Hurd on iPods

Writing about web page http://www.ipodhurd.org/

When I heard someone was trying to get the Hurd to run on an iPod, my first thought was:

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The iPod uses an ARM processor – the Hurd currently works only on top of GNU Mach, which is strictly x86–only. Even if you wanted to port Mach to the iPod, you couldn't – the iPod lacks an MMU, and Mach relies on an MMU to do (horribly slow) IPC.

So, you're going to need a different microkernel. There used to be an L4 port, which has been all but abandoned – people are waiting for Coyotos, which isn't yet written. Assuming you don't want to wait for an ARM port of Coyotos, L4 is your best bet, though. There was (is) a port of L4::Pistachio to the ARM platform, which it might be possible to get to run. You would then need to get what few broken bits of the Hurd/L4 project are lying about, and persuade them (somehow) to run on the iPod.

I tried out L4 last night – it booted, but doesn't do very much. Hurd/L4 runs banner, supposedly – but was abandoned for esoteric technical reasons of which I know fairly little.

Having said that, I'd love to see the iPodHurd project succeed. (I mean, there isn't even sound support on the Hurd at the moment – so it has to be the most crazy OS to try to run on a music player). It's tempting to buy an iPod and lend a hand. I've got an iRiver, which uses a Coldfire processor (which Coyotos is going to be ported to, apparently) – perhaps if Coyotos works, I can start an equally daft project to get GNU on my iRiver.

: 11 May 2006 17:05 |  Tags: Gnu Hurd iPod Tech |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem