Linux finally loaded onto iPhone!

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 29 November 2008 07:39

Market

Linux fans who have been waiting for Linux to come the iPhone and iPod Touch need wait no longer – the breakthrough has finally been made, years after Linux found its way onto earlier iPod models. There’s a way to go before the project is mature, with plenty of things, including touchscreen support, yet to come. Still - Linux on the iPhone is here, at last!

Linux, the operating system that some Windows users love to hate, has finally been made available for the iPhone 2G, 3G and the first generation iPod Touch, using an “OpeniBoot” dual booting system that lets you switch between the iPhone OS and Linux.

The announcement is celebrated over at the iPhone Dev Team’s blog, but the announcement comes from the LinuxoniPhone Blogspot blog.

Here the blog author called “PlanetBeing” says:

“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.”

PlanetBeing says that iPhone Linux has:

- Framebuffer driver
- Serial driver
- Serial over USB driver
- Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc.

Openiboot supports (but hasn’t had ported yet):

- Read-only support for the NAND

What iPhone Linux doesn’t have (yet):

- Write support for the NAND
- Wireless networking
- Touchscreen
- Sound
- Accelerometer
- Baseband support

So, what else does PlanetBeing have to say about Linux on the iPhone, and where’s a video showing it all in action? Why, it’s over on page 2. Please read on.