Just over a year ago, the Linux on iPod site went live, and judging by the half-a million page views and over two thousand downloads, interest is still strong. According to the site's question and answer page, right now the project is focused on porting the uClinux kernel to the iPod. Ideally the kernel will support all the hardware features available on the iPod. Why would you do that? asks the site. The answer: "A number of reasons, but mainly because it's there."

The project's overall goals are "to make a fully functional Linux from the iPod that will be able to play a greater variety of formats, have better features and even be compatible with external hardware like flash card readers so you can copy your camera photos directly to your Linux iPod."

The latest news on the site? " A release version of the 2.4.24 kernel is now available for download. This version includes full support for first, second and third generation iPods (no iPod mini support) including audio, firewire and remote. "

The site notes that the other important inclusion with this release is the demo podzilla program. Podzilla is a basic GUI demo similar to the native Apple firmware, it has a very simple mp3 player which can be run by running the file browser and selecting a .mp3 file, during playback the pause/play button will pause and menu will exit back to podzilla.

Learn more about LInux on iPod at the website.