Debian For Android Installer Released 160
dooberrymctavish writes "You can now download an installer and bootloader for getting Debian running on your Android (G1 at the moment) device; the whole install process will take you about 10 minutes, and leaves you with access to the full plethora of programs available in Debian and lets you continue using your phone as it was intended to be: as an Android device with all the capabilities thereof. Here's a look at it running.
Ok. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?
That sounds preposterous to me.
If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a
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When they do try out Linux, if they do, they often quickly encounter the problem with the Windows platform being still easier for the most part in getting/running programs. As in, going out on the net, having the widest selection of software, and most likely being able to easily install them. When those users t
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Dumb question (Dumb because I can't seem to get a straight answer from T-Mobile).
T-Mobile appears to require a 2 year subscription to their data plan to purchase this phone.
This seems silly since, (1) I can't seem to find a spot without free wifi and I'll probably spend less than 1% of my time on 3G. (especially considering that the 3G only covers my neighborhood (where there is plenty of WiFi) - I live and work in "Eureka" ;P )
Can I get a G1 without paying for the data plan?
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you all end up as lampshades or soap.
Oooh, I always wanted to be a lampshade!
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Try changing your threshold to zero or higher. Then you won't see the trolls.
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Must resist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Must resist. (Score:5, Interesting)
Must resist purchase of new geek toy...
Don't resist! Just give in. I bought it the day of release, I got out of my Verizon contract for 200$ even. I don't regret it one bit. Loading Debian on it? Can't wait!
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I've been looking for a new phone. treo680 currently. I've narrowed it down to an iphone, but I realized I'd probably need to run windows or some OSXish something to be able to use it, or a G1.
I was already pricing 8 and 16GB microsd cards/chips/whatever when I realized I should check my contract. 7 months to go.
So maybe a G2?
Now if the 3G from tmobile actually works in my office, the last tmobile phone didn't...
I am eying my son's experia, but I'm guessing he'd cry like a little girl, umm I mean whine if I
Re:Must resist. (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, that's not a geek toy, the Openmoko Freerunner is a geek toy. That can run android and/or debian too.
Plus, what's even better is that the kernel's still a work in progress and the phone systems barely work! How geeky is that? You get to explain to friends and family that their call is echoing or you can't pick up because you have teh linux! /worst 270 GBP I ever spent...
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As somebody who truly **almost** ordered a Moko, and that very often has had to explain many many times, that something wasn't working in my laptop because it runs Linux. I feel your pain.
Just a chrooted env? (Score:1, Interesting)
The video sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Just shows Debian booting. What can you do with it?
Re:The video sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Just shows Debian booting. What can you do with it?
You can drain your battery with it, enjoy!
Welcome to the new year (Score:5, Funny)
Take that iPhone!
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2009: The year of Terminal on the cell phone. Take that iPhone!
...I had the terminal on my iPhone in 2008. I had to jaibreak it and install it via cydia, but still.
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Re:The video sucks (Score:5, Informative)
It does not show Debian booting, it shows an safe-upgrade using apt or aptitude.
The Debian version is Lenny, btw.
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Yeah, you're right. But is apt-get really the most interesting application that can run?
Re:The video sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, the GNU toolchain would be even better, it's sure more universal since I don't think there are that much binaries that you can get through apt that run directly on the processor of such device.
Re:The video sucks (Score:5, Funny)
But you can use apt-get to install the GNU toolchain...
But you can use the GNU toolchain to build apt-get...
OH GOD I'M SO CONFUSED!
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Re:The video sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Just shows Debian booting
Wrong. It's the new media player, it turns sound wave into text. Can't you hear the 'tuff tuff' music playing?
The header clearly stated "Here's what it looks like running:", so I have no reason to believe otherwise.
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Re:FTL! (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from the cool geek factor, why load Debian? It's a distro optimized for servers.
Who told you that? My experience is that Debian's strength is in its versatility, rather than a focus on servers. Thats why it is seen in using for anything from the firmware-based Linksys NSLU2 [cyrius.com] to being the base of some of the most popular desktop distros of the past few years, suck as Knoppix and Ubuntu.
Language! (Score:3, Funny)
suck as Knoppix and Ubuntu.
Hey now, they're not so bad...
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If it takes that much time to boot... (Score:1)
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Re:If it takes that much time to boot... (Score:5, Informative)
Hi Guys, the video is of Debian doing an 'apt-get update' the boot takes less than 3 seconds. I showed this particular video to show that it is debian running. The boot is only 3 secs.
