On Dec 31, 2003, at 12:54 AM, Rob Wultsch wrote:
> I picked up a tivo over the weekend (Hughes HDVR2, directv series 
> 2...) for 100 bucks and though I have yet to power it up, I have gone 
> thought the box and was surprised at what I found in terms of software 
> license crap.
> [snip]
> If anyone out there is much of a tivo person, I am wondering if it is 
> easily possible to get it to act as a
> 1. DHCP server (the tivo should have more uptime and less time being 
> fussed with than anything else)?
> 2. A samba server (so that my music may be played on any other 
> computer without slowing down the hard drive/ taking up space)

Possible.. maybe.  Easily possible.. no.

Both the Series 1 and Series 2 TiVOs use Linux as the operating system. 
  The former uses a PowerPC CPU while the latter uses a MIPs one.  That 
means that if you just take your binaries from your Linux box and 
upload them to the TiVO, they won't work (assuming you are on a normal 
x86 Linux box).

HOWEVER, you can get a cross compiler that will compile stuff for the 
TiVO as long as you have the source.  People have ported all sorts of 
standard Unix utilities to TiVO that way.

That said, the x-compiler isn't a perfect solution.  Once you get into 
the realm of adding a DHCP or SAMBA server, it becomes quite a bit more 
complicated due to all the dependency libraries.  Keep in mind that the 
TiVO Linux distro is quite stripped.  Mind you, each TiVO comes with a 
built-in DHCP *client* and it's not terribly difficult to get a SAMBA 
*client*.. but I've never heard of anybody doing the server.

Some links:

http://tivoutils.sourceforge.net/
http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/

Have fun!
Kurt