It's impressive that a set-top box can be turned into a Linux Computer. I feel with such a reality like that any device can electronic device, if it has the right compents can run linux, like how Doom is used as the base case.
Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
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Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#62You can also get a similar board with that CPU here: https://libre.computer/products/aml-s905x-cc/ It's optimized for mainline Linux and since u-boot supports UEFI booting, you can just throw a downloaded Fedora arm64 image on it and it will boot.
> you can just throw a downloaded Fedora arm64 image on it and it will boot.
I know what you meant, but I have known and loathed hardware for which this would occur quite literally
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#63Vendors of STBs should unlock them so that we don't get so much e-waste. These boxes are most of the times locked, whereas they could be repurposed for many interesting uses (linux machines, android boxes, educational devices...), now they will be thrown away, remain in closets/garages or at the best be recycled. Tried to unlock my Vodafone TV box (Sagemcom DIW387 if I'm not mistaken), but with no luck since there is…
Most of the common STBs have piss poor performance because their specs are barely adequate as providers don't give a fuck about anything except BOM cost.
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#64I find "set-top" a funny leftover term from the age of CRTs. There's no way to set anything on top of TV's these days. My Kinect is still teetering atop it, but even that seems precarious.
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#65Very interesting writeup, bookmarked!
I wish there was a community willing to reverse engineer those very cheap DVR/NVR video surveillance boxes and boards sold on Ebay and Aliexpress. They have USB, SATA, some GPIOs and quite fast ADC chips on board to achieve high definition video sampling so they could be repurposed for various uses like SDR. They already run Linux inside, although it is predictably tight closed, not updated security-wise and often phones home to Chinese servers, so reverse engineering them would be worth beyond mere hacking.
Here's one of these boards, just search for "ahd dvr board".
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#66Excellent work once again. Would have loved to find something like this when I was a student... back when computers occupied entire desks.
This seems similar, if not identical, to the free streaming box I told Xfinity they could keep. Might go revisit that decision now.
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#67I work for an ISP and my role is pretty much to have the TV STBs become ewaste as late as possible (trying my best to do my part). Currently our security is pretty bad [1] (that's why I'm posting from a throwaway account), but I have a mainline Linux booting off a USB storage without touching internal storage (with very little changes). I plan to fix those security issues, and make this boot-from-usb official within few months. We're far from thrashing those units, but when we will, it'll be too late to open them up.
[1] related to security of user private data
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#68Vendors of STBs should unlock them so that we don't get so much e-waste. These boxes are most of the times locked, whereas they could be repurposed for many interesting uses (linux machines, android boxes, educational devices...), now they will be thrown away, remain in closets/garages or at the best be recycled. Tried to unlock my Vodafone TV box (Sagemcom DIW387 if I'm not mistaken), but with no luck since there is…
We aren’t going to modify our security protocols so a handful of people can mod their STB, sorry :P
Given how quickly support is dropped for consumer electronics, not opening up access to them is unacceptable.
And that isn't really addressing the fact that many companies don't have the funding or the will to secure these devices.
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#69Is there anything that can be done with unused Roku boxes? I have a Roku Ultra 4k that I'd love to install open source software onto.
Re: Turning a TV set-top box into a Linux computer (2022)
#70You can also get a similar board with that CPU here: https://libre.computer/products/aml-s905x-cc/ It's optimized for mainline Linux and since u-boot supports UEFI booting, you can just throw a downloaded Fedora arm64 image on it and it will boot.
Oh wow, if this had an M.2 slot i'd consider getting these for my home k8s cluster (I use rpi4s which are hard to get and such cause USB SSDs are flaky with power, and an odroid M1, which has a pretty slow processor, but is otherwise perfect)