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Linux Kernel Booting On the iPhone
mhm was one of many readers to note that the Linux 2.6 kernel has been ported to the iPhone.
"Planetbeing, one of the iPhone devteam members, has been working on porting Linux to the iPhone (along with a custom bootloader called OpeniBoot). Today they managed to boot the kernel! Video showing the boot process has been posted. Instructions and binaries are available on the project blog."
In other news, Apple has responded by issuing an update which accidentally causes an iPhone running a Linux kernel to become inoperable. Apple apologized for this mistake, and is working on a fix.
Palm trees and 8
For all those thinking "Android," check this from the blog entry:
Oh, and read some of the blog comments. Man - I thought youtube comments were stupid, but this trumps even that:
and:
Oh - and the obligatory iphone linux comic
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I wonder how they plan to get the hardware specifications for the necessary drivers from Apple. Booting Linux is not very useful, if you can't access most of the peculiar hardware in the iPhone.
Now we just need to get android running on it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If android and a mobile-hacked debian can use every single piece of hardware of it i will get one soon.
slashwhat?
It's the GNUphone come to life!
"Really, we're not out to destroy Apple; that will just be a completely unintentional side effect."
Dialing from the command line will be the killer feature. Just type dial voice +1-555-1212 -ntwk verizon -prot cdma2000 -ssh-version 2 -a -l -q -9 -b -k -K 14 -x and away you go. Simple and intuitive!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
iCOOL :)
Will it run Openmoko?
Sorry, mod me into oblivion, I deserve it.
So in the other words, now we got the Linux OS ported to iPhone, we can finally get a GNU/Linux developing platform to iPhone in no time and then we can get all the wanted applications working... but does it still be a phone or toy?
I dont know is the GNU/Linux developing platform needed at all, most important thing is just that Linux OS is ported and we can develop the needed applications on the PC/Mac and then just run them on the iPhone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ironically, the video of the boot process requires Flash, which Apple in their wisdom has chosen not to support. The devs surely knew this, and probably decided not to use YouTube to tweak the noses of those of us who occasionally use our iPhones to read /. (and even post!). Their motivation for doing so escapes me, however, since presumably we are their most interested target audience. Curious.
I do not care what operating system is on my phone as long as it is does what it is supposed to. Sorry for not subscribing to any of the fanbases.
I read a lot about the wars of operating systems, about how wonderful this OS is compared to other, how many potential future nice apps could be created, and I can assess how this is working in personal desktop computing, but I fail to see how those differences in OS transform in differences in features and usability on phones.
Can anybody help?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
This is the year of Linux on the iPhone!
Why do that? Go from the crapper to the shithouse is not my idea of progress. By golly! It can be done so it must means you NEED 2 GET A LIFE !!
Rockbox doesn't support the latest ipods. I thought I read that the iphone and the 6th gen ipods where very similar underneath the hood (and very different from previous generation ipods). Can someone who knows more say if this development will help rockbox port to the 6th gen ipod?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's already running UNIX, it's just a matter of getting to that root prompt. And if you're willing to jailbreak the phone to install Linux on it, why aren't you willing to jailbreak the phone to install Darwin apps on it?
I already installed Linux on my iPaq, I'll trade you my iPaq for your iPhone and you can save yourself a bunch of hassles.
Is it possible to call people, and send or receive SMS messages, if you put linux on it?
It comes to show that modern mobile phones, especially the high-end ones (smartphones), are basically just a general purpose computer, miniaturised, with some specialised user interface (small screen, a handful of buttons, camera, speaker and microphone).
It's really an impressive hack, but hardly surprising that it is possible in the first place. After all the iPhone is running a specialised version of OS-X already.
Come on Apple, get your marketing department in gear. We all know OpenBooti would be a MUCH better name.
People who have this on their CV can pretty much choose any megacorporation as their next employer, even during this economy meltdown. You, on the other hand will be asking whether they want fries with that.
Android on iPhone hardware would be pretty sweet...
any chance of a linux booting nokia phone that runs on symbian now?
But does it run.....
nevermind.
Damnit, this needs to be modded right up CmdrTaco's jacksie.
And the purpose of it, is? To run a GTK or QTe UI on it? Wow!
Linux is a great core, but unfortunately the UI bits are crap. Even the G1 UI looks like a turd compared to the iPhone.
So as much as I like Linux on my boxes, I'll keep the OSX and the Apple UI on my iPhone. Thank you.
