Slashdot Mirror
Simple Route To Linux On The iPod
didde writes "MacWorld.com is showing users of the iPod a way to install and run Linux on their favorite portable music player. From the article: 'Imagine using your iPod and a regular old microphone to record studio-quality audio. Or sitting on a commuter train and playing Othello, Pong, Tetris, or Asteroids. All this and more is possible when you install Linux on your third-generation or earlier iPod. Best of all, one soft reset, and you're back in Apple's iPod operating system, listening to your tunes.' Sounds good to me. Now if I could just find my firewire connector..."
This is predictable news, considering Linus' main machine is a "dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970)". (source) Mac's salvation lies with Open Source for the reason that it goes against what Microsoft stands for. At some point Apple should take a stand and support more open technologies. Linux on the iPod perhaps should be a shipping option! What if computers were 95% OPEN instead of 95% SHUT? Now that's open and shut if you ask me.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I'd love to be able to add On-The-Go support to my 1G iPod. Does anyone know if anyone has implemented that feature? I'd probably be interested enough to work on it myself if not.
I gues the question is moot until the audio playback support is up to snuff/can handle real-time without skipping. That and play AACs from iTMS. (Could FairKeys be used?)
Random is the New Order.
Its definetely a cool thing to have, but you are right the UI still feels... Handicapped, as of a lack of a better word. This gives me hope though as the Linux community is unleashing the iPod's potential and opening doors for us commercial programmers.
I have an embedded app custom made for the iPod by a team of programmers dedicated to that one appplication. Why would I want to replace it with a more general OS and an app hastily written by a few people?
Which is is going to make a better mp3 player? After all, the iPod makes a great mp3 player but the UI stinks for anything else.
If I want to make a "studio-quality" recording, I'm not going to use an iPod and a regular old microphone. If I want to play tetris, pong, etc, I'll use my PDA with its nice big touchscreen and more suitable hardware buttons instead of my iPod with its tiny screen and clickwheel.
This is a great example of "just because you can't doesn't mean you should"
I'm sorry, but stating that you can record studio quality sound using an ipod is just inane. I mean it won't be terrible, but it'll be the same quality as any of the other small handheld recorders. I'm sure even a Soundblaster would do better at recording than an iPod.
Ah, the story of linux.
- shazow
You are not ever going to record studio-quality audio with a "regular old microphone" and an iPod.
</PEDANTIC>
Imagine using your iPod and a regular old microphone to record studio-quality audio.
Hmm... don't think so.
Perhaps the writer doesn't understand much about analog signals. I like the overall idea of the article, but that "little" exaggeration kind of deters me...
If I want to play tetris, pong, etc, I'll use my PDA ...
...
Sweet, so if *I* want to play tetris, pong, etc, I can use your PDA too?
No?
Oh, maybe saying that a free software install is worthless because you have hundreds of dollars of hardware that can do the job better isn't really that insightful, after all.