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What do you mean "forced to use GMail"? There's a mail app you can use to access any IMAP4/POP3/SMTP mail account that comes with the phone.
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What do you mean "forced to use GMail"? There's a mail app you can use to access any IMAP4/POP3/SMTP mail account that comes with the phone.
And it's very likely both K9 and the default email app will support IMAP IDLE [wikipedia.org] in the near future to allow for push email notification to your phone.
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There is now a good extension to the default mail client called K9 (an android mutt) that handles POP and IMAP. You will still need a Google account for the phone, but I don't use Gmail on mine.
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Absolutely right, thanks for the clarification.
The default mail client I was referring to was the POP/IMAP client -- not the GMail client. I don't use the GMail client and it didn't occur to me that there could be a source of confusion over the "default mail client".
Tempting (Score:1)
I'm tempted to root my phone to use this trick. It almost makes me wish I bought the developer handset.
this is just debootstrap (Score:4, Insightful)
All the video shows is debootstrap being run in a terminal on, presumably, a G1 phone.
Since debootstrap is a shell script that builds a debian chroot and is designed to be run on any linux system, that is not a significant accomplishment, is it?
That's the "installer" portion. The "bootloader" portion would appear to consist of something like:
#!/bin/sh /debian
chroot
Anyway, it's nice to see interest in running Debian on these devices, I guess..
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But hey, the music is nice. It seems the Debian installer got better ;-)
Hey how do get [tuwien.ac.at] my [tuwien.ac.at] pointless [tuwien.ac.at] blog [tuwien.ac.at] entries [tuwien.ac.at] on slashdot?
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Indeed. Anything which plays Rej by Ame while installing/upgrading gets high marks from me.
teh lolz (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the actual code from the bootdeb script.
I particularly like how init is "started" before the kernel is "booted". The "automounter" is also a nice touch. It's also impressive how the kernel boots in exactly 1 second every time.
echo "Custom Linux Pseudo Bootstrapper V1.0 - by Mark Walker"
echo "WEB: http://www.androidfanatic.com/ [androidfanatic.com]"
echo "EML: admin@androidfanatic.com"
echo " "
sleep 1
echo "Starting init process"
sleep 1
echo "INIT: Debian booting....."
sleep 1
echo "Running Linux Kernel"
sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
sleep 1
echo "AutoMounter started"
sleep 1
echo "Type EXIT to end session"
echo "Make sure you do a proper EXIT for a clean kill of Debian!"
echo " "
chroot $mnt /bin/bash
On the other hand, my prediction re debootstrap was wrong. Rather than just use the shell script as designed, the creator of this thing ships an entire pre-built debian system that's chrooted into. Amusingly, this includes a root/.bash_history showing every command he ran while setting it up. (It also includes 104 mb of cached debs in /var, etc.)
Anyway, very amusing.
booting? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this correct?
It's sad the number of responses saying this is a boot screen... maybe if you don't actually look at it, and just go: 'oh pretty text!'
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> Article mentions Android is based on Debian
I have mine for only a week so I may have missed sometihng, but I definitely haven't noticed anything "Debianish" on the phone. Non-GNU libc, very odd userland (it's not GNU nor busybox), etc...
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I think you misunderstood the sentence about it not being a port. It's saying that the phone's architecture is ARM EABI and that Debian has an existing port for ARM EABI; Android itself is not built on Debian, as far as I'm aware.
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EABI is a family of specifications. Android does not strictly comply to EABI. You'll often see ARM-EABI and Linux-EABI. If you have a choice, you want Linux-EABI.
My android (Score:1)
You can now download an installer and bootloader for getting Debian running on your Android
Well I've tried, you insensitive clod, but he keeps running away, and as it has robotic legs it's faster than me!
NICE! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NICE! (Score:4, Informative)
I put debian on my Dev G1. Zero problems.
It's safe - all it does is run a chroot environment from your SD card, thus you are unable to break your existing system (/dev hacks aside). No kernel is booted, it lives off the running system kernel.
This means two things:
- Resources are only consumed by actual running debian processes you initiate. No mysterious background daemons. I run a bash shell, and the only extra process on the phone is one bash shell.
- Aside from memory/cpu resources (not really scarce on a 192Mb phone), zero impact on the rest of the phone (I can compile a kernel whilst making a call at the same time).
I can now install and run any debian app. With a $12 4Gb micro-sd, I can install a *lot*. Access either via keyboard or network (ssh).
python and perl on my phone - w00t!
