yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
I used this commands to build the system:

fallocate -l 15G ubuntu.img #that is a small 'L', not a capital 'i'. 15G = 15 gigabytes but 1G is actually sufficient for a base system. I recommend 3G
mkfs.ext4 ubuntu.img #If it points out it isn't a block device just press 'y' and it'll format the image
mkdir /mnt/iconiaimage
mount ubuntu.img /mnt/iconiaimage
qemu-debootstrap --foreign --verbose --keyring=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keep-debootstrap-dir --arch=armhf precise /mnt/iconiaimage
chroot /mnt/iconiaimage /bin/bash
/debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage
nano /etc/apt/sources.list
#In this file I added the following two lines between the hashes#
#################################################
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ precise main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ precise main restricted universe multiverse
#################################################
#Now Ctrl-X then press Y to save changes in nano
apt
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
exit
umount /mnt/iconiaimage

That should leave you with a working armhf system in an image. You might have better luck with a proper qemu emulated system rather than the basic syscall translation. You can also exchange armhf for armel if that's what you want. I use armhf because performance should be slightly better but it is still early days for ubuntu armhf
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
So are you using the img on internal memory to boot? And also I noticed that those are Ubuntu sources.. if you replace 'sid' in the debootstrap command with 'precise' then you can install Ubuntu, which opens the door for Unity on the tab. As for proper qemu emulation, I will look into it, but I'm not sure how fast it needs my comp to be..
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
Hmm I did wonder what sid was for stupid me. I'll update that

I plan to extract it to /data/linux and play with a kernel to chroot itself. I need a proper play with it all at some point
[Acer Iconia A500] mectec:
3) That kernel can only boot from mmc1p2, so you'll need to partition your SD card. Start by loading Ubuntu or a similar Linux distro on a computer and use GParted. Make a small general storage partition in FAT32, make a large EXT4 partition (this is where you will store Linux and boot it) and optionally, you can create a 1-2GB Swap partition.

4) Now here's where the real work starts.................................

4i) install qemu ARM stuff on your Linux machine. For Ubuntu - sudo apt-get install qemu-user-static

4ii) plug in your flash drive and locate the /dev point of the ext4 partition. For Ubuntu, use Disk Utility and it will be something like /dev/sdx2.

4iii) unmount partition 2. open a terminal, enter sudo mount -o /dev/sdx2 /mnt/Linux

4iv) run sudo qemu-debootstrap --arch armel sid /mnt/Linux

Hi great work. sorry I have a couple of dumb question...what size did you make the Fat32 and EXT4 partitions? was the EXT4 primary?
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
The OP says GParted which you can just use Ubuntu Software Centre or apt-get to install. Then just run it from the Ubuntu Applications menu or run "gparted" in Terminal

You can do it all in terminal- with difficulty xD
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
I try this but keep getting the same dpkg error 1 and locale: no such directory
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
That dpkg error may be due to Ubuntu sources being used on Debian Sid. If you use the Ubuntu sources, make sure you update the debootstrap to install a "precise" base system. And the /data/data install also seems like an amazing idea. Should allow for faster performance. If I can get a kernel that boots from there, I'll test it out.
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
I have booted ubuntu in data data you just have to edit and compile right know i have a compile kernel that boots from data

And can you explain me better what to do to posible fix dpkg error
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
Do you have the 3.2 kernel yet? I'll rebuild a rootfs for data if I can test it out. Then I'll upload it and try to make a nice installer or something. Unfortunately for me I learned Linux through Unix and so I don't know much about the kernel (I used Mach)
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
Yes the 3.2 and to install ubuntu in data i used ubuntu in the sdcard formatted data to ext4 and untar there thats it after that you can flash or restore a back up and ill work ok i use to have it like that im just waiting for someone to upload a 12.04 rootfs
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
Send me a download link and I'll get to work on 12.04. And is it in /data or /data/data or.. what's the exact path?
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
From data no data/data ill upload one in the morning but just battery meter doesnt work
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
Alright sounds like a good deal. Is the kernel packed up on an img? I'll download and flash it later on today and build and upload an Ubuntu rootfs. And when I get it working, I'll update my OP or start a new thread.
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
Getting a kernel to boot from /data/linux should be in theory/I] as easy as including busybox in the initrd with a setup as follows (ish):

mkdir /mnt/data
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p8 /mnt/data
chroot /mnt/data/linux /init

