Debian-style installation arrives on iPhone

After typing his fingers to the bone, overworked iPhone developer Jay "Saurik" Freeman has finally finished his long-awaited Cydia release. As Freeman puts it, the iPhone is a 667MHz computer with 128MB RAM and at least 4GB of flash. So why not use it as a Unix workstation?

Motivated by the relative limitations of the existing BSD subsystem, Freeman decided to port Debian's APT to the iPhone -- tweaking items to work better with the iPhone's relatively messed-up network settings. A UIKit front end, Cydia, provides a GUI for users to select and install programs -- basically Installer.app for fully leaded geeks. Cydia isn't limited to command-line software. It should allow installation of any and all software package types.

Share