All I'm waiting on now is someone to create python modules to interface with the phone's GUI. And/or an X server.
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Holy Crap man! Now you have me wanting to play. I have not tried, but I have heard that a 8 or 16 gig micro-sd will work in them, do you know if that is true? If so, I may give this a shot...mostly because it just sounds fun.
I have a 16GB micro-SD card in my phone right now. I also have busybox installed. I also have a 32MB swap file set up on the SD card. You can do some pretty cool things with this phone.
the point of the android (Score:4, Funny)
The android standards were written so you wouldn't install package managers & run native programs. You're supposed to be running Java Xlets. What's wrong with you people?
Really uninspiring (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you boot Android, get Debian on it and the video we're treated to is... ... running apt-get to drag down packages.
Am I the only one who thinks this is totally pointless?
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Hmm... having THOUSANDS of apps at your fingertips.
You know that sounds vaguely like another phone I've heard about...
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Thousands of poorly maintained, 3 year old apps, too! :)
I can think of one advantage over iPhone; no apps like iFart in the repositories. It will only be a matter of time though.
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Is there really anything cool about Debian anymore, unless you're a 57 year old hippie with a beard that would make Brian Blessed jealous?
There are lots of reasons I'd like to run Linux on a phone. But a busybox and apt-get on a phone? Come on.
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You made it this far without needing SSH from your phone, what makes today any different?
What's wrong with your laptop, which you obviously use right now for this? The limitations are going to be the same.. you need to have it with you to do anything, anyway.
Also, do you really want to be on-call 24/7 just because you have your phone with you, and no possible excuse? This is the start of your availability being abused at work, and that's the end of it. I don't think it's stupid to want to be able to legitim
GNU/Linux/Debian/Android? (Score:1, Interesting)
Why does the article/ video say "use Debian on Android"? If you install Debian you are no longer using Android.
I definitely plan to order one of these phones next month (I don't have T-Mobile in my area, so I need to buy the Developer Edition with the snazzy graphics on the back)
I now need to stop procrastinating and (vastly) improve my Java skills and start writing some Android apps.
Alright, fine... (Score:1)
...but does it run Linux?
AndroidFanatics fails to credit their sources (Score:4, Informative)
For the record, this is just a shell script that runs the commands listed here: http://www.saurik.com/id/10. AndroidFanatics generally doesn't reference it's sources. At least this time they (arguably) provided some value in packaging, but that usually isn't the case. The Android Market Browser it has, for example, is just a republished download of http://www.cyrket.com/. It used to be an iframe, but when I told them I wasn't okay with that they decided to just wget the contents. They don't even have the intelligence/decency to reformat it at all, making the entire thing quite flagrant. Frown pants.
name suggestion... (Score:1)
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DebiAndroid?
That was also my thought (I'm the guy who organizes the g1-hackers mailing list, and has been pioneering Debian on this platform, and any changes required to init and the kernel needed to support it) ;) I almost responded "if you check, I actually registered the domain name, and once I finish the changes required to get Debian installed to / I am likely to put the final instructions there with a bug tracker", but then I remembered I hadn't /actually/ bought it yet. I quickly did just now. ;)
Power management is a problem in Android devices (Score:1)
This is where the Neo FreeRunner shines - not only you can install Debian (or Gentoo) on the device, but you can actually use it as your daily
Pocket Workstation (Score:2)
Reminds me of the Zaurus
http://www.pocketworkstation.org/ [pocketworkstation.org]
EMACS! (Score:1)
Brick the phone? (Score:2)
-You root your phone, you install the modded firmware...and then at a later date you decide you no longer want any of this and want to go back to a "normal" set of firmware and functionality for your G1. Once you root it and run the altered firmwar
Re:This is why linux/opensource sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)
^The same sort of people who take things apart to see how they work, and tinker with things because they actually enjoy doing so.
Don't worry, your iPhone will not wink out of existance because somebody with different preferences buys a different phone, or prefers cars without the hoods welded shut.
Re:This is why linux/opensource sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, your iPhone will not wink out of existance because somebody with different preferences buys a different phone, or prefers cars without the hoods welded shut.
hehe - indeed. I have a Mac laptop, a Linux workstation, and a Linux media center at home. Each is brilliant for its intended purpose. Viva La Difference!
Re:This is why linux/opensource sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah...
Can I buy an unlocked iPhone for a reasonable price, yet? How about deals with networks other than AT&T?
Can I install custom software yet? Oh, I have to jailbreak it. That makes sens... Oh wait, you're asking me to crack my own phone.
