uClinux Ported to the iPod

ucdot writes "Here is the announcement for a port of uClinux to the Apple iPod, checkout the project page for extra details. Currently the frame buffer, audio and IDE devices are working. Still plenty of work to do."

And this is useful, how?

[mikeophile]

I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I really am curious. The links are a bit light on the practical side of it.

Re:And this is useful, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

first off, I don't see that this has been done for anything other than a bit of fun. the pleasure of the hack. However, going a bit further... ...part of the iPods appeal to me is the multipurpose aspect. It's not just a music player, it's a -fast- external HD. Now that's well and good, but more features never hurt.

Adding in the possibility of tcp over firewire gives you, essentially, an entire portable linux box that's a good sized firewire HD, music player, and terminal-accessible machine with a battery life measured in DAYS.

That doesn't mean it could ever completely replace a good laptop for example, but to me a lot of the little uses of a piece of hardware are those that go beyond what it was designed/made/intended for.

It is what it is, and someone shall find a use for it. And it's cool :)

Very good work

[ites]

Apple's reaction will be interesting. If they jump on these developers, they will be sending a strong message about exactly what they are selling with the iPod. If - and I think this is more likely - they ignore or even help the project, the iPod will become immensely popular.
Ogg support (or even just a shell prompt!) would be reason enough for me to buy the iPod today.
Hope this message gets through to Apple.
So, what's next: will some intelligent company build a DVD player that can be extended with IDE drives internally and run Linux so that we can load it with mplayer and freenet and build that "your grandmother can fileshare" set-top DVD/VR I'm dreaming about?

Re:And this is useful, how?

['The '.$L3mm1ng]

Once you have control over the OS you can run almost any software you want on it. You could turn it into a complete organizer, not just a portable audio player and storage device.

Re:Impressive

[Rcknight]

This will give Apple a run for their money.

I dont see your logic there, u need an ipod to run it on, Apple still get the money.

Re:Enjoy while it lasts

[fiftyvolts]

Its sad to think that people are so anti-cooperate that they don't know a good thing when it bites them on the nose. It's OK to make money. If we didn't make money we would all be starving on the corner of some streetor "working" behind a supermarket. Apple traditionally doesn't tell people to stop hacking their devices unless they have a good reason. As long as we don't see an article like "Linux used to pirate boatloads of music on the iPod" on /. and the linux hackers have followed all the details outlined in the EULA we won't hear Apple cry shennanigins. I contribute to opensource free software projects; don't let yourself get overzealous with this anti-corporate thing.

Re:Impressive

[troc]

not really..... Apple are fundamentally a hardware company, they only have software on the iPod so people will buy an iPod. They probably don't really mind what software people run s long as it's an iPod that Apple sold 'em ;)

They can't even be pushing Mac-only compatibility as they sell a Windows version etc etc.

So will Apple be miffed if you buy an iPod and install a random os on it? I doubt it, just like they don't send the boys round when you buy a Mac an install Yellow Dog or something.

Troc

Re:Impressive

[xenocytekron]

Whether you put a new OS on it or not, the OS that Apple puts on (which is made by Pixo [pixo.com] by the way) will be on before you even buy it. You'll be paying Apple the same amount no matter what you do.

Re:And this is useful, how?

[drunkenbatman]

And this is useful, how?

What a curious statement... I bet they had a lot of fun creating it and learned a ton in the process. Since when does hacking something have to be useful? :)

It didn't exist before, and they made it exist, even if all it will ever do is show the penguin logo. Kudos to them.

At the same time, you could fit a lot of iPods in a server rack...

Re:Impressive

[ecki]

I don't know where to start but let's just say that Apple certainly doesn't have a monopoly on portable MP3 players. If you don't like their way, just buy any other MP3 player... maybe I didn't get the irony in your post?

Re:Stuff this

[troc]

If you are so uninterested in someone else's hard work, time and effort that you need to bad mouth them, please keep it to yourself.

If you want linux on your Archos JB20, why not try porting it youself?

Or just buy an iPod ;)

Troc

Why? Well...

