Inspired by my favorite Linux podcast, "The Linux Action Shooooooooow" (thats how its pronounced), where each week Chris would talk about some new cool gadget that supposedly runs Linux. On the same spirit, I'd like to announce, the above.
I managed to install Linux on my somewhat recent 30GB video ipod. While ipodlinux has been around for quite some time now, the newer 5.5G (Generation) ipods weren't supported. Well all that has changed as of late February 2007.
Installation was quite easy, and I didn't even have to backup my data and repartition anything. Installation was actually quite easy due to the fact I had a Macpod (an ipod formatted using iTunes on running on my Mac Mini's OSX) which had put an hfsplus file system. Since hfsplus was a UNIX file system (POSIX compliant), I could just install Linux over it.
In contrast, for the majority of people that are running their ipod on FAT32, the process is slightly more complicated, required a separate ext3 FS to be created.
Anyway here is a video of my ipod booting off ipodlinux
On a similar note, I recently saw a digg post which claimed that someone has figured out how to run PowePC (ppc) Linux on Microsoft's latest Xbox 360. Running Linux on the Xbox 360 was considered quite difficult due to the system being heavily locked down via DRM, but apparently using a game exploit this is now possible.
Just makes you wonder if Microsoft will try to fix this exploit and prevent Linux from being installed or turn a blind eye, just so that they can take away the title from Sony's PS3 as being the only 2nd Gen console that can run Linux, something that Sony's PR engine emphasized.
Oh well, Yet-another-Gadget now runs Linux.