[Xperia Tablet Z Original Android Development] devwithzachary:
Standard LinuxonAndroid - optimised for tablet z (and other 10inch tabs)

What is this all about?/Why put this on my device?

This projects aim is to bring a range of linux distros to your android device through a method known as 'chroot', see it has running a linux distro within a virtual machine on your phone (Although its not! its using native ARM ports and the Android kernel) . You can access this virtual machine and run it on your phone without causing any damage to your device, or having to overwrite anything. Why might you want this? well my apps are designed to make the install and set up process as easy as possible while still giving you some flexibility. Once you have the distro up and running then you can pretty much run and install any linux software you like (so long as there is a arm port or it is not architecturally dependent).

Wait this uses VNC why shouldn't I just VNC to a computer?

VNC is used to access the GUI as at the moment I have not yet implemented a native way of viewing the GUI. But the Linux distro itself is running within the phone and can be controlled via the terminal app so if your a seasoned Linux user you may never even want to use the GUI

What is Chroot?/How does this work?

"A chroot on Unix operating systems is an operation that changes the apparent root directory for the current running process and its children" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroot

This method of running linux distros with android has been around for some time. I have worked on my scripts to make the process more user friendly and give you far more options from the word go.

The scripts start by mounting the linux image file within the android file system and then mounts the sdcard and if you have it internal memory within the linux file system.

Chroot is then used to change the root directory to that of the mounted linux and a bash shell is then opened to allow you to control linux this is kind of like 'booting' the OS.

The likes of VNC and SSH are then set up when linux is 'booted' to allow you to connect to the GUI if you require it.

Interested?

Ok so you want to get one of the support linux distros on your device, great welcome to the team :D

But first you will need to find out if your device is compatible with the method before anything else, this method 'should' work with pretty much any device but some ROM's/kernels will not work as they do not have loop device support etc.

HERE is a list of working devices and ROM's/kernels but remember just because its not on the list simply means no one has told me its working, it could still work!

Free Apps/Files

App

The App can be download via google play or the open source version can be download via source forge.

Distro Images

Below are our currently supported distros, click the distro of choice to go to its image download page on our source forge site (including torrent downloads)

Kali Linux

Testing

Below is all testing notes for the range of images, please note if you are running this on the stock ROM and kernel you will need to be about to mount /system as r/w see HERE for a work around (or install a custom ROM).

When using VNC to get the right screen size use 1920x1100 as the screen rez.

Ubuntu

Large - Works well, although like al devices Unity is rather slow over VNC so not recommended for every day use

Small - The most stable and best distro to use! so far found no issues and is very quick thanks to LXDE

Core - Works well with no issues, perfect for anyone that just wants the command line!

Backtrack

All works and includes a wide range of testing tools, plus uses the gnome 2 GUI which personally I really like!

Debian

Fedora

OpenSuse

ArchLinux

Kali Linux

Working well although terminal within VNC does not work, and kali is missing many of its tools (due to not having enough free space to install them all). Other than this it works very well using the XCFE interface.