My gentoox experience with some questions

dlk289 · Post by **dlk289** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:56 am

if ur don't like reading just skip to the Q's

ok so first off i tried FTPing Gentoox but for some weird reason that didn't work, i went the traditional way and i installed from a CD and i chose the E installation, well everything works but the problem is everything is so slow... all i want to do is make my xbox a FTP server and host my own website from it from my house. by slow i mean i couldn't do anything, nothing would open and i just gave up, tried to shut down but wouldn't so i hit the power button

1. is gentoox slow for everyone?
2. does native install have better performance?
3. does it matter if my HD is locked?

xbox is not 1.6, did the mod awhile ago
bios are the ones from the CD
original xbox hard drive (locked)

if u can help me out and get gentoox running faster that'd be awesome
thanks a ton all

orochi · Post by **orochi** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:07 am

1. Slow is objective, in general, it blazes compared to my Cobalt Raq2.
2. A little bit, when talking about HDD access.
3. If you have loader.bin flashed to your Modchip/TSOP you can leave it unlocked, if you run via .xbe you will want to keep the hdd locked.

dlk289 · Post by **dlk289** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:42 am

what do u mean by objective, cause i can't do anything... is there a better linux distro for setting up a server, and is a cmdline version a lot faster... and is it easy to learn i haven't really used linux all that much, thanks

zlasher · Post by **zlasher** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:26 pm

Gentoox isn't slow - but the xbox has some limitations..
Not much memory, and a slow HDD for a start..

- Gentoox Pro (without the GUI) is a bit faster (saves memory)
- Installing Natively (formatting the xbox - disabling "game mode")
- Replacing the slow disk that came with your xbox could also make it a bit faster..
- Tweaking the installation is critical..

I've recently moved from Home to Pro (native) and know there is quite a difference.. I also swapped the HDD for a faster disk - and there is a significal difference (don't have any stats to back that up - sorry)..

I have an xtender http://www.quantronics.com.au/items/XBO ... _large.gif so I can still play xbox games (if I suddenly get the urge..) and a third disk to experiment with different installations.. (cheaper than getting a second/third xbox and chip)..

So I guess my reccomendation is - do not give up - Do you think shallax homepage is slow? it's supposedly hosted on his xbox - mine is.. ( http://xboxlinux.mine.nu ) FTP, SSH, HTTP, PHP, MYSQL, Wordpress - it all runs smoothly.. Well, not BAD, anyway - considering it's a 733Mhz pc with 64Mb of ram..

Steinar T

sevenlayercookie · Post by **sevenlayercookie** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 3:50 pm

Also, you can add memory to your xbox to speed it up a good bit. It's really hard to do, but if your good with soldering, then go for it!
Check out this thread viewtopic.php?t=3425

dlk289 · Post by **dlk289** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:38 pm

well i think i'll try installing it with gentoox pro and without GUI, has a Amateur to linux would it be very hard to setup the FTP server that way?

and was the GUI version slow for anything else or just me?

thanks

m1d_kn1ght · Post by **m1d_kn1ght** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:35 am

Hey there dlk289.

This is mostly personal opinion and conjecture.

In my opinion Gentoox has proved to be the most extensively supported and easily configurable of all the XBox linux offerings.

The community is active, and supportive. The people here are genuinely interested in helping eachother out.

Now as for what distro you should use for soley an FTP server?

Well, in my experience, no-one ever seems to stop at just 1 type of server. We are always tweaking, and always adding to things, and we always want to get more out of it.

I, for instance, wanted just an apache server with PHP support. Next thing I knew, I wanted FTP, so I could upload updates from work.

Then i upgraded the Harddrive to 200Gb, and though to myself... Thats going to waste, so HEY! I know! Ill setup Samba and use it as a file share for music and movies and stuff!

But this bites, I cant cope with all this command line stuff to administer it... Webmin!

Before I knew it, I had the following setup :
Apache with PHP
MySQL
Samba
Proftpd
Webmin
SSH
VNC

My god.....

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my suggestion is :

Grab a copy of the home edition, install it in the E: just so you can get comfortable with it.

You can progress from there.

I suggest this, because it has most things already installed, and if all else fails, you can VNC into it using the http://<xbox IP>:5800

Also, it comes preinstalled with proftpd and samba.

This is only my personal opinion.

Technically, GentooX is the fastest of the XBox linux distro's because it is compiled from code.

Dont expect Linux on an XBox to perform miracles, it will dissapoint you.

You have to keep in mind, that a stock XBox is only a PIII 733, with 64Mb RAM.

If you think along the lines of Slow and Steady, then your Xbox will treat you well as a server, with practically 0 down time once you have it configured properly.

Anyway, have fun, and good luck.

Nick