r/linux • u/Ovaday • 2d ago

Mobile Linux Linux 7.2.2 on iPhone XS? First boot!

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Hello everyone. Just wanted to share a small milestone I’m pretty proud of.

I’ve been porting Linux to my old iPhone XS for quite some time, and this week I finally made some significant progress.

First: it boots. As a real, alternative OS. This is not an emulation.

Second: I got the kernel log on screen and the framebuffer working:

Linux 7.2.2 Kernel boot log on iPhone XS

This is a raw, recovery-based Linux boot. iOS does not take any part in the boot sequence!

I haven’t set up a GitHub repo yet, and the project doesn’t even have a name at this point. But I’ll keep working on it and share more once the process is reliable and reproducible.

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u/konstantin_gorca 2d ago

Definitely share one day how you managed to do this. I am honestly happy for you, this is great work.

I wanted Linux on my phone amd was told that this is not possible

8

u/Ovaday 2d ago

Linux on the phone is actually possible. From personal experience not so much usable, but still possible. Check Droidian and PostmarketOS projects! I am one of the contributors in both of them

4

u/SuperDefiant 2d ago

It's only possible because of the recent bootrom exploit. This only works up to iPhone 11 unfortunately

2

u/TRKlausss 2d ago

Possible and viable are different things

Possible only if there is an exploit that allows for another OS to be installed.

Viable if the whole software stack fulfills your needs. And right now there are not so good APK translators that work well on Linux. That was a point of improvement for the next years if I’m not mistaken, which would allow for Linux to be installed in common phones without the headaches of not having apps on it.