February 10, 2006

• iPod Linux

  I installed linux on my (4th gen) ipod a couple days ago.  Its not that hard to do… you can use this guide to install linux with the podzilla interface.  4th gen and later ipods aren’t officially supported by the
  ipodlinux project, but the software is stable.  You don’t have to worry about messing up your ipod or
  anything, the apple firmware isn’t modified during the linux installation
  process.   When you start up your ipod, you choose whether you want to start up linux or the normal apple firmware. 

  The Podzilla interface looks pretty much the same as the standard apple one.  Podzilla adds a bunch of new games, like chess and othello (the chess
  is a little buggy). Also, you can actually record sound through your earbuds and play
  it back. There’s even a gameboy emulator that works with 4th
  generation and newer ipods. I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet, but I saw a
  screenshot of someone playing mario.  The emulator supports standard gameboy roms with the .gb extension.  You can get a version of doom  for ipods as well, appropriately called idoom.

  The only real downside I’ve found to running linux as opposed to the apple firmware is that you can’t listen to music at the same time you are playing the games.  The music player is implemented as a separate program, and I guess they haven’t sorted out the multi-threading issues.  There’s not really any reason not to try it out though.

  • 10:53 pm
  • 2 Comments