Linux on the iPhone! Why Should You Care?

Published on November 30, 2008 in MS/Apple, Software by Rami Taibah

Time and time again I expressed my disdain for Apple and their anti-competitive tactics by locking down the iPhone and iPod. So its no wonder that the news the Linux kernel has been successfully ported to the iPhone came as a breath of fresh air. The guys over at Linux on the iPhone have managed to get the following to work:

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

However, they still have not figured out to get the touchscreen, wireless, sound, accelerometer, write support, and baseband support. So was it all in vain? An iPhone missing all these capabilities is just a heap of junk right? Not really! This is HUUUUGE, and I’ll tell you why. But lets first take a look at the booting sequence in action first shall we?

Now I am not going on an anti-Apple rant, I already have done that, but why is this significant?

• Opens up the possibility of porting other operating systems like the Android, OpenMoko, and Ubuntu Mobile
• The prospective of running both OS X Mobile and Android on the same phone is just mouth-watering
• Linux on the iPhone would break the shackles Apple imposed on their hardware. Linux can do anything. PERIOD
• Apple has a great library of apps, managing to run Linux on the phone, will give you all the flexibility of a Linux phone with all the great apps
• knowledge gained about the iPhone hardware will be of incredible practical value to the homebrew iPhone community
• Choice!
• Because it can be done!