That is right! Devteam member planetbeing has done a phenomenal job reverse engineering Apple’s hardware drivers and now for the first time ever, linux is available for the iPhone and first generation iPod Touch.
From Planetbeing’s blog:
I’m pleased to announce that the Linux 2.6 kernel has been ported to Apple’s iPhone platform, with support for the first and second generation iPhones as well as the first generation iPod touch. This is a rough first draft of the port, and many drivers are still missing, but it’s enough that a real alternative operating system is running on the iPhone.
What we have:
- Framebuffer driver
- Serial driver
- Serial over USB driver
- Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc.
What we have in openiboot (but hasn’t been ported yet):
- Read-only support for the NAND
What we don’t have (yet!):
- Write support for the NAND
- Wireless networking
- Touchscreen
- Sound
- Accelerometer
- Baseband support
Instructions here: iphone-hacks.com/LINUX-README.txt
Download iPhone Linux at iPhone-hacks
- source: linuxoniphone.blogspot.com
dang this sounds really cool…except i don’t understand what the point of this is!
can anyone explain the benefits of booting off Linux instead of a jailbroken OS?
You have complete and utter control over your device. No more “Will this work?” or “is this compatible?” or any bullshit.
I totally agree there is little point to this an incredible waste of time if u ask me
There is a big point to this, this opens up the door to other operating systems running on iphone such as android, windows mobile, and just about any damn thing you can think of with a little hard work and a lot of stubbornness, and judging by your comment def, you know a little something about that.
Android uses the linux kernel, so it basically is linux and then windows mobile (and other proprietary operating systems) will not be ported because Microsoft will not work on that sort of a project (Apple would most likely sue) and also do you really want Windows on your iPhone.
Also one basis for a GUI might be Ubuntu MID. There would be ALOT of changes needed, but the basic OS is there and it might prove to be a good starting point for a GUI, that is once drivers are created.
This is just how we progress! Think about it… With some tweaking, you now have the worlds smallest computer. You may not care, but someone will be able to use it to make their job easier, and some kid will have a ball flashing his pocket sized computer at school. Wasting time is how we got so technologically advanced!!!
don’t you see that this is the start of alternate operating systems for the iphone. one day we might have mobile windows running on iphones (not that we would want that), or ubuntu MID running on them or even Google Android.
good but…let say sum1 calls u when ur in da linux mode wuts gona happen?
when it’s completely ported, i guess you take the call or just let it ring… Btw, what does it bring to run linux on a pc? You have windows… What does it bring to play game xyz you have super mario bros.
it’d be like your phone’s off…
common sense!
Linux ftw!!! Great work!
This is amazing news!!!
Can anyone tell me if OpeniBoot will be able to run .deb .rpm. or .sh files when it is fully ported?
Cause that means HELLO StreamMyGame!!! http://www.streammygame.com
and with the use of iControlPad http://www.icontrolpad.com
THIS IS SOOOO GREAT!!!
peace, and thanks to the devs responsible for this!
will this work for the touch as well, with both running the same version of apple’s firmware with mostly the same hardware?
This is one of the best news, too bad there is ppl that dont know what GNU or linux is, its a shame they even dare to post stuff like:
“dang this sounds really cool…except i don’t understand what the point of this is!
can anyone explain the benefits of booting off Linux instead of a jailbroken OS?”
the only thing thy prove is that they dont have a clue what is the meaning of words like “hacking” “free” or “software”
Lets hope this kernel supports all the drivers in the future and we can have our own version of android for iphone, there are no limits!
“Mac os x, because makin linux user friendly is easier than debuggin’ windows”
Ubuntu Light, here we come :)
Ubuntu MID is more likely….
wow wow wow
ydl 6.light!
Great work… Linux Rocks…
i hope they get it. it would be sweet to have a duel boot iphone.
osx/android. sounds just like my mac lol.
Linux does rock, yes this is awesome and hells yea to the ubuntu lite idea! (hoping someone from ubuntu winds up reading this post! It would be bad-ass if we had a linux alternative to the ipod touch OS, I’d switch in a heartbeat! Yay open source, knowledge belongs to everyone!