On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 05:10:49AM -0500, Jacob Yocom-Piatt wrote:
quoted text
> 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