I have an old Xbox One X (the 1tb model) that I would love to turn into a Linux box to do self hosting. While I do my best to find tutorials online for installing Linux, I was hoping I could pick y’all’s brains on your experiences for upgrading:
- Best hard drives to use (internal and/or USB3)?
- Can the RAM be upgraded?
- Can the Bluray be replaced with a hard drive?
- Anything else I’m missing and don’t know to ask about?
Thanks!
You can’t put Linux on an Xbox One Series X. The security system prevents running unsigned code and the bootloader will only boot the Xbox operating system. There has never been an exploit found for the Xbox One Series X or S for unlocking the bootloader.
Xbox One Series X or S
I think there’s a bit of confusion due to Microsoft’s insane naming conventions. These consoles exist:
- Xbox One
- Xbox One X
- Xbox Series S
- Xbox Series X
OP is talking about (2).
Technically there has been an exploit found:
But it might be only for (1) and it’s not clear if there’s a practical way to use it yet.
Ah, dang. Yeah I worded mine to mean the Series X because I thought they were talking about that. I forgot about the non Series X.
On that exploit, yeah I think it’s just the first Xbox One. And given it’s soldering and applying voltages right to the chip, and it’s nowhere near developed to booting a different OS, it might as well be non-existent at this point
Yeah, I’m starting to realize this via my research. This is very disappointing (but not surprising).
What a waste.
I tried this a long time ago. My conclusion was that there is not really a way to install Linux on the Xbox One. There have been reports that have run Linux inside of a jail/VM, but things don’t seem to mesh correctly like network connectivity. There is a whole hacking and modding the boot chain. I gave up. LOL
Perhaps there has been progress since I last tried. Also, very possible, I didn’t have the skills to pull it off. Perhaps someone else will chime in.
A lot of people start with old Dell Optiplexes for self hosting because businesses dump them on the market cheap when they get old. But an old PC will work just fine as a server. I think the 7040 is a good buy, you could maybe go even older. I have a computer with a Haswell era cpu still being useful.
You can find the nicest CPU they’ll take for a couple bucks on eBay too.
Dell Optiplexe
Picked up a 7020 with the i7-4790 for $125 + an additional $50 USD for 32 GB RAM. I’m running 52 containers on it, and it doesn’t break a sweat. Plus, it costs about $8 USD in electricity. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.
