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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."
the best part, what I would say, is that, you can now easily play .ogg files on iPod. and also .wma and other audio formats supported in linux. Then there's also video on ipod like everyone wishes for.
If there are some formats that don't play then that's allright as the support will come when they are popular enough and anyway there are allready more open source players than for any other device. for ex linux can do hundreds of formats but most mp3 players can do only say 4 or 5.
Also ipod photo with linux and mplayer or xine or vlc and you will have your video ipod and eat it too.
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you can now easily play .ogg files on iPod. and also .wma and other audio formats supported in linux.
Not necessarily. Is the iPod fast enough for the Tremor decoder? And isn't the .wma decoder written in x86 assembly language, which the ARM processors in the iPod do not run at full speed?
I disagree - probably the only things that would be developed on top of iPod linux would be entirely new apps. Porting things like audio codecs or rewriting a work-alike of Apple's simple UI is trivial in comparison to the task of getting an OS with complete hardware driver support working on a custom embedded system.
It would be simpler to reinvent those things than to try and get Apple's code to run atop Linux (through emulation of Apple's underlying firmware).
The only reason not to GPL it is if you want to make it easier for Apple (or others) to reincorporate your improvements. That might be a good thing depending on your goals. I'd say porting Linux to the hardware is interesting per se, and could yield a groundswell of other OSS support - Apple has bigger fish to fry right now.
Also realize: there are some generally accepted (but not explicit) rules that differentiate "derived" vs "aggregate" works when it comes to GPL. It is unlikely that using a GPL'd OS would preclude higher level apps like phone books from being offered under whatever license the author chooses.
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it's actually quite cool, and extremely easy to install. i just wish it was as easy to get IP over firewire so i could ssh (or telnet) into the thing. i know it is quite possible on linux, but on OSX it is tricky and that is my ipod connectivity.
Hmmm... Let's see...
Safari, their own web browser... I seem to recall they took code from Konqueror, made it better in terms of rendering things better and more compatible... released Safari (closed-source), then gave their changes back to the Konqueror people
Rendezvous. You may know this as ZeroConf. Yes, it existed before they did Rendezvous, but no one did it well. and they released their code back to the ZeroConf people to make the implementation and API better. They also made SDKs so people from every OS can use Rendezvous technology and work with Macs. Did MS help the Samba people?
No company that shoots to make a profit is going to be 100% open source. No one has found a reliable business model on how to do it and stay alive more than a year. Apple does make closed software (and protects it, rightfully so, thats where their INCOME comes from. thats what keeps you on THEIR Unix, instead of taking their stuff and running off to any Linux distro that runs on PowerPC.) and ok, so you can't see the code, but the APIs are so well written, that just about anything Apple makes, I can plug into with my OWN software. How does MS let you plug into shit? With VB? Feh. They make things as easy as possible for developers, and give back to those they borrow from (the Watson thing was a load of crap, there was nothing "unique" about that, and the guy from Konfabulator is a whiny bitch cause someone else made widgets for OS X and did it in a way that doesn't eat up 95% of my CPU at idle.)
While Apple IS a for-profit company, and they HAVE at times used legal threats to keep their products "safe" its mostly out of the purity of the mac "experience", not "shit, we're losing money on that".
I don't see Apple getting too pissed off about this one though... If they aren't against people running Linux on their macs, why would they care about the iPods? Remember, the majority of the cash Apple sees is from hardware sales. The times when Apple gets pissy is when you meddle with their SOFTWARE. This keeps their software on the iPod intact (sort-of) so I don't see them getting their panties in a bind.
But if you want to demonize Apple for trying to make a buck even though they've done more to try and help open source software than most of the other major players in the industry... go right ahead. it just make YOU look like the rabbid zealot for anything anti-Mac.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
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I agree, but for a different reason: why Linux? Why not some lighterweight OS than the Linux 2.4.x kernel?
a t-neat stories as much as the next Slashdotter. But I do have to scratch my head on this one.
Don't get me wrong; I like the oh-look-someone-ported-Linux-to-a-toaster-isnt-th
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
please, tell me this? Why would you think "Slashdotters" wouldn't/shouldn't like Apple in the first place, considering the size and relative diversity of this "community"?
The only machine I use anymore than runs Linux at all is my MythTV box in my home entertainment center, and I'm just about to can it (too much instability with my particular hardware configuration, and I lack time to fight with it any further right now). Nonetheless, I'm still pretty much a daily Slashdot reader.
With your logic (Apple is not our friend, simply because they build/sell a proprietary product), absolutely none of us should ever tolerate a game console. Sega, X-Box, Playstation, GameCube... all the same. Evil, proprietary hardware and software bundled together in all of them!
Considering my years and years of trying to run Linux, along with a long period of avidly using OS/2 Warp, a brief stint working with BeOS, and running pretty much every flavor of Windows (and DOS before that), I think I'm far from the stereotypical "Mac zealot" - yet I do own a total of 3 Macs now (one is an older beige G3 all-in-one, but it still runs!). I'd have to say my experience with the Macs and primarily OS X is more enjoyable overall than practically all the other operating systems I worked with. Sure, it's not "free software" and *far* from free/cheap hardware, but I feel like I got my money's worth.
Linux was just the thing when I needed dedicated servers (web, ftp, etc.), but as a workstation, it's still lackluster for me. I have no problem paying out some money for a commercial (proprietary, even) product when it works as-advertised. Macs generally do.
Sounds like the iPod will trump the USB external master storage device that slashdot just recently mentioned to us. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to move media from a USB all-in-one media reader to the iPod directly without the need of a computer? You could be taking pictures with a 16megapixel Canon and not worry about storage space as long as you have your iPod around. I'm gonna keep my eye on the development of this program. On top of that, recording audio with the left earphone bud is also another cool feature.
Linux at home
Yeah, well, thats certainly not the only reason.
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Microsoft's Windows Media was not designed at all for Embedded Devices either.
I know: my cubicle neighbour is pulling his hair off trying to implement a WMV hardware decoder... He has to start all over again each time MS comes up with a new spec because some clever software engineer though that savings those 2 bits for some header was worth it... Easy to do when you are writing software...
But anyway, the problem with OGG is: too late. Why bother with Ogg when almost all the market is using mp3.
Unless there is some other external influence (eg Microsoft for WMA, Apple for AAC) it doesnt make much sense for a company to invest time in Ogg. The only interest of Ogg for companies building media player is the license.... But they still have to support MP3 anyway so...
Theres a good reason common people (ie not lawyers or marketing people) calls them MP3 player, and not digital audio player, even when they play WMA or AAC
There are plenty of games, IM clients (Trillian? Adium? Proteus?), and even TEXT EDITORS that use Rendezous. Oh, and Apache does too now.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
Actually we had to take this measure, because even tho that server runs on a dual xeon and is only dedicated to the ipodlinux.org site, httpd was using 340% CPU out of a possible of 400%, there was also about 10GB transfered in less than 1 hour.
We hoste the site to support open source software, and we ask for nothing in return. 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.
just my 'Server Admins's 2 cents.'
ucLinux (microLinux) is a version of Linux designed specifically for embedded applications. Linux is pretty light-weight anyway, but ucLinux can run on a 286. What would you recommend as free alternative? There aren't many, and kernel performance seems to be perfectly sufficient here. (Note that the machine sports a corpulent 32MB of RAM).