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."

Apple's response

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

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.

Android.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

For all those thinking "Android," check this from the blog entry:

If you're experienced with hacking/porting Linux and especially if you're experienced with porting Android, I'd definitely like to hear from you.

Oh, and read some of the blog comments. Man - I thought youtube comments were stupid, but this trumps even that:

Ok, not to sound too stupid with this question, but since the iPhone is running linux already... why not use whatever drivers are there already?

and:

I have a biiig question. i have windows and ubuntu, can i still install linux on the iphone? i suspect that files you published are only for mac osx

Oh - and the obligatory iphone linux comic [geekherocomic.com]

Re:Android.

[by Anonymous Coward]

I have a biiig question. i have windows and ubuntu, can i still install linux on the iphone? i suspect that files you published are only for mac osx

This isn't as stupid as it sounds (though one hopes they RTFA'd.) I recall trying to put Linux on my Nintendo DS, only to find that installing it (without using additional hardware) required... Windows. I'm not sure if that situation has changed since, but it was a major disappointment and WTF at the time.

Slow Down Cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

It's been 53 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment

Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

Is CmdrTaco a wanker or what? They never fix problems with Slashdot, they only introduce them. You remember the good old days when we had nice, workable, simple, user pages? Now going to your user page brings up a set of random shit pulled from various parts of Slashdot (a few comments you recently made, coupled with random articles from the past that appear to have no relationship to you whatsover.)

What a bunch of tools.

Re:Android.

[brianosaurus (48471)]

>

Ok, not to sound too stupid with this question, but since the iPhone is running linux already... why not use whatever drivers are there already?

<sarcasm>
What's wrong with that comment? If you recall from history, SCO stole linux to make Unix, which they time travelled back and sold to AT&T and Berkeley. Then Apple fired Steve Jobs, who put Linux in a black box and called it "NeXT". Then Apple bought him, made their own Linux, then retroactively created 6 major versions of FreeBSD as a front.

Then Darwin created a kernel (evolution my ass!), which he published steganographically in that ridiculous "Origin of Species". Babbage was the first to discover the hidden message when he was reading the book to to figure out why his engine got such bad gas mileage (he later discovered the flaw was that the car hadn't been invented yet, and pouring gasoline into a stationary computing engine wasn't getting him anywhere. But I digress.

Its turtles all the way down.
</sarcasm>

I used to be amazed at how many self-proclaimed geeks didn't know the difference between FreeBSD and Linux. How can you expect regular mortals to know what brand of unix-like subsystem Apple has running under the hood?

I'm a little impressed when non-technical folks know that there's some sort of open source unix behind the pretty Apple curtains, even if they don't get it exactly right.

Just like Richard Stallman says: who cares what they call it, as long as they didn't have to pay for it ;)

Linux drivers?

[naapo (982524)]

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.

Re:Linux drivers?

[cbrocious (764766)]

It's being reverse-engineered, like everything else on the iPhone. None of the specs for iBoot, the baseband, etc are public either and the iPhone hackers have done just fine. I'm confident they'll succeed.

Re:Linux drivers?

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

After a long enough period of time, yes, they will succeed. 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.

Re:

[cbrocious (764766)]

Once you've reverse-engineered a hardware interface, it's rarely difficult to reverse the next iteration. The basic functionality is usually the same, it's just a slightly different version. The bigger issues are jailbreaking the new device, getting to the point where you can replace the bootloader, etc.

Re:Linux drivers?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

I wonder how they plan to get the hardware specifications for the necessary drivers from Apple.

The same way many linux drivers have been written. Reverse engineering. [wikipedia.org]

Apple certainly isn't going to help - I imagine they've got the lawyer cannon trained already.

This is the only thing that could make me buy it

[Rikiji7 (1182159)]

If android and a mobile-hacked debian can use every single piece of hardware of it i will get one soon.

Join us now, and free the iPhones

[David Gerard (12369)]

It's the GNUphone [today.com] 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 [phone] -ntwk verizon -prot cdma2000 -ssh-version 2 -a -l -q -9 -b -k -K 14 -x and away you go. Simple and intuitive!

Re:Join us now, and free the iPhones

[The_Angry_Canadian (1156097)]

Dont forget that you have to boot the correct kernel depending on what you plan to do. The choices being :

linux_2.6.26_AnwseringMode
linux_2.6.26_DialingMode

Re:Join us now, and free the iPhones

[moonbender (547943)]

Stop spreading nonsense! Everybody knows that a kernel maintainer updated his git repository with an experimental patch for the current release. It was all over this obscure mailing list last night -- try to keep up! After recompiling, all you have to do is figure out the right kernel boot parameters and compile and install a user mode daemon. After that, you can choose either answering or dialing mode at will by echo'ing ANSWER or DIAL to /sys/devices/system/phone_mode. Nothing could be easier!

Can you still call people with it?

[gapagos (1264716)]

That's the #1 question. Let's not forget the iPhone part of iPhone.

Will this help RockBox on 6th gen ipods?

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

Rockbox [rockbox.org] 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?

Question:

[Lord Lode (1290856)]

Is it possible to call people, and send or receive SMS messages, if you put linux on it?

Re:Cool.

[zenwaves (610082)]

Now we just need to get android running on it.

Yes, the iPhone OS is clearly too user friendly.

Re:Cool.

[pandrijeczko (588093)]

...but so locked down to the point of being programmer unfriendly?

Re:

[omeomi (675045)]

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?

The BSD subsystem isn't installed on a stock iPhone. Installing it is a part of the jailbreak procedure.

Re:

[argent (18001)]

It's NOT running Unix, it's running Apple's proprietary fork of BSD with no X support and a boatload of bizarre and arbitrary filesystem naming changes.

None of that means "it's not UNIX". If you think the iPhone isn't running UNIX then some of the UNIX versions I've used over the past 30 years would explode your brain like a watermelon full of liquid nitrogen.

I know the "in thing" these days is to suck Steve Jobs [...]

If you think I suck Steve Jobs, tell that to all the Apple Fanbois who regularly mod me do

Re:Why we ported Linux OS for iPhone?

[harry666t (1062422)]

What happened to "because it's fun"?

Re:

[jcuervo (715139)]

Name's taken [goatse.cx].

(Linked to the dead site to illustrate the fact that I'm kidding. Relax, mods.)

Re:

[Tubal-Cain (1289912)]

...Windows?

Re:

[AmberBlackCat (829689)]

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.

Re:

[Ash-Fox (726320)]

And the purpose of it, is? To run a GTK or QTe UI on it? Wow!

They ported the kernel, not X.

Linux is a great core, but unfortunately the UI bits are crap.

Qt seems to be outdoing Microsoft and Apple's offerings in the UI department actually.

I'll keep the OSX and the Apple UI on my iPhone. Thank you.

Your phone wouldn't be usable at all with the current Linux offering at the moment anyway. I wouldn't expect anyone to want you to switch 'yet'.