On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 05:10:49AM -0500, Jacob Yocom-Piatt wrote: > Alvaro Mantilla Gimenez wrote: > >I just found this page: > > > >http://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2008/06/why-iphone-linux.html > > > >I don't have any idea about how/where to start. Maybe Theo can put some > >light here...I think my developer skills are far to be good enough but, > >hey...I would like to try !! > > > > > getting openbsd working on an iphone would be a pretty serious > undertaking and would require a lot of man hours that aren't > currently available. you have to remember that the project is mostly > driven by donated developer time. > > if you have >100K USD and are committed you might be able to make it > happen. there would have to be a lot of reverse engineering on > drivers and there is no reason to expect apple wouldn't change the > chipsets across versions to make minute optimizations on cost. > assuming you could get all this code written there are many man > hours that go into keeping the arch working properly on an ongoing > basis. > > there is no doubt this would be sweet but you have to be realistic > when considering the amount of work it would take to make this > happen. there are >10 mln iphones in circulation so there is no > shortage of machines
Actually, I think that's a rather low estimate. A lot of what people seem to like about the iPhone is the software: the hardware is neat and all, but not *that* different from other smartphones. Apple has spent a lot of money producing a really polished UI; duplicating that on OpenBSD would be an unpleasantly large amount of work. Of course, if you're happy with a basic (X) terminal, that's a lot easier: but I don't really see the advantage of the iPhone over other smartphones there. Or am I missing something? I must admit to not being sufficiently interested in this stuff to follow all the minutiae... Joachim