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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."
Yeah, neat.
But does it run Linu...
Oh. Nevermind.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
next week, stay tuned for when they are going to install windows on a 1 gb usb keydrive!!
Now that they have Knoppix running on their iPods and are running x86 virtual machines, they could run all sorts of neat software like mpg321!
It's not designed to have the HD running very hard, either. Run an OS off your iPod for ten minutes and that bad boy is smokin' hot.
there's more than one way to do me.
You know, the installation of Mac OS X on my iPods and external, bus-powered FireWire LaCie drives are all bootable on any Macintosh with built-in FireWire (minus the B&W G3's and PCI G4's).
You can even store your iTunes folder on the iPod, and use iTunes to load the thing...
So basically, IBM is just saying that they've discovered that hard drives are a lot smaller and cheaper than they used to be. Wow. I'm impressed!
But... does it play mp3's?
Get it? Usually you ask if it runs linux, but since this Ipod does run linux, it's funnier to ask if it still can play music.
Never mind, I should just go to bed.
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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.
Sweet! :)
But who's going to be the first to run the x86 OSX hack on it?
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
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.
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?
That's kinda a stretch. IBM is a corporation, not a government agency. If the government pays them, I'm sure it's to buy stuff or pay for specific tasks, not "here's some money. kk thx."
If you buy IBM products, it's no longer your money, it's theirs. Likewise, if I buy a used iPod from you, would you want me telling you how to spend that money?
Plus, what they're doing is proof of concept type stuff. Research. Not enough companies to this kind of stuff anymore. Xeorx, AT&T, DEC.. all gone. IBM does research on a lot more then this too - they're into a lot of shit. I say we encourage them to keep it up. Because it's not like Microsoft does any cool stuff like this.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
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...
IBM has done some really nice things for the os community. Maybe this will turn out well. <hope fingers="crossed"/>
I mean *useful* stuff on knoppix, like LVM support.
Now that would be *radical*!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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.
For all you who didn't RTFA, they are booting from a USB mass storage device (which just happens to be an iPod) running Knoppix, and virtualizing the hardware to allow a less flexible OS (*cough* windows *cough*) to run on virtually any x86 hardware. The benefit being that you can take your Windows desktop's "Soul" with you on your iPod and just plug it in and go wherever you have a computer handy. Nothing revolutionary here except that IBM is starting to push this tword a dedicated device and software that should make setting this sort of thing up easier for the layperson. Pretty soon grandma will be toting her windows install, complete with Word, Explorer, and her favorite games downloaded from Yahoo, all on her trendy iPod which she can also use to listen to cool tunes when she's on the plane and doesn't have her grandson's computer to borrow.
Personally I think this trend could be a very good thing, what with the horrible attempts at separation of user data in current operating systems where the majority of the data is actually shared.
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.
While generally I'd agree with that statement, it's not quite as clear cut as you make out. most programs run in small loops, so while your entire system may have 1gb of physical ram, it also has a few mb in cache spread through the various chips (like the CPU, graphics chip etc) eg a P4 with HT has atleast 512k cache. Most of the time the CPU is only using that cache and not using the system memory.
In short while it's a good idea to get everything working together and talking faster, in most cases bigger cache's and improving adding / seperating the busses will produce the desired effect without the additional costs & other problems involved with getting everything communicating at the same speed as the CPU.
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.
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
and while this sounds like an interesting hack I wish more focus would be placed on making the entire platform secure.
I'd say this system actually did this part. I mean, after all, the SoulPad software features an encrypting userspace kernel module to encrypt the file system, thus making it a secure solution. Anything short of TPA really couldn't do a better job. And we know how slashdotters feel about that.
As for the rest of your comment, bullshit. Has nothing to do with anything. Encryption in software will always and forever be better than encryption in hardware because as that hardware ages, bugs will be found, and holes will be punched. If it's a software file system, you're inconvienenced by a few hours of decrypting all your files and re-encrypting at the most, or just patching your system in the least. Meanwhile with your solution, you'd throw away the whole computer.
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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
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?
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I'm waiting for the Japanese guy who knows pi to 40,000 digits to memorize the Linux kernel.
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I've spent the past weekend attempting to run linux under windows or the other way around with vmware, and here IBM makes it work on a damn iPod!
Well congrats, bastards.
what if there were no hypothetical questions?
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
Can it perform cunnilingus on a hardwood floor?
The latest Slashdot meme.
> > 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!
...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.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
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
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
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.
Now seriously, at times it seems like any crap gets the /. front page if it mentions an iPod. I remember for example the front page story (I'm too lazy to search and post the link though) about using a lot of iPods as USB hard drives to haul around movie footage.
/. editor) for whom the mere mention of an iPod makes something newsworthy. Because whoa, it's an iPod! Any example of someone using it, in no matter how trivial and normal a way, is automatically soo cool.
And just like in this case, an overpriced USB HDD at that, if used for only that purpose. For all its merits as an MP3 player, if you're going to use it _only_ as an external HDD, there are much cheaper HDD's around.
I don't know, there seems to be a segment of the population (and apparently at least one is a
I'm guessing that if I posted a blog about me backing up my downloaded WoW patches on an iPod, or saving mom's digital photos on an iPod, I could get front page on Slashdot too. Heck, probably even using it as an MP3 player could get front page, if for example I hoooked it to my speakers and used it for music for a dance party.
But, yeah, unless you fall into that population segment, there's absolutely no reason to think anything other than "big deal".
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Hey if you had an iPod shuffle, you could surprise yourself by booting up a random OS each time! :D
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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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