Use an iPod to fold?

Pretty sweet idea...would the linux F@H run on it, though? The only Linux version offered is for x86, and the iPod's processor is certainly quite different.

 

Yeah, go for it. Let us know if you get Folding running. I assume you can run things like that while the iPod is plugged in, so battery wouldn't really be an issue, would it?

 

Hmm... This is a really interesting idea. Think of all the people that own ipods, and that would probably be willing to do this!

 

Wow! Amazing. I cannot believe that iPodLinux thing!

Think of colour iPods with a custom Linux... could = PDA!

Great find! About Folding at home... I think you'd need to recompile it...

 

Last I knew F@H was not open source because of worries that people would try to falsify results and send them in either just to mess things up or to gain points for themselves/their team.

Other than that, it sounds like a great idea, although I'll probably forget about this thread after this post and never remember to come back...

 

Why would you put Linux on an iPod?

Are there advantages?

 

Linux is being put on everything from the PS2 to XBOX to now the iPod. Linux, I love to say this, is the worst OS in the world. It steals from Unix and claims it as its own. It is for the hackers, not the real world users - Macs are for real world users and... PC's are for gamers. Linux is nothing but a cheap knockoff of Unix. I'd rather have Unix over Mac, Mac over Windows and Linux, Windows over Linux. No advantage to having Linux.

 

Really cheap. Like, free. F-R-E-E.

Just to reiterate, it is a fully featured operating system that costs nothing.

 

What the .... is this?
Intel Strong Arm??? That was unexpected:

 

Intel have bought rights to manufactre some ARM chips, they have done for a long while. A friend of mine has a 220MHz SA110, in his Acorn Risc PC, labeled manufactured by Intel... I believe they partnered on the XScale project, too.

 

No no no no, I meant that ipods use strong arm processors, I knew intel used Strong Arm processors, they use them a lot in Pocket PCs, along with XScale of course (I have an XScale Toshiba), but I'm shocked that they use StrongArm in Ipods... then again.. what would the ipods use if they didn't use intel Processors? I don't see them putting G3's in them lol.... still shocking though.

 

One word: overheat

 

Sorry, but this seems like a pretty silly idea, to me. Don't get me wrong, I can see this as being a fun little geek project, but from a practical standpoint I think the battery, heat and just plain old butt slow performance would be a no-go. Just my take on it.

 

Most likely not

The iPod does have some impressive computing power, but it lacks a lot of things. It lacks a Memory Management Unit(MMU) which makes programming for it a lot more difficult(but as you can see not impossible) but probably more importantly in the realm of folding the iPod lacks a floating point processor, which means that any floating point operation has to be simulated using integer instructions. This is VERY SLOW!
So it's very doubtful you will ever be able to do much computing using the current generation of iPods(maybe a photo has floating point support? I'm not sure), but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

I thought linux used .app ? I know Mac uses .app extension. Wait... maybe linux doesn't use an extension... I don't remember, but MOST like 90% no no no 99% of the programs you use on Linux, you have to compile yourself.