NFS Root

This tutorial assumes that you already have Xell and Xenon Toolchain.

Install and Setup a NFS Server

To do this you may have to edit your kernel on your host machine to enable nfs.
For Gentoo: Instructions.
For Debian/Ubuntu: Instructions

Your /etc/exports should look like this:

/mnt/nfsroot 192.168.1.*(rw,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,async) 

Change the IP scheme and path to fit your configuration.

Make the /mnt/nfsroot directory and copy the image.squashfs(for example from a LiveCD) into it:

mkdir /mnt/nfsroot
cp image.squashfs /mnt/nfsroot/

Alternative: Debootstrap a fresh powerpc system (debian/ubuntu) and use it as NFSroot.

Then extract the squashfs as root by doing:

unsquashfs image.squashfs

Now copy everything from the squashfs-root folder to /mnt/nfsroot by typing:

cd /mnt/nfsroot/squashfs-root && cp * -vaR /mnt/nfsroot

Let the nfs-share re-export with:

exportfs -ra

Compile the kernel that you want to use

Get the kernel sources

You can get them from kernel.org 2.6.38.8 at time of writing (in the future this might change)

Get the patches and the kernel config

You can get them from here.

NOTE: At the time of writing v0.11.1 was the latest make sure that your kernel config and your patch are the same version.

Extract the kernel

With the following command:

tar -xvjf linux-2.6.38.8.tar.bz2

Patch the kernel

With the following commands:

cd linux-2.6.38.8
# assumes that the patch is in the directory above the kernel folder that you just changed into
patch -p1 --dry-run <../patch-2.6.38.8-xbox0.11.1.diff
# if the dry-run didn't show any errors do the following:
patch -p1 <../patch-2.6.38.8-xbox0.11.1.diff

Copy and Edit the kernel config file

Copy the kernel config to the extracted linux-kernel folder:

# The '.' in front of the filename is there on purpose!
cp /path/to/xenon-config /path/to/extracted/linux-2.6.38.8/.config

Look for a line similar to this:

CONFIG_CMDLINE="root=/dev/nfs video=xenonfb nfsroot=192.168.1.100:/mnt/nfsroot rw ip=dhcp panic=60"

Edit the NFSroot to be your IP address and adjust the path correctly.

Alternative: Use kboot.conf to pass a custom CMDLINE to the Server. If you want to do this you set:

CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL=n
CONFIG_CMDLINE=n

Build the kernel

Do the following:

make ARCH=powerpc CROSS_COMPILE=xenon- menuconfig

Load up your config file that you just edited and then exit and run the following command:

make ARCH=powerpc CROSS_COMPILE=xenon- all

You might get an error if so you might need to edit arch/powerpc/kernel/pci_64.c line 149 and change the lh to llh both occurrences.

Rerun the last command and you should have a kernel. It will be in arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.xenon

Configure Xell to boot from your computer via tftp

To do this you need to recompile Xell. I assume that you already have a toolchain, I used the one from libxenon. You will need to edit the Xell source file network.c changing the default IP address to your IP address. Then compile Xell.

Setup tftp

For Gentoo and 'atftpd' just type:

emerge -v atftp 

Then edit the atftp config file:

nano /etc/conf.d/atftp

I changed mine to look like this:

TFTPD_ROOT="/tftpboot" 

just edit this line and leave the rest the way it is as it is already correct.

For Debian/Ubuntu use the following: Instructions (Sections: Set up DHCP server and Setup a TFTP server

When done with that make the matching tftp directory (if it doesn't exist already) and put your linux-kernel into it, rename it xenon.

NOTE: XeLL assumes a path like /tftpboot/xenon in its standard configuration. If your tftp-daemon has a path like /var/lib/tftpboot/ set up you need to make a subdir tftpboot in there. Final path would look like:

/var/lib/tftpboot/tftpboot/

Now if everything worked correctly you should be able to boot your 360 via NFS. Note: It's recommended that the TFTP-Server is the one who serves the DHCP Responses and no other DHCP Server is in your network so XeLL can find the TFTP Server Adress.