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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.
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.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
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.
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
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. -
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.
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
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.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
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
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.
Hey if you had an iPod shuffle, you could surprise yourself by booting up a random OS each time! :D
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