[h0tblack]

At the moment much of the possibilities for the hardware in the iPod is going unused, for whatever reasons.
It's difficult to tell exactly what the out-of-the-box features are, as precise details are closed... but:
There's a PP5002B-C in there, and the PP5002 product brief(pdf) [portalplayer.com] states support for mp3 encoding, and decoding of mp3, wma, wma, aac and accelp.net formats. Of course, Apple use custom firmware which may not have all of these facilities.
There's also been talk of using the iPod for direct sharing over firewire. There's possibility of using IP-over-Firewire and running a webserver on the thing. There's a lot of fun possibilities out there, especially if a few more hackers get on board, although no alternative firmware will gain popularity until it has a simple UI, one of the things apple tend to be rather good at.
There's obviously a fair way to go with this uClinux project, and I'd expect much of it's initial progress has been made thanks to the ARM7TDMI port [aplio.com] of UClinux - I'm not belittling the hard work of Bernard Leach here. The current mp3 and ogg playback is probably not as optimised as it could be with full knowledge of the portalplayer chip and the rest of the iPod's hardware. It would be great if information on the hardware would be opened up, but I don't see this happening for a while, in the mean time, get this man an official FDK!! (or maybe not, because of them damn legal issues).
All things said, looks like a great start, just wish I had an iPod....

Re:Very good work

[Peer]

Apple will not be too bothered with people installing linux on their iPod. What may worry them is the piracy implications. The RIAA will be the first too notify Apple they are allowing malicious 'hackers' to share copyrighted materials using the iPod. Let's hope they're not impressed.
On the other hand, they don't mind the song copying-software.

Re:And this is useful, how?

[biglig2]

I have to say that this is potentially a hell of a lot more practical than hundreds of other odd projects to port Linux to wierd hardware.

Some ideas, most of which are based around the principle that this allows the Linux community to add features to the pod that apple haven't gotten round to yet:

Stuff Apple might very well do anyway:
Ogg support, and perhaps other freaky formats.
Playlist editing on the Pod

Stuff Apple are very unlikely to do:
Ipod's store the files on the disk but name them randomly so you cannot access them easily when it is operating as a firewire drive; a TuxPod (I'll want royalties on that name please) could store them as regular files so you no longer need special software to load a pod up and can use it to play your songs on a PC without needing to keep a copy on the PC.
It should be possible to put something together to allow you to use the scroll wheel to enter text (I'm thinking something like the system Stephen Hawking uses to enter text into his voice synth) making it capable of all sorts of PDA functions.
AvantGo client.

Bleh.

[dasmegabyte]

You know, this isn't very useful. We already have linux based mp3 devices that are far cheaper than the iPod. The iPod's appeal is that it acts as a tool, not a computer...that is, it's simple and performs its duty infallibly. Adding a bunch of hacked features to it may be cool to some, but to me it's basically eliminating all the appeal of this type of mobile jukebox.

I mean, come on. We all laugh when we see a porsche with a big coffee can exhaust pipe slapped onto it. This is the same idea -- taking the expensive, high quality "performance player" in the market, and rendering it an alpha-quality linux box. All for the sake of playing OGG files, which you can't even generate with iTunes.

For $500, you can get a fucking sweet linux box. Or you can get an iPod. Don't wreck the latter trying to get the former.

Re:Impressive

[NaugaHunter]

Actually, how they react might depend on what can be done with the software. While they didn't make it impossible to get mp3's back off of it, they didn't make it easy either. If the work looks like it might get them flak, they may react or in the very least put out the message that installing unauthorized software violates the warranty, and possibly a license. Don't have one {sniff} so I'm not sure about any licenses, and I don't recall that they have much of a manufacture's warranty, but issuing a statement to that effect would probably be the least offensive method of covering they're butts.

Re:Bleh.

[Anonymous Coward]

But you can't put that sweet Linux box in your shirt pocket and walk away, now, can you?

And iTunes is a nice program, but hardly the last word when it comes to creating audio files on the Mac.

Re:And this is useful, how?

[SlamMan]

Just to check, where did the battery life in "DAYS" come from? Leaving mine on and not playing anything only lasts a little over 20 hours.