Porting Linux onto the iPod

The iPodLinux Project is an open source venture porting Linux onto the iPod. For those of you not in the know Linux is an open source (free) operating system. The iPod's operating system is currently a mixture of different operating-system components from different vendors.

The core decoders are from Portal Player, but the the GUI (general user interface) code is from a company called Pixo. Of course the Apple engineers tinkered with all these componants to design the look and feel of the GUI itself. The iPodlinux project aims to remove this system and replace it with their own.

The system is really for techie people, and can be quite fidely. As with most Linux releases the software support is still very immature. Currently, podzilla supports shuffle and repeat for song playing, but not playlists.

Podzilla' is currently the default GUI for iPodLinux. Like the Apple GUI it provides all the familiar user functionality such as playing music, file browsing, image viewing, and more. The nuts and bolts of the system aims to offer,

A robust configuration system
Simplifying wrappers over TTK's window and widget functions
Good event handling
Dynamic menu support
Better dialog support
Vectorfont code
Font support, like pz0
Base text input support
Color scheme support
Locale support

Podzilla also offers a range of different games such as Pong and iPobble.

Installation

You can find the Podzilla2 files at,

http://opensvn.csie.org/courtc/tools/ttk
http://opensvn.csie.org/courtc/tools/podfile
http://opensvn.csie.org/courtc/tools/podzilla2

For easy install,

Windows,

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipodlinuxinst

OS X Installer,

http://ipodlinuxinstl.sourceforge.net/

If things go wrong?

If anything goes wrong or you want to remove Podzilla, you can always use Apple's Firmware Restore Utility to reinstall Apple's iPod Operating System. This will remove Podzilla and make your iPod work the same way it did when you bought it. This will erase all the files saved on your iPod. Download here http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/

Note: Not all iPod models are supported. iPodLinux does NOT work with the new click wheel (4th generation) and mini iPods yet. Gen. 1-3 are supported. The iPod mini, 4th generation iPods (including U2 version), and Photo iPods are in development as of writing this page.