After a short but enlightening chat with iPhone hackers on IRC; I can present you the information below.
To cut a long story short, the iPhone DOES run an UNIX derivative OS; and its file system tree is similar to a Mac’s. However, memory handling, shell,… are completely different – so there wont be easy porting…
Before I let you loose on the chat log, here’s the channel data:
irc://irc.osx86.hu
#iphone
04:39 < tam__> was i right with my prognosis about how the iphone does NOT run OSx as we know it
04:39 < tam__> i think it runs some sort of rtos that they just call osx
04:39 < ChongLi> tam__: no, you were wrong
04:39 < tam__> it does?
04:39 < Ath> actually, the library of congress decides which circumventions are allowed
04:39 < +wolfiejr> tam I think your wrong
04:39 < ChongLi> LINK REMOVED AT REQUEST. It contained a dump of the iPhone’s file structure tree from the iphone dev wiki
04:40 < tam__> looks like an rtos to me
04:40 < tam__> unix rtos
04:40 < tam__> is the file tree very similar to mac?
04:40 < Overlord`> the phone runs osx base, which is a unix rtos revision of some sort
04:40 < nall> yes
04:40 < ChongLi> tam__: extremely similar to a Mac
04:40 < +wolfiejr> ahoten We are trying many differnt things.
04:40 < Overlord`> so saying it runs osx is still fairly correct.
04:40 < @zigzag> is os x
04:40 < gopi> tam__: Why do you think it looks like a UNIX RTOS?
04:40 < @zigzag> what rock did you come from under? (no offense) but at this point its FUNNY
04:40 < +wolfiejr> ahoten yep.
04:41 < tam__> tree
04:41 < Overlord`> “osx” itself is regarded as the gui, to users.
04:41 < tam__> the file tree looks like an unix system to me
04:41 < tam__> (what i meant was that the os on the box is NOT OSx desktop)
04:41 < gopi> tam__: You do know that OS X is UNIX, right?
04:41 < tam__> a derivative
04:41 < JeffDAK> lol
04:41 < tam__> yes
04:41 < Overlord`> no it’s not the same as osx desktop for obvious reasons
04:41 < Overlord`> different processor
04:41 < tam__> =)…this is all i wanted to know
04:41 < Overlord`> different ram handling, different shell
04:41 < tam__> bc my readers(Palm OS, PPC) talked about how it runs a desktop os blah
04:42 < tam__> =)
04:42 < ahoten> But it’s still the darwin/xnu kernel, is it not?
04:42 < ahoten> Just ported to ARM?
04:42 < tam__> i guessed it ran some sort of unix
04:42 -!- kiloohm [mike.mcgui@freedom-73CD21BD.mc.videotron.ca] has quit [Quit: Leaving]
04:42 < Overlord`> ported?
04:42 < Overlord`> dont think so
04:42 < tam__> there are millions of unixii for arm, thats the problem
04:42 < Ath> it’s essentially a very stripped down version of OS X. I seriously doubt it is real time, though.
04:42 < Overlord`> this thing looks built around the arm proc
04:42 < tam__> is it 1 or twochip smartphone
04:42 < Overlord`> tam
04:42 < +wolfiejr> I wodner if dvd jon took the day off
04:42 < Ath> and apple clearly has run OS X on multiple CPU architectures for some years, which is what enabled the PPC to x86 transition.
04:42 < ahoten> Overlord`: Thats what I said… the iPhone is running a version of the darwin/xnu kernel (the OS X kernel) ported to the ARM architecture
04:42 < +wolfiejr> He hasnt posted anything on his blog
04:43 < ahoten> At least that’s what I’ve gathered
04:43 < gopi> tam__: 2 chip. Who makes 1 chip ones right now?
Back to Palm OS now, though! Thank you guys for the info and the permission to post!
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