> However, it is more likely than not that by the time they succeed, a new version will come out, and we will be back to square one.
Yup, this is the situation rockbox finds itself in. No currently shipping hardware can run rockbox. And few of the existing ports ever get finished before the devs apparently lose interest in old obsolete hardware and begin porting to the new shiny. The lesson to be learned from this is simple. Unless you just get off on porting don't bother with closed hardware. So if you want Linux on your phone buy a phone that ships that way. And forget the gPhone apparently since it still doesn't appear to be fully jailbroken.
Democrat delenda est
Don't forget the i either. Does it have a GUI? Can you interact with it?
The kernel is necessary but not sufficient. To run Linux apps (the point of running the Linux kernel), the iPhone HW devices must have drivers that run against the kernel. The graphics display, the touchscreen, the phone's radio and the storage filesystem all must run Linux drivers for Linux apps to use them.
--
make install -not war
Now if only it would boot on my desktop (8 out 10 boots fail with SATA timeouts since I installed Ubuntu Ibex)
Is for the open software guys to help support the struggling open *hardware* guys with their hardware purchasing budget and their expertise to make it better. And no, the goo phone isn't really open nor struggling, and doing anything on the iphone is still encouraging apple to ship locked down closed proprietary hardware. People either really support the concept of "open", or they do not. Working on the iphone in particular is a slap in the face to the whole concept of "open". Same as calling making stupid microsoft products "better" by trying to shoehorn "open" in there is an exercise in dumbness, just hitting yourself in the head with a hammer because it feel so good when you stop. Open "everything" will be stuck in the rut it is in now, the same place it has been for the past ten years, as long as volunteers do these billion dollar companies work for them for free. If people want to support a universal across humanity sense of BOTH open hardware and software, try to start with a truly more open bit of hardware first, or an open operating system and kernel to build userland apps for.
And that's why I won't send donations to mozilla, they choose as their number one priority to work for microsoft for free by making that port the primary focus. And it is. Even the developer of FF is a closed source windows guy. It is at best, a half assed way of looking at things. Support REALLY open, or don't bother.
can somebody translate this to english?
Man - I thought youtube comments were stupid...
http://www.xkcd.com/202/
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Are you going to wait until Android can use every piece of the G1 hardware before you get one of those?
can somebody translate this to english?
This is my best effort:
Before the iPhone came out, I used a fancy Japanese phone to play music and video. As soon as Linux is available for the iPhone, I will give my old phone to my wife. Then I will install Linux on the iPhone and use it for music and video, as well as games.
Reminds me of when I tried and tried to run Linux on my Sega Dreamcast. Not sure why it was such an obsession for me, but it finally happened - and it had hardly any functionality whatsoever.
I can imagine the iPhone will be much, much harder for developers to master, since RIM's Blackberry Storm OS can't even do touch interface right.
The New Book That Could Pay You Back -100 Times Over: www.Economtricks.com
as well as sega games.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I find it ironic that I can not view the images of the Linux kernal booting on an iPhone on my iPhone, since those images were posted using Flash. Sigh....
How to make a watermelon full of liquid nitrogen explode:
Option 1: Drop it.
Option 2: Put a soda bottle 1/4 full of liquid nitrogen in the middle, cap it, and wait for it to warm up.
Do crackers sign with a handle or a real name? I can see it now,
Resume
of
EatShitAndDie
Yeah, I think the Fine Business Institute has a job lined up for the russian cracker right now. They invited him to fly in and log on to this "home" computer from their computer in the corner. Keylogger? Why would the FBI need a keylogger? Gotcha!
If you don't get it, know that these are the same type of aholes that will use your credit card to buy the very *pod cracked. Internet Suckers!
Actually, a CLI makes it simple for the GUI to invoke functionality. So, while it would not be fun for an end user, a CLI is a killer feature to someone that wants an easily customized GUI written in a high level scripting language. The target audience of mobile linux would have lots of such people.
As usual, someone out there manages to get linux up and running on yet ANOTHER platform. Maybe, Steve Balmer was right. Linux is a virus, that spreads to every nook and crany on anything it touches. Good for Linux. Why not run on the iPhone, I say? :)
... but whoever tagged this story "hardhack" is wrong. This is NOT a hard(ware) hack. A hard hack would be something like "solder a resistor across these two points and the iPhone will boot off of whatever you connect it to."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
How much of the hardware does it detect once you get linux running?