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Booting an x86 Virtual Machine from an iPod
randomjohndoe writes "IBM has taken the next logical extension of booting Linux from a flash drive. Researchers were recently able to boot Knoppix from an iPod and run an x86 virtual machine in VMware, which provided an easy way to encrypt the whole operating environment. The tests were conducted on a 60GB iPod photo using Knoppix."
You are right. The summary is badly phrased. Take the idea of booting off a flash key, and the logical extension is to boot off something bigger than a flash key, hence an iPod.
The article is confusing, so I'm still not sure exactly what the point is. They talk about an "encrypted virtual machine," as if the phrase has meaning...
Or even better, use a firewire flash drive (up to 4GB) like this one: http://www.kanguru.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryI D=39.
Why do you need 60GB to boot Knoppix, unless you are doing disaster recovery. Also, the constant spin of an iPod's platters will significantly decrease the life of the drive. The iPod is meant to move chunks of data (music files) over to flash memory to reduce HD spin and increase battery life. Not to run an OS.
Target/Firewire boots have been a life-saver in the Mac world and I often wonder why PC manufacturers don't incorperate this functionality.
Did the submitter even read the article? It's primarily about IBM's SoulPad software, not the fact that they booted linux from an iPod.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Sharp has done this already with their latest Zaurus line. With a built-in 4Gb hard disk, powered by Linux, rotatable screen and keyboard, it is like a miniature laptop.
The thing I want to know is, what CPU architecture are they playing with? Last time I checked, glibc was dropping support for ARM (which the Zaurus uses). What will IBM be using? (their own chips?)
They're obviously not using x86 (too power hungry I think).
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
The article is confusing, so I'm still not sure exactly what the point is.
Yes at first I thought the iPod was being used to execute bochs and thus run an x86 OS. But this is about using the iPod as a USB drive to store and run a VMware machine?
Can someone explain to me why I should be thinking something other than "big deal"?
I can run VMware machines from my external USB and Firewire drives. I wouldn't bother trying to do this from my iRiver H340 because the performance would suck and I don't want to stress my MP3 player by using it in a longer term way which it was not designed for.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
What is ironic is they are using Linux to boot Windows (or any x86 OS) You can use ANY adequetly configured pc to boot from. They chose Knoppix for it's excellent hardware detection. The data is encrypted and within 2 minutes you can have your entire desktop restored from a suspended state. If you actually go to the project web site http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/Soul Pad/soulpad.html there is some really cool potential to this. Booting from a USB device is a no brainer but the stuff they are doing will make taking it with you much easier and cost effective.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
No. A USB memory stick, as it's used today, is really only practicle for storing datafiles. This goes beyond the datafiles and puts the OS and the applications on the portable drive, so when you go to a different computer you're not just reading your saved files from the portable device, you're actually only using the machine's hardware and running your own personal copy and configuraton of the OS.
So, theoretically, you should see the exact same programs and your OS should act the exact same way regardless of what you run it on. Unlike a laptop, where your OS and data is stored and configured to run specifically (and only on) that hunk of hardware, this (should) run anywhere; your PC at work, the one at home, the one at someone elses house etc. And regardless of what OS those machines have running natively, this circumvents the installed OS and runs its own.
Which, you know, is kinda cool.
The Internet is generally stupid
Someone thought about screwing around with an Ipod to do things other than play music.
Not really, they are just using it as a portable hdd. It's been done before I even have OSX and Linux installs on mine for if I need to fsck a disk at a customers site.
Someone managed to get Linux on an Ipod and documented it.
No, at least not in this article and not as you'd think it. The iPod is NOT running linux, it's simply being used as a storage medium.
Someone saw a new product.
Kind of from what I can tell the basic idea is a removable storage device with linux on it who's primary purpose is to run vmware which you then run that other OS.
This way you seperare the OS from the hardware, then run 1 os to drive the hardware and 1 os as an operating enviroment.
Linux is known for 'happily' moving hardware. So you run a distro (knoppix) that has all the drivers and is good at autodetecting and running on any x86. That distro boots into X with auto login that starts vmware running M$ software. So in this way you're never having to worry about drivers / activation due to hardware changes etc.