Alright, I'll develop an iPhone app. I'll write it in Python, or maybe Erlang, download updates on the fly... Not allowed, [wikileaks.org] you say? I wonder why? Only Apple knows...
Maybe I'll make it run in the background, so I can have something play music while users do something else... Nope, not allowed. When the user taps away from my app, I have to shut down, completely, so as not to drain the battery. That's not just a good best practice, it's actually enforced by Apple.
Yes, it's prettier. Yes, there are things it does better. But as long as Apple keeps such a stranglehold around what's available and what isn't, the iPhone will fall behind. There is no question of that -- there will be killer apps written for Android, even for Windows Mobile, which cannot be ported to the iPhone because of Apple's restrictions.
Why would you want a system so closed, inflexible, and proprietary that it makes Windows look good?
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Oh, please don't feed the trolls. Responding to people like this only gives them what they want: to start trouble.
Please, let's all just ignore this person and this topic. Wouldn't it be more fun to talk about how nice it would be to be able to install Debian on your phone?
Re:This is why linux/opensource sucks. (Score:5, Funny)
Man you almost had it. Insightful +5, then you went and mentioned Windows Mobile.. ugg..
Re:This is why linux/opensource sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Except it's true.
Yes, Windows Mobile sucks. But, it does one thing Apple doesn't:
You are allowed, and encouraged, to develop and use third-party apps, which have no relationship to Microsoft.
You can download them from the Internet. You can install them via sync, or wifi. I don't actually know you can grab them with wifi, but that doesn't matter, because you could write a program that does that -- write your own package manager, even! -- and no one will stop you.
On the iPhone, you distribute them through Apple, through the App Store, and you buy them through the App Store. Anything else is likely to void your warranty, maybe even get you sued.
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just to answer the "don't know if you can grab them with wifi" - absolutely. All but the most ancient of WM devices that have WiFi or a cellular chip will have an internet browser - typically IE, but newer models come with Opera. Just browse to the website that hosts the .CAB or .EXE (the former is the more common - the latter you have to make sure it's not a windows installer but e.g. a pocketpc installer.. yes, that's a bit of a hassle, yes, the App(le) Store prevents such hassles), save the file, and l
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Point is, you can work around the OS.
I'm not sure how easy it is on WM, but consider if it was desktop Windows vs the iPhone OS. Worst case, just replace explorer.exe with your own shell, use a layer like Cygwin or Services for Unix, and it's hard to tell it's actually Windows under there.
On the other hand, if you like the iPhone, it's great, but if you don't, or you want to change it in some interesting way, you're pretty much boned.
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Sounds like you know a fair bit about developing for Windows Mobile. I'm curious - how easy / common is it to develop for the Windows Mobile platform from a non-Windows platform?
If it is difficult, then I wonder about this statement:
You are allowed, and encouraged, to develop and use third-party apps, which have no relationship to Microsoft.
Is it valid to say that there is no relationship between those third party apps and Microsoft if one must purchase Microsoft products to develop third party applications
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Actually, I don't know much about Windows Mobile, other than that development for it was more like development for a desktop OS. That is, you got some APIs, but ultimately, you could compile actually native code (unlike Android), and do pretty much anything within the constraints of the OS, possibly even hack the OS a bit (unlike the iPhone -- no farts until recently).
I do know, for example, that there was some sort of VLC port, among others.
So, I don't actually know, and I haven't tried. But I suspect that
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I wound up poking through the Windows Mobile development stuff yesterday a bit after I posted. It looks like it would be roughly as easy to write for Windows Mobile from not Windows as it would be to write native code for Android. IE: there is no official support but also no significant barrier to prevent you from doing it. At least that is the look on the surface.
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That is, you got some APIs, but ultimately, you could compile actually native code (unlike Android)
Significant correction here. You CAN compile native code for android. I've done it. It's not that bad. It's just not officially supported - yet strangely enough, JNI is officially supported and it seems there is also a backdoor (unsupported) into the VM for fast native code calls.
The good and the bad is, Android is a platform which is not tethered to a specific CPU architecture. Thusly applications written to
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You can install the .NET compact framework on WM, so you should theoretically be able to compile them to CLI, and run the executable on a WM device without problem. Even without official support for the Compact Framework from Mono, it's just a subset of the complete .NET Framework -- you all you'd have to do is only call those portions that are available to the CF.
As for the graphical portion, I'm not exactly sure. I am sure you could create your forms in code, the old fashioned way, but I'm not sure if t
Because.. (Score:4, Funny)
Why would you want a system so closed, inflexible, and proprietary that it makes Windows look good?
