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Comment by dkdbejwi383 | Hacker News Reader

I've seen a handful of sideloadable apps for iOS/tvOS which depend on alt-store. I'd like to try them out but it's a shame you need a Mac or Windows PC in order to run the server.

I have a MacBook but it's a work machine so probably best to avoid running alt-server there.

The only other computers I have for personal use are a Linux laptop and a Raspberry Pi.

I understand why (iTunes is a requirement and not available on Linux), but it's a shame. Maybe I could run Windows in a VM and run it there, but my gut-feeling is that it won't be that straightforward. Plus, I'd need to start the VM once a week or whatever to re-sign the certificates which would get annoying.

While I am mostly comfortable with the convenience of the App Store, it would be nice to be able to sideload on apple operating systems other than macOS.

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The prevalence of the word "sideload" to mean using software of your choice on hardware you own is a little bit mad. Thanks apple!

Thanks also to PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo.

True. When I get Stallman-y about "sideloading" someone usually says, "well games consoles aren't computers either" but my opinion of the matter is the same.

> games consoles aren't computers either

In which sense? As far as I'm aware current consoles are pretty much general computing devices with closed down operating systems. That's essentially the same as an iPhone.

Can you run word on an Xbox?

Obviously they are computers I just couldn't be bothered to fit the argument in the quotation.

> Can you run word on an Xbox?

You could if Microsoft ported it to it. The only reason Word runs on ~handheld computers~ phones is because Microsoft ported it to it.

Not even ported to it. An Xbox is a nonstandard PC - it runs the NT Kernel, with Windows Drivers, on a custom AMD Zen processor, it's just got hardware root of trust, a different frontend, and software signature enforcement. That's about it.

> Not even ported to it.

To my knowledge, Word on Windows still depends on Win32, which Xbox doesn’t have.

iOS and MacOS both use the mach kernel, on similar processors (at least in the current gen hw). Would you not say it’s validly “porting” if you were to take a MacOS app like say Word and alter it to run on iOS?

> Can you run word on an Xbox?

Not natively, but you can run pretty much any signed UWP text editor on it without any fuss. If you're willing to pay a $20 developer fee, they'll even let you load unsigned software for a real party.

Indeed, I genuinely think the best thing that Microsoft did to combat piracy on the Xbox was by making it so easy to join the developer programme and build / install your own apps on the Xbox.

That's actually worse than Apple though - at least Apple lets you download Xcode and install self-signed apps for 7 days between updates without a developer account or a fee.

Somebody has been working on a Linux port. AltServer/Store is pretty new in general so I wouldn't be surprised if more support comes soon.

https://github.com/NyaMisty/AltServer-Linux

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