Probably, many of you will be thinking about how it is possible and if it is worth it. Someone else may be thinking "why is this?", But on many occasions, when we ask ourselves this in the Linux world the answer is "because it is possible." Currently it is not possible yet, but in the medium term future we will be able to install Linux on an iPhone, something that will be especially interesting for the most curious users, those who have a support iPhone and for developers.
Until now, it was easy to read news about Android devices that could be installed with a Linux mobile distribution, such as Ubuntu Touch or Plasma Mobile. Recently, the only iOS devices that could dual-boot were the iPhone 5 or earlier or the iPad 4th generation or earlier. Soon, thanks to developers from the jailbreak scene like Raffaele y mcg29, we can use saying dual start to choose if we want to use the iOS that came by default or a secondary operating system, such as a mobile Linux.
Linux on a 64-bit iPhone or iPad, closer
Dual-booted an iPhone 6 (n61ap) with iOS 12.4.6 (12G183) as the main and 11.3.1 (15E302) as the secondary OS. pic.twitter.com/YnFYFcpkHn
- mcg29 (@ mcg29_) April 10, 2020
I have dual-booted on an iPhone 6 (n61ap) with iOS 12.4.6 (12G183) as the primary system and 11.3.1 (15E302) as the secondary system. Each installation uses its own data partition. In this case, 16GB has been accommodated for the secondary system and the remainder for the primary installation.
The installation instructions are not the simplest in the world and are detailed in this link. To be able to do it it will be necessary to use macOS, Apple's desktop operating system. Logically, if we want to try it in a virtual machine, we have to make sure that everything works perfectly in the guest system.
Although in the tests they have used two versions of iOS, Linux can be installed. There are already kernels ready to start on these types of devices, so we should soon see the first iPhone and iPad to run Linux. Personally, it's not something I'm going to do, at least right now. We'll see if I change my mind. You would do it?