This assumes of course that:

1) you have a full busy box setup (or at least the utilised commands) on the initrd

2) there is a properly loaded ext4 kernel driver (this will have to be on the initrd too)

3) the full Linux initialisation binaries are on the main system NOT on the initrd as they would normally be as all the initrd should do is somehow configure Linux to use /mnt/data/linux as the root folder. The rest of the startup should be done by the RootFS.

This means that the initrd could be quite large depending on how much init code is there. I'll have to properly dissect an Ubuntu initrd to see how Ubuntu is configured to have a root device. Surely whether a device node is mounted as / or another folder then chrooted it should still work?

Note - you might have to mount mmcblk0p8 as a loop device first:

mknod /dev/loop0 b 7 0
mount -o loop -t ext4 /dev/loop0 /mnt/data
#chroot stuff here

(I think!! It's off the top of my tired head :P)
[Acer Iconia A500] armada786:
Nice thread and guide. Been wanting to try out Linux on the A500 since we achieved easy access to fastboot and that 16 GB uSD card I have has been burning a hole in my pocket. Gonna get hands on with this in a bit. I guarantee I'll screw up, though.

EDIT: While I'm here, can the Linux "recovery" kernel be flashed to secboot and still work? Might as well ask before I muddle something up.
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
yep it is in a image format you gonna have to format your data partition to ext4 and the untar rootfs there
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
I'm sure it's able to be flashed there, but i took the "safe" and easy way out and flashed it over my recovery... I'll try it out right now, I'm pulling an all nighter anyway messing with the 3.2 kernel and a 12.04 RootFS.
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
You can, in theory, flash recovery to primary, primary to secondary and secondary to recovery and it'll work just fine. The image location doesn't matter
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
Thats right:thumbup:
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
Remember to back up sd card before formatting
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
Alright, so the precise distro is being built, I flashed the kernel, now I need a quick way to copy the files from the chroot folder to /data. Any suggestions? If this one boots up right, I'll upload it. Anyone still want my original Debian RootFS?
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
You gonna have to boot ubuntu in your external sdcard use disk utility to format data partiton to ext4 (remember to back everything up) then untar the rootfs in the data partition flash the kernel and boot or if you want send me the rootfs for testing i already have me data partition in ext4 format

Or if your pc can recognize your iconia and all the partitions you then can skip using ubuntu from external sd
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1GfzduUohXoRE9XSHRfcDhuLVE

There's my (messy) Debian RootFS with XFCE. the password for root is alpine, like on jailbroken iPhones...
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
Nice work :)

I'll get myself one built once I fix my very messed up Ubuntu install and upload that too :)
[Acer Iconia A500] japinder:
Hi Guys,

I'm already on Civato's 4.0.4 Relix v4 ROM & Skrilax_CZ's v8 ICS bootloader. So I performed the followed steps:

1. I partitioned my 32 GB SD card & created 3 partitions: ~20GB FAT32 for storage, 8GB EXT3 for Linux & 2GB for Swap.

2. Flashed newrec.img from the other thread to mmcblk0p2 from the Tab

3. Decompressed & copied all files from your Debian image Linux.tar.gz to the second SD card partition from withinLinux

Now the ROM boots up fine, but if I go into the bootloader's boot menu (Power+Vol Up), & select to boot from the secondary kernel image, it stays stuck on the 'booting secondary kernel image'. Rebooting & booting off the primary kernel image to the regular ROM works.

What am I doing wrong? :-o

Edit: It seems I have mixed things up by trying individual unrelated steps from different threads. So although nothing is broken yet, It won't work either. Could you please advise how to go about flashing the Debian image & kernel. Or should I wait for your Ubuntu RootFS. Thanks.

