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iPod clicks reveal details, allows Linux installation

updated 06:40 pm EST, Wed March 2, 2005

iPod clicks provide detail


Users have worked out how to using an ingenious acoustic trick, according to NewScientist. In an effort to install Linux on the iPod, a 17-year-old computer science student from Germany, used sound to decode to startup code on the iPod: "They adapted the component that generates clicks - or "squeaks" - as a user scrolls through the on-screen menu in order to extract vital information from the latest generation of the device. This allowed them to install an alternative operating system and make their iPods run games and other new programs." Nils Schneider constructed a soundproof box to record the iPod clicks and decoded the clicks into computer code to understand the hardware setup required to install Linux and other applications.


by MacNN Staff

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  1. tvalleau

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2005

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    03/02, 06:45pm | report spam | Reply |

    I thought it was...

    April 1, not March 1...

  1. mymacluvsme

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2004

    0
    03/02, 06:58pm | report spam | Reply |

    Wow

    Talk about computer geeks!

  1. trevc

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2000

    0
    03/02, 07:06pm | report spam | Reply |

    Why wouldn't Apple...

    ... be the first to install a desktop operating system and install OSXStripped (Darwin) .... I mean, at the high-end 60GB, there's more than enough room!

    Put a Blackberry-like keyboard and a HMD (Huge Magnifying Device), and you've got a winner! ;-)

    Hey wait ... is that what's next?

  1. l008com

    Addicted to MacNN

    Joined: Jan 2000

    0
    03/02, 07:17pm | report spam | Reply |

    Ummm

    I read about this months ago this is very old news!

  1. Nostromo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2001

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    03/02, 07:18pm | report spam | Reply |

    re: Why wouldn't Apple

    Because the hard drives in the iPod aren't meant to do heavy-duty (or even normal-duty) desktop type hard drive work. The iPod drives are only meant to spin up periodically to read music into RAM, not run 24/7 like a desktop hard drive. Using an iPod as your main drive is an easy way to fry it :)

  1. medmuse

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2002

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    03/02, 07:49pm | report spam | Reply |

    Mmmmmm.....

    Yeah. I read the whole thing about two months ago too. Maybe more. Oh, and BTW, I read that Fujitsu is about to release a 120 GB 2.5 that lasts through twice as many write-rewrites; about 600,000, and Hitachi (I think) is releasing iPod sized drives commercially.

  1. dlindsay17

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Dec 1999

    0
    03/02, 08:13pm | report spam | Reply |

    waste

    yay! a 60gb calculator!!

  1. LouZer

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2000

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    03/02, 11:01pm | report spam | Reply |

    old news

    I thought linux has been on the iPod for over a year...

  1. JEB

    Junior Member

    Joined: May 2001

    0
    03/02, 11:55pm | report spam | Reply |

    So, basically. . . .

    . . . . they f***'ed up their iPod, fooling around with it, and had to tell all of us about a hack-job, to make themselves sound hip.

    Very hip, indeed.

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