So for some time ago, well its now almost 4 month ago, I decided to take the jump and start using IOS on a iphone 4. My old trusty palm tungsten was getting on the old side and it was time for something new. SO this series I start here will be a not of how to get it working on Linux and then the top applications I found necessary for me and my work.So I took the jump.
So – can you use the iphone if you are running linux as you os. Well I would say YES and NO.
The NO part is that you cant run, sync, well heck – even start it, without a windows (or mac) os and itunes.
The YES part is that there are ways around that.
So how did I get it working.
Well the easy way of answering this is that I did fold and got itunes running in my virtualbox virtual machine, and that is working will. Perhaps a bit of cheating, but I have no inclination to jailbreak the phone and the notes out there telling how you can do it did not work for me. So I took the ease way
Virtualbox
To use the iphone with virtualbox you just have to download and install Virtualbox from the repository.
Start by opening a treminal window
|
1 |
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" |
Then add the key
|
1 |
wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add - |
Do an update
|
1 |
sudo apt-get update |
And the install it
|
1 |
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0 |
And you are done
Now you can create a vritual machiine, install a windows version and then install itunes in that.
Note.
The only thing that might be worth mentioning is that you have to be a bit aware about os upgrades of the phone. When it does this it will change the use somewhat so the connection to the virtual box machine will be lost, and you have to connect it again (Menu->Device->USB-Devices-Iphone XXX) and it will continue. I missed this one time and the upgrade was aborted and i had to restore a backup. But as long as you are alert there and reconnect it, it works perfectly.