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."

Comments

Nothing really new

[jthorpe]

All they're doing is using the ipod as a bootable USB hard drive. It's no different to booting your computer with a USB hard drive, or any kind of flash memory.

In fact, a few years ago, I booted my computer from a Nokia 5510 phone which has 64Mb of RAM. I had a minimal Linux (LinuxFromScratch) installation on it - minimal lilo installation to handle the boot, a loopback filesystem to contain an Ext2 fs with Linux on it and a small initrd which contains the usb-storage driver and handles mounting the loopback etc.

It was slow, but worked quite nicely.

I eventually started playing with a USB 2.0 Hard Drive and that works incredibly well with any PC that boots from a USB Drive (or failing that, I even made a boot floppy for those that don't).

Re:Eh...

[pmdata]

The computer industry seems to be moving at different speeds. Today, for example, you can buy a 64-bit CPU that operates at 3gHz, 32-bit memory that operates at 400mHz, and a 128-bit graphics card with 300mHz RAMDAC. Nobody seems interested in designing a complete system in the PC industry -- instead all the "progress" is in optimizing or extending components and hoping they work when you throw them together.

You sir, have just described a Mac. If the intel switch works, I'm dual booting OS X and Slackware and I'm not looking back.

IPod design?

[Dhalphir]

So, we're going to start buying 60gb Ipod Photos just to run an OS on them? Seriously, what's the point? An IPod hard drive was configured to access photos and songs at optimum speed, or just songs if it's not a photo model, not to deal with the massive overhead of running an OS. Can you imagine the pain of the third-degree burns if you picked up an IPod running an OS? Especially Windows...

Portable computing nicely done?

[ApolloCreed]

This, or something like it, could be the future of portable computing -- a home directory you carry with you. With the modest expectation of your favorite (modern, month-or-so old) shell, window manager, desktop environment, and a grab bag of popular packages on a host pc, why not?! I suppose package resolution may become an issue. Perhaps if they standardize on Knoppix (or whatever), there can be a way to use packages from your portable drive (copied to temp space, of course!) so you can run gimp-alpha in your internet cafe of choice.

IBM has done some really nice things for the os community. Maybe this will turn out well. <hope fingers="crossed"/>

That's nothing...

[__aaclcg7560]

I'm still waiting to install Linux on my microwave so it cooks the popcorn automatically without setting it on fire and triggering the fire alarm.

Re:Question

[Jeremy Erwin]

IBM says

Since it is possible that the user may lose his SoulPad, we encrypt sensitive data on the SoulPad, namely the virtual machine state using the AES128 block cipher.

source

It's sort of an updated version of the original Next concept, in which users would store everything on a removable drive. If one had to use a different NextCube, one would simply pop in the disc, and boot into one's usual operating environment, with all the personalized software, user settings and so on. Allegedly, it didn't work so well, as the drive was a bit slow.

And of course, one had to wait for the machine to boot up. The soulpad scheme allows users to suspend and resume the virtual machine at will, so moving from one machine to another does not entail a reboot.

It is very nearly THIS

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/black-dog-u sb-key-linux-server-116696.php

HOW IT WORKS
BlackDog is a fully self-contained computer with a built-in biometric reader and a host of other powerful features. Unlike any other computing device, BlackDog is completely powered off of the USB port of your host computer - no external power adapter required!

To access and use your BlackDog, you merely plug it in to your host computer's USB port* and BlackDog takes over! Your host machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Internet connection are taken over by BlackDog for the duration of your session, when you are done, you simply remove BlackDog and everything on the host is returned to its original state.

BlackDog datasheet

Can anyone suggest

[Council]

Linux booted on device X, which, depending on the value of X, can either be crazy weird (a watch) or pretty boring (iPod drive).

Can anyone suggest an article in the format

"Booting Linux on a _______"

that would not be vaguely believable?

If only...

[el_womble]

...you could do it without an iPod or Flashdrive! Imagine if you could just point a web browser at your box at home and you could use it as if you were there!

..oh... yeah. SSH, X11, VNC. Surely these are better solutions than having to takeover someones whole computer just because you can't stand to loose your session data or use WinXP? I guess its neat that someone has put a LiveCD on RAM, but it seems to make life harder than it really needs to be - still each to there own.

Home on iPod

[CdBee]

Home on iPod was a feature slated for inclusion in OSX 10.3 Panther - it was the opportunity to have an encrypted home directory, containing application settings, documents and apps in a partition on an iPod's internal drive.

When connected to a supported Mac, the OS would allow the user to log in with their usual login and password, giving a seamless M
the feature was apparently scrapped as desktop usage was too stressful on the iPod hard drive