Thanks, Jp
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
I've been working on a fairly complete RootFS today as far as the Iconia is concerned now that I've finally got my ubuntu install running again :)

By fairly complete I mean it has the following features:

*Full armhf build

*Broadcom drivers

*Nvidia tegra drivers for armhf / ventana

*Nvidia restricted codecs

*Full ubuntu-desktop package (I guess that includes unity etc :D)

*VNC server (tightvnc-server), viewer and java viewer

*SSH server / client

*wget, curl etc.

*More tidbits as I add them

*If available I'll install Google Chrome and Flash Player

Root and 'ubuntu' user passwords are ubuntu

I aim to have an img of it uploaded by the end of tomorrow. My uplink internet speed is like 120kbps so it could take a while so I'll see how much I can test it first. Unfortunately I don't have a spare MicroSD card ATM :( If I can test it in chroot for basic functionality I will. Also I'll have a guide written soon on how to do this over the next couple of days once I semi-perfect the process.

Hoping a post like this will lighten the mood a bit! :)
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
First of all that kernel that you are using just boots from the external sdcard thats why it gets stuck cuz it doesnt find anything to boot if you wanna make boot from that partition you created you gonna have to edit and compile the kernel

Second when i untar those rootfs i coudnt boot ubuntu cuz you are suppost to untar in the root of the partition you want it to boot from and the op put the base system in the /media/linux directory
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
Looking forward for that i booted the op rootfs from data but cannot use apt-get but everything work amazing besides that
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
Have fun! Let me know how / if it works! It's taken nearly 4 hours to upload on my grandma's awful internet connection so I hope it's good!!

http://blackthund3r.co.uk/hostedfiles/builds/
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
Sounds good! I'll try to test it when I've got time.. unfortunately for me, summer break ends tomorrow :( also when I'm able I'll update guide for making an internal install.. also someone should start and link a thread for iconia tarballs....
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
Hey i try to boot his but no.luck i went back to yours it runs good but lags a lot sometimes why???

But besides that everything works im just having trouble opening chromium it just doesnt work and in firefox everytime i try to open the file menu it freezes
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
It seems I have a n00b moment and installed chromium-bsu which is actually a game! I haven't tested the tarball at all but I'm not sure why Firefox is crashing. Does ubuntu give you any sort of error message I can look at?
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
I meant that i couldnt boot yours cuz the base system doesnt extract in the sdcard root directory you compressed it inside some other folders

But ill try from external sd card from data is a little messy cuz it has android and ubuntu files mix all together

The chromium not opening and firefox crashing was for kevin roscom rootfs
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
Okay you could try tar xjvf rootfs.tar.bz2 -C /media/ext2sdpartition rootfs/*
[Acer Iconia A500] el.quechon:
What is the xorg.config file for and how to install it
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
Xorg.config is a file Linux uses (used?) to configure the display. Without it, the Nvidia drivers for the onboard geforce chip won't be properly utilized. To install it, simply open /etc/X11/xorg.config as root in a text editor and paste in the lines of code you need.
[Acer Iconia A500] Reminon:
As soon as I get this going I'm gonna need to install an external wifi adapter....its an atheros card..specifically ar2425...I just need to know how to install it like where to find drivers preferably those with monitor mode support..any help would be appreciated..
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
What's wrong with the internal card?
[Acer Iconia A500] merlininthewoods:
tegra drivers on debian squeeze

I used a debian squeeze rootfs i had installed using linux installer app a while ago which i used to chroot into and use with vnc. To my surprise it booted and even xfce worked without any modification. I had to add firmware and install some networking apps to get wireless working.

My problem is that i am not sure of the best way to install the tegra drivers on a debian squeeze system and without them i don't have any hardware acceleration on the graphics or any sound.

Any ideas? Did you add them in your debian image Kevin and if so how?
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
They are in my image, but I suggest trying blackthund3r's image, mine isn't very clean and you may run into problems.
[Acer Iconia A500] Reminon:
does the internal one support monitor mode? and packet injection?

