iPhone devteam member planetbeing has managed to successfully port Linux over to the iPhone. While it certainly needs some polish, the hack shows promising signs for running alternate operating systems on the iPhone.
Planetbeing explains, “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.”
The entire port is missing some crucial elements such as the ability to write to the NAND flash drive, wireless networking, touchscreen support, sound, accelerometer, and baseband support. But overall the entire project is a success early on. The devteam is even talking about (possibly) bringing Android over to the iPhone sometime in the future. A video of the hack in action is here, and the official announcement can be found here.
4 Comments to “Linux Ported to the iPhone, Android Coming Soon?”
Thank you devteam. Not super appealing to the masses, but it’s still a HUGE HUGE milestone. Thank you.
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Can I just chime in and say that this is a much bigger deal than people might think. In due time, when consumers have the option to run Linux, Android or OS X on the iPhone, people will understand how huge this Linux boot is.
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For sure, this is huge for us, consumers, the devteam, planetbeing as the lead on the project. This is a major milestone without a doubt.
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Excellent job!!
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