iPhone gets the Linux treatment

General

Linux iPhone

iPhone dev team member Planetbeing has successfully reverse engineered Apple’s hardware drivers and has managed to get the Linux kernel to boot on the 2G and 3G iPhone and the 1st gen iPod Touch. This first attempt is limited in functionality with support only for the Framebuffer driver, Serial driver, Serial over USB driver, and other items like Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc. The dev team is still working on things like enabling write support for the NAND, Wireless networking, Touchscreen support, Sound, Accelerometer and Baseband support. Despite these limitations, it is still exciting to see the iPhone boot an alternative OS and it is means we are one step closer to getting Android ported to the iPhone. Sweet! Hit the jump for the demo video.

[Via iPhone Dev Team blog]

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20 Comments
  • zargon

    Hopefully, soon I can complete get rid of the bloated piece of shit known as itunes to transfer music to our ipod touch.

  • Perspective

    Zargon: Seriously, why did you even buy the thing? There are other players out there, and I’m sure you knew about iTunes when you bought the thing (unless you’re a tool, which based on the illogic of your post sounds possible).

  • Tony

    Joe like anyone cares that you know how to spell first. I bet soon you will see Android OS on the I phone won’t that be funny.

  • zargon

    Because I needed a wifi enabled device in a crunch on a business trip. With all the hacking that had been done, I figured I might as well get something that I could use later. I also hoped that like previous ipods, that you wouldn’t have to use itunes to transfer media.

    That hasn’t been accomplished yet without using SSH over wireless, I am still holding out for a USB solution. Maybe if Apple would get their head out of their ass, they would realize that not everyone needs to download 65 megs of mostly worthless and bloated application, never mind the large updates that come out on a regular basis, maybe we just need something that will allow us to transfer media to the device and that it all. If Apple would release a application like that, I think a lot people would be happy, but we all know that won’t happen and that we will have to wait for the hacking community to do that for us.

  • jonathan p

    Wow, perspective was a total ass and zargon did not once be one back. Kudos to zargon for trying to keep the net normal! Unfortunately, people seem to know other people because of a couple of posts on a forum/blog/etc.

  • celz

    if they got android to boot on an iphone with all features i might consider it.. but on the other hand id still rather have android on a wm phone..

  • coldcc

    Zargon should have bought a zune if he didn’t want itunes. Doesn’t the zune have wifi

  • zargon

    I needed wifi to access the internet and at the time and currently to my knowledge, the Zune wifi does not have this ability.

  • FuturDreamz

    @Zargon: Then why not just get a BlackBerry xx20 device?

  • FuturDreamz

    or the 9000 (Bold)?

  • jonathan p

    Zargon – I wonder if any company is working on support for a 3rd party software, or if Apple has just blocked uploading files to the iPod touch altogether. Have you looked into dev-team to see if hacking the iPod touch could allow a 3rd party software to install files?

  • zargon

    @FuturDreamz – I did not need a new phone nor was I looking for that kind of commitment.

    @jonathan p – The ipod is jailbroken and has been since 1.1.3. So I am not really worried about Apple blocking anything, they have no control over my ipod now, just waiting for the 3rd party community. They need to break Apple’s projection that prevents accessing the device as attachable storage.

  • http://www.k5live.com likeabite

    @ Zargon….It’s too late now but you should’ve gotten the archos 605…it has wifi, with a browser and acts a hard drive for music transfer.

  • Mr Hopkins

    @ likeabite

    i’ve seen that archos player and never gave it a second look….just checked the specs on it and that is one fly piece of machinery. Good look. Checking circuit city website now.

  • http://www.trevorlong.com Trevor Long

    seriously, i just ask myself… WHY WHY WHY..

    what could this possibly achieve…

  • zargon

    @likeabite – Yeah, if I wasn’t limited in my option being in a crunch on a trip, the Archos PMP would have been an option, but I think I would have gotten the Cowon Q5W.

    @Trevor Long – Besides what I have already mentioned, actually being able to use it with out that bloated POS itunes, you could gain much more functionality. The main one being codecs, Apple is a DRM whore, using linux would all for the whole slew of codecs out there. Besides that, all the applications currently available to linux would be able to run (this is of course factoring in the iphone/ipod touch hardware limitations). It would also the very large and driven open source community behind it, which would me constant support and updates. You also would never have to pay for an update of features that should have been there in the first place.

  • http://www.k5live.com Likeabite

    @ Zargon Why the cowon?

  • FuturDreamz

    In other words: Do all your homework before buying something and do not rely on something that may happen, but there is no guarantee.

  • http://www.jphotog.com Eric

    My iPhone will never see sfdisk and Bash. Who wants to use a command line on the iPhone? :-D

    Just kidding.

    Quick the geekery accomplishment. One more step to the convergence!

  • David

    Crap, I think I did it wrong…

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