P.S. I'm getting a fw download error on one of the files one the firmware folder..and a nvram.txt...in the same line..so I was gonna put my own nvram.txt in but I can't find it in /system/ect.
[Acer Iconia A500] merlininthewoods:
I did try his image and couldn't get it to boot. Anyway i would rather use debian (especially as this one of mine is set up how i like it!). I thought about copying the nvidia tarball over the fs but if it didn't work it would be a nightmare to change it back (and its a fair size to backup). Anyone got any ideas for making the tegra drivers work on a debian squeeze rootfs?
[Acer Iconia A500] haag498:
It doesn't exist... It really is just a part of your data partition being fuse-mounted rw to /mnt/sdcard and /sdcard. Messing with the partition layout of the internal memory isn't such a great idea either, as it'd probably break Android and possibly a lot of other stuff like recovery, too...
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
I'm going to try building the image in a different way. Under development ;)
[Acer Iconia A500] haag498:
Hi,

I've been trying to get Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) to boot using (roughly) the steps outined here... However, the OS seems to get stuck right after init started (not only on the rootfs I bootstrapped myself, also on the semi-official ubuntu armhf build). As no output is produced (save a blinking cursor at the top left of the screen) I have no idea what may be the cause of this... I guess an X11 problem is unlikely, as altering xorg.conf doesn't make a difference. Also, Google turned up nothing. Any pointers would be much appreciated, I'm happy to experiment.

EDIT: So, the problem was a missing entry for / in fstab... Now all I have to do is getting X to not crash on startup...
[Acer Iconia A500] blackthund3r:
My new method is using the official linux4tegra instructions. I patched the (yeah I know it's deprecated. Go on, kill me! :P) rootstock script so it makes armhf images rather than armel ones. I'm in the process of going through the l4t docs and applying patches to that RootFS tar.gz. once I've got that working I'll try patching an android kernel initrd to boot from where I want it to. Under development ;)

---------- Post added at 08:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:28 AM ----------

Are you able to SSH into the Ubuntu install? Try running startx
[Acer Iconia A500] haag498:
Unfortunately, X doesn't give me much info on the reason for the crash... It just keeps restarting (that's how ubuntu works) without error messages. I have a hunch this really has less to do with X, but rather the displaymanager getting confused and crashing somehow. I'll post as soon as I get it to work (with a link to my rootfs, of course)...

BTW I've been working with linux for more than 10 years now, so I had my share of surprises... though they seem to have gotten rather rare of late. Seems I got a little too used to it, seeing how I missed the rather obvious empty fstab...
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
A lot of times, on this particular tab anyway, X fails to find the display.. but only when you install the tetra drivers. The way I've gotten it to boot is to edit the X11 file and uninstall, tegra drivers.. I haven't found a way to get both working. Hope this helps. Also, I've noticed that X in Ubuntu 12 is different than most other linuxes, something about not using the default config file..
[Acer Iconia A500] haag498:
The tegra drivers are found and seem to work, too -- I got Xorg to start up properly and give useful diagnostics; however, the problem persists... This tells me, that the problem is somewhere further downstream, as I suspected. The X server doesn't really crash but shuts down normally after all clients terminated. I haven't yet found out what causes them to terminate prematurely, though.

UPDATE: After I finally got some good diagnostics, it turns out that this problem is actually quite well known, though there's no easy fix. What happens is an assertion failure in pulseaudio, which leads to the unity greeter stopping, which in turn leads to this odd behavior. The root cause seems to be a bug in the pthread library mutex implementation (part of glibc)...

EDIT: I haven't given up... Right now I'm looking into patching either the bootimg or pulseaudio to make things work... I'm just not sure yet which route to take and I probably won't have a lot of time on my hands over the next few days, so this might take a bit.
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
I haven't been completely updated on the inner workings of Ubuntu (in particular) but isn't that greeter plymouth? Back when I tried out Ubuntu on my tab, that seemed to be the problem for me. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't plymouth useless? As in, just that thing to hide the kernel booting and display "Ubuntu" on the screen while booting? If that's the case, theoretically, one could remove plymouth, boot verbose, and not worry about pulseaudio crashing the greeter. Also, I was fairly certain there's another audio engine for Linux... Could you simply remove pulseaudio and have a working system without sound?
[Acer Iconia A500] CurtisMJ:
The link to the firmware in Step 6 seems to have broken. Could you please re-upload or maybe provide instructions on compiling them myself? I got linux up, I just need WiFi now. Thanks for the great guide!
[Acer Iconia A500] Kevin Roscom:
It may be extremely late, but you can pull the broadcom firmware out of Android. I can't recall exactly where, but it should be in a folder called firmware I think. I don't have an A500 to test this with, but that's how I originally got it to work.
[Acer Iconia A500] HenrikE:
Firmwares are usually in /system/etc/firmware

