Has anyone ever put a different linux distro on a TiVo box?

nolanpro · 12-17-2009, 03:58 PM

I've heard of people hacking/modifying TiVo software because its GPL and runs on linux. I was wondering if anyone has successfully "flashed" a tivo box with a distro like Ubuntu or DSL.

I was in a thrift store the other day and they had a whole bunch of TiVo boxes they wanted $10 for. I'm think "Damn, this thing is like a computer with a hard drive, video card, everything".

Since I flashed my router to DD-WRT, i've always been curious whats possible.

pljvaldez · 12-17-2009, 04:08 PM

Haven't done it, but it probably depends on the version of Tivo (much like the version of WRT54G routers)

http://www.techstorm.net/tivo/hackseries2.html

EDIT: Check that. It appears there's some unique hardware with closed drivers running on the Tivo's. So you may not be able to install something else. But many of them appear to be hackable for other purposes.

nolanpro · 12-17-2009, 04:18 PM

That page has great info, and I'm going to keep my eye out for that specific tivo box. But it looks like its still working with the original tivo distro.. which makes sense, I mean a TiVo is all proprietary hardware and I doubt that even the most flexible linux distro would be compatible out of the box.

jefro · 12-17-2009, 05:54 PM

http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html

They will provide the sources but that doesn't mean they have to supply their work.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/li...ary/l-lobtivo/

nolanpro · 12-17-2009, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

but that doesn't mean they have to supply their work.

Yeah I ran into that problem trying to reverse engineer the Roku Netflix Player, with no luck.

justin-goldberg · 12-19-2023, 04:19 PM

Is this still true in 2023?

I have a TiVo series 2 and series 1

O'Reilly even wrote a book on hacking the TiVo series 1, which I understand is the most hackable.