With all the thrashing /. has given Vista, we Microsoft fanbois will take what we can get. ;)
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Can I install custom software yet? Oh, I have to jailbreak it. That makes sens... Oh wait, you're asking me to crack my own phone.
well, installing Debian on G1 is not really any different from jailbreaking iPhone. You are cracking/hacking your own G1 to install Debian on it. So your point is moot here.
Alright, I'll develop an iPhone app. I'll write it in Python, or maybe Erlang, download updates on the fly... Not allowed, [wikileaks.org] you say? I wonder why? Only Apple knows... Maybe I'll make it run in the background, so I can have something play music while users do something else... Nope, not allowed. When the user taps away from my app, I have to shut down, completely, so as not to drain the battery. That's not just a good best practice, it's actually enforced by Apple.
if you like to do FOSS, why do you even want to write apps for Apple Store? You can write your own apps for iPhone, ignore those sucky "guideline/rules", and share your apps with others independent of Apple Store. You shouldn't go to the Apple Store unless you want to make money out of it, which means it's no longer FOSS. If you really
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Are you sure about that? Could you provide a link to some example iPhone applications that anybody can download and run without using the App Store?
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A common use is for beta testers. As an individual dev, I can sign up 100 devices. I expect for $200 I could be an enterprise dev with unlimited deploy.
But it is time consuming, I have to get a cert from Apple using the device id and package an App for the specific device. Certainly not worth $10 of my time. With the App Store, I can sell $0.99 apps and make money.
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I know about the ad hoc deployment but as you said it's limited to 100 devices! AFAIK, there is no way (without jailbreaking) to distribute an iPhone app to everyone without using the app store.
I don't think that is true.
As I mentioned, if it were possible to distribute iPhone apps without Apple's agreement then there would be at least a few you can download from the web and run on your own phone. But none exist.
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Let's see...
The limitation of the iPhone is that you have to crack it to distribute any app that you haven't put through the App Store. Furthermore, there are rules like not being allowed to run interpreted languages.
Android, if you're willing to stay within that VM, you can do pretty much whatever you want. And the reason for staying within the VM is more portability, I think, than anything else...
As an example, if I were to port Python/Jython, or Ruby/JRuby, to Google's VM, I could write Python or Ruby ap
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I say again: You have no idea what you're talking about. Free as in speech, not beer. Libre, not gratis.
Go read. [wikipedia.org]
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Oh, I have to jailbreak it. That makes sense... Oh wait, you're asking me to crack my own phone.
To be fair, TFA mentions that in order to run Debian on Android, you have to use modded firmware to gain root access (it was removed by default by an update a little while ago). Probably won't brick the device, but there are no guarantees.
Maybe I'll make it run in the background, so I can have something play music while users do something else... Nope, not allowed.
What I've read
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To be fair, TFA mentions that in order to run Debian on Android, you have to use modded firmware to gain root access
Granted. But if you're willing to develop inside Google's VM, there are no restrictions there. I'm guessing there will be JRuby and Jython ports, too.
What I've read suggests that the iPhone will continue iPod playback in the background, but not other apps.
That fits what I've heard, which is basically that these rules are for you, not for Apple. After all, a web browser does download and interpret code on the fly (Javascript), but you're not allowed to do that, so Safari will be its only browser.
So, you can play iTunes in the background, but probably not Pandora.
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It just comes down to goals.
You want to buy an appliance that makes phone calls, browses the web, and checks your mail? The iPhone is a valid choice.
You want to dick with the thing and geek out? It's not as good a choice... though to be honest jail breaking isn't such an ordeal.
In any event, whatever happened to shades of gray? You don't have to either like or dislike the iPhone - you can think it's cool and not for you, for instance. That's my opinion. I like my Sony Eriksson flip phone, hobbled though it
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Can I buy an unlocked iPhone for a reasonable price, yet?
Yes.
How about deals with networks other than AT&T?
Yes. AT&T is the only question mark. I'm currently using my Android phone on AT&T.
Can I install custom software yet?
Have been able to since day one. It's never been an issue; unlike the issues surrounding the iPhone.
Maybe I'll make it run in the background, so I can have something play music while users do something else... Nope, not allowed.
That's only an issue for iPhones. Creating backgr
Re:This is why linux/opensource sucks. (Score:5, Funny)
I think (ergo sum) that you really meant
Why Think? We think better! Let us do the thinking for you (for a 'small' fee)
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