Check also in /system/vendor/firmware
[Acer Iconia A500] montolla:
Hello

I flash you img in boot and recovery (by mistake).

Now I can get back to android.

I get ubuntu working on a200.

but now, I want to get access to the mmc device to install permanently ubuntu there.

Do you know how can I get back the original boot or get access to the mmc device and install linux there from my current Ubuntu installarion (precise 12.04)

Thanks
[Acer Iconia A500] montolla:
Hello

Can you give me the boot img file?

Can you edit it to boot from mmcblk1p1? Or tell me how can I do that?

Thanks
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] jphilippon:
One thing that really turns me away from Google Music is that there's no option to keep the screen on. I use a car dock and I hate to unlock the screen to change the song. :banghead:

I'm using PowerAmp right now, but I want to use Google Music. I want to like it, I really do, if there's any way to fix this please let me know.
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] stnguyen09:
You can use an app like Tasker to set your timeout to "infinite" when you have Google Music on. That way, your screen will always stay on as long as Google Music is running and when you exit the app your timeout settings should return to the way they were.
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] E.Cadro:
If you are also charging the device while in the car dock another option would be go to settings display & gestures and check the 3rd box down stay awake then the screen will not turn off while on charge. Sorry if I'm stating something that you already new just wanted to throw it out there ;)

Sent from my Nocturnalized Beast
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] jphilippon:
Thanks! I've been looking into Tasker but I'm afraid of the reviews saying it's extremely hard to learn. :p

I tried this before but the thing is, I don't want my screen staying on all night if something happens or it wakes to the lock screen somehow. Isn't that bad for the screen? Burning the image or something?
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] stnguyen09:
It's not hard to learn at all if you're only looking at basic functionality (like...if this is open, do this, this, and this). It's really intuitive. If you just play with it for like 30 minutes you'll know enough to get yourself going.
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] E.Cadro:
I use my phone as my alarm clock on my night stand with the app called deskclock + which has a night mode so I never had to worry about damaging the screen.

Sent from my Nocturnalized Beast
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] gmanley:
I say go with Tasker. Especially if you're going with something as rudimentary as "when google music is playing, keep the screen on" you shouldn't have any issue creating this task.
[AT&T, Rogers HTC One X, Telstra One XL] homeslice976:
Not too familiar with the ROMs or mods available for this device, but if there's an AOSP lockscreen mod, or a ROM that offers the AOSP lockscreen (maybe through a Tweaks app?), you should get music controls on the lockscreen, so you can skip/pause from the lockscreen, without unlocking
[Asus Transformer TF700] AspenMan:
If so, how?

I tried formatting my san disk ultra to ntfs and exfat with several different cluster size combos and it wouldn't work. At one point it did mount the card but I couldn't read (other than folders) or write to it.

Anyone out there know how to get a 64gb card to work? Your help would be greatly appreciated!
[Asus Transformer TF700] AspenMan:
Never mind, I found the appropriate thread (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1761861). Looks really hit or miss at this point... :-(
[Asus Transformer TF700] mertmag:
64 gb sd card

Did you try sd card maid? You may be able to partition it into 2 partitions.
[Asus Transformer TF700] AspenMan:
The MicroSD card issue was resolved with the last firmware update.
[Asus Transformer TF700] gottahavit:
What firmware version are running? .26 should solve most issues, though my 64gb ultra worked fine on.22
[Android Themes] traskers:
Looking for an AOSP Gingerbread theme for T-Mobile Theme Chooser.

I know there is technically something under Play Store, but that is basically just a green holo-styled theme.

I'm talking about as close to AOSP GB as possible. Same battery icon, etc.