ways to do exploits to run Linux to run the Raincoat reflashing software, the easiest of which is a gamesave exploit. You can build a memory card reader/writer (to transfer the gamesave) in about 5 minutes by splicing together an Xbox joystick extension cable and a USB cable. You can find an exploitable game at a used game shop, at Blockbuster or on eBay. Solder two points together on the motherboard to enable the write lines and you're good to go. I've lost count of how many Xboxes I've modded this way. Works perfect every time.

    All this info is on Xbox-Scene, it truly surprises me AnandTech made a $75 X 8 mistake.

  • From TFA... 733MHz not enough? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by terrencefw ( 605681 ) <`ten.nedlohsemaj' `ta' `todhsals'> on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:58AM (#10785819) Homepage
    The XBOX PC is just a 733MHz Pentium III with 64MB of RAM. 733MHz is extremely weak by today's expectations. 733MHz is not enough to run PC games today, barely enough to run Windows XP and certainly not enough to do anything practical, but play XBOX, or is it?
    Depends what your expectations are. I'm sat here on my 500MHz P3 laptop, which does everything I need it to. That includes highly practical things like web development, graphics work and my business accounts and marketing. I have to admit that it would suck with only 64MB though, so they're barking up the wrong tree by saying that it's the CPU that's useless. Sure it would be nice to have a brand new super 3l33t boxxx, but I have better things to blow two grand on right now.
  • You can't do any decent rendering when you're stuck with 64Mb of RAM. I work at a visual effects company and all the machines in our farm have at least 2Gb in them.

  • We're talking "clustering", not "distributed" computing: i'd like to see these experiments with an OS that was designed to be distributed from the ground up, e.g. Amoeba (http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/amoeba/).

  • If your stupercomputer goes down, you just get in on the X-box class action lawsuit...

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