For those who didn't RTFA, IBM is developing a way for you to take the portable HD you installed an OS onto from your computer and use it to boot another computer somewhere else, a function very familiar to Mac users who've been doing it pretty much since the FireWire port was invented, but is as yet not possible on WinTel/x86 machines. All I can say, It's About F***ing Time.
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
After going over the comments, it seems that most of the people miss the point. It's easily understandable why, because the Slashdot headline is somewhat misleading.
This is not a "gee wiz, somebody got Knoppix to run on an iPod and encrypt the files on the drive". That would be kind of pointless. What makes this newsworthy is that they have developed a way to put an OS, applications, and datafiles all together on one portable device. This way, you can take everything in your computer (including the OS and its configuration), or as they put it the "soul" of your machine, and run it on another machine independent of whatever OS is installed on it.
While currently you can store your own data files on a flash drive and access them on another PC (so as long as that PC has the software needed to read those files), you're still limited to the OS and configuration of that temporary host. With this, the temporary host doesn't even have to have an OS installed on it; it's all run from the portable device.
The Internet is generally stupid
The main interest of this article is the IBM SoulPad research project, here: http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/Soul Pad/soulpad.html.
There's a neat video of how it works too.
.: Max Romantschuk
> > stay tuned for when they are going to install windows on a 1 gb usb keydrive!!
> Won't you have product activation problems (I'm assuming WinXP here) if you try to take that keydrive and plug it into a different machine?
Not if you RTFA. The whole point of Soulpad is to keep a virtual PC on the portable hard-drive. So you could install XP on it, which will run in VMware under Knoppix, and move the virtual PC around to different real PCs. No re-activation needed!
That's a very, very, very, very bad idea. Let me explain why.
.mp3 files into .ogg, you'd need to first convert all of your .mp3 files into ogg. This would require the use of the LAME encoder (To convert the mp3's to wav), and then the ogg Vorbis encoder would have to convert all those wavs into .ogg format. You will lose all your id3 tag information.
First.
Let me get some definitions straight:
mp3: Lossy format. Converting to mp3 means encoding your music. The best encoder is LAME (As proof, I suggest you check out hydrogenaudio)
ogg Vorbis: Lossy format. Converting to ogg means encoding your music. The best encoder is (offcourse) the original ogg Vorbis encoder.
mpc/Musepack: Yet an other lossy format. Converting to mpc means encoding your music. The best encoder is (offcourse) the original Musepack encoder.
flac: Lossless format. Converting to flac means compressing your music, as in: "I just compressed a text file, and did not lose any bytes in the file during compression". The best compressor for FLAC is offcourse the original FLAC Compressor.
Compressing: Making filesize smaller, without loss of data.
Encoding with lossy format: Making filesize smaller, at the cost of audio information.
Second.
To transcode your
Anyone who comes up with a simpler/faster solution (ie. "You dont need to convert to wav first!"), has very little to no insight into how digital audio encoding works, and what happens in the process of a transcoding/encoding/decoding.
Third.
If you convert from a lossy format to a lossy format, you will lose significant amounts of quality. DO NOT CONVERT FROM LOSSY TO LOSSY!
It does not matter if you convert a 320kbps mp3 into super-high-quality ogg - You still get huge amounts of loss due to the fact that the original material is lossy.
Fourth.
If you want to test out ogg Vorbis, then encode any of your legally bought hi-quality cd's to ogg, and listen to wether you like the result.
Fifth.
This should be obvious, but I'll tell you anyway: If you convert from lossy to lossless (ie wav or flac), quality will NOT increase.
Hope I could be of some informative value to you.
Apparently NOT. The computer ran Linux with the iPod being the external storage device. This isn't nearly as cool as everyone is making it out to be.
You are wrong that we don't know how to make memory as fast as the CPU. It's that it's not cost effective to do so. It's also a case of decreasing returns. That's why you can get away with the different levels of cache which run at different speeds.
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