Nick Chan, creator of many tools for iOS devices jailbrokenoffers something new for iOS devices: the possibility of installing GNU/Linux. Don’t expect a real replacement for iOS or iPadOS at the moment: the tools are still basic but still allow you to start the operating system on certain iPhones and iPads.
An iPhone 6S (based on A9) which boots under GNU/Linux. Image Nick Chan.
The project East open source and has many constraints. First, it requires a device that can be jailbrokenwith an ARMv8 (64-bit) compatible Apple chip. In fact, all iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs equipped with an A7 to A11 chip (up to the iPhone 8 or X) are compatible. The page states that Macs with a T2 chip are not compatible and that HomePods have not been tested.
The project page gives some brief explanations, with relatively few details. At the moment it doesn’t seem possible to boot a GUI and there is little information on exact hardware support. Nick Chan simply posted a picture of an iPhone 6S booting under GNU/Linux. It therefore seems illusory to see a Linux distribution replace iOS in the short term on devices abandoned by Apple, but it is still a step forward towards the possibility of overcoming the obsolescence imposed by Apple with the absence of updating update old versions of iOS. Indeed, in the case of iPhones, none of the compatible models accept iOS 18 and in iPads, only the 7th generation iPad received iPadOS 18 with such an old chip (the A10).
