Latest Version of iPodLinux Reviewed

Demolition writes "The latest release of the iPod-Linux Installer has been reviewed on Accelerate Your Mac!, a popular Mac performance/modification site. As mentioned in previous Slashdot articles, the iPodLinux Project is an open source venture devoted to porting Linux to Apple's iPod. In a nutshell, the reviewer finds that the iPodLinux Project has progressed a long way from its early proof-of-concept days."

Comments

This is quite exciting.

[Sheetrock]

While the iPos already does everything it needs to (decent music playback, excellent interface, remarkably durable) there would be a number of advantages to putting Linux on it.

It would be possible to get third-party support for formats that are not officially supported, such as RealMedia or Microsoft DRM-protected audio files. Additionally the dial interface lends itself to use for reading e-book or USENET newsgroups, or for keeping an address book, phonebook, or the days events in your pocket.

However, I wonder if the GPL would create problems in this sort of environment -- presumably there is content that is not open on the player that would be necessary to incorporate into this project. Perhaps it would be wiser to adopt something Open Source such as OpenBSD instead; it's a text-only environment, so the lack of graphical support would be a minor problem at best, and it contains a good deal of security features that would be beneficial should wired applications for this new platform be developed after this project takes off.

Re:This is quite exciting.

[Saven Marek]

> Perhaps it would be wiser to adopt something Open Source
> such as OpenBSD instead; it's a text-only environment, so the > lack of graphical support would be a minor problem at best

When did OpenBSD drop support for XFree86 and x.org?

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Re:This is quite exciting.

[Rude Turnip]

"And also probably iPod EULA (or something similar - I don't really own one) forbids you to use something different than Apple software on iPod (FIXME here)."

I worked my ass off to afford my iPod. I'll do with my private property as I please. Once you buy a piece of hardware it's yours and nothing less. Granted, your warranty will be void, but that's a separate issue.

Re:Only cool until Apple lowers the axe

[Lank]

...keep in mind that Darwin has no practical use beyond its basis for OS X.

Most operating systems have no practical use except for running applications written for them. What's your point?

support linux companies instead

[jeif1k]

There are several nice disk-based MP3/ogg players out there that already run Linux out of the box. You can save yourself a lot of trouble, get a more functional device, and support FOSS by buying one of those. Apple's iPod just isn't built for Linux and Apple clearly doesn't want you to run a FOSS OS on it (otherwise they would have shipped it with one).

Re:ipodLinux, it's made out of...

[remahl]

IP over FireWire is out in a final release. It is part of Panther and not available separately (except in beta form). It is very easy to set up and works fine (with both Windows and Linux).

Re:So now I'm an abuser

[Xenna]

What we did was so that we did not have to pay high bandwith costs for people who are to lazy to type in the URL, as it only blocks the slashdot referers.
That must be our fundamental disagreement then. I happen to think clicking on links is normal behaviour on the web. I understand that you had to do something, but I'm offended when you start using the word 'abuse' when someone links to your site or just clicks on a links.

Re:So now I'm an abuser

[pherris]

Don't accuse newssites and innocent surfers of being 'abusers'...

I really don't think they mean to label visitors as being "abusers". It seems more like a poorly worded statement written in great haste (no doubt as their server was smoking and their ISP was freaking out). The site is cohosted hosted with theplanet.com and I'm pretty sure ipodlinix.org will either have to pay for the extra bandwidth use caused by this /. article or atleast shut down for a while. Money I'm sure they don't have. To add insult to injury their front index page is dynamically generated via php causing an extra, much unneeded load on the server.

Since /. is a commercial site and attempts to generate revenue from advertising IMO the responsible and moral thing to do would be to try to do something to minimize it's impact on smaller sites. Maybe offer to mirror the site for a few days. In short, is it fair for /. to make money for every page view while the FOSS project site in question loses what little money they have for every corresponding page view? IMO, no.

/. atleast needs to think about warning sites that they will be "featured" in an article and offer to use a site caching service like Coral. Or warn the site to "Coralize" themselves quickly to minimize damage.