[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] Aou:
Thanks for the article link. My only hope for Ubuntu Touch at this time is to have a "Stable" Ubuntu platform that I might be able to do some basics with (i.e. make a phone call or take a picture). This way, I could work in a nice linux environment on my daily driver, but without killing the bare essentials of a smartphone.

I will definitely continue to work on the Ubuntu Desktop (or whatever flavor) development. Right now, I have LXDE working pretty well and stable, but my biggest headaches is that I can't get "onboard" to work anymore. It seems to be installed just fine, but whenever I try to run it while in LXDE, these are the errors I get:

root@localhost:/# onboard
onboard
2013-10-22 06:37:52,169:WARNING:Config: gsettings schema for 'org.gnome.mousetweaks' is not installed
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/onboard", line 16, in <module>
ob = Onboard()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/OnboardGtk.py", line 111, in __init__
self.init()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/OnboardGtk.py", line 150, in init
self.keyboard = Keyboard()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/Keyboard.py", line 297, in __init__
WordSuggestions.__init__(self)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/WordSuggestions.py", line 69, in __init__
self._languagedb = LanguageDB(self)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/LanguageSupport.py", line 70, in __init__
self._iso_codes = ISOCodes()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/LanguageSupport.py", line 200, in __init__
self._read_all()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/LanguageSupport.py", line 218, in _read_all
self._read_languages()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Onboard/LanguageSupport.py", line 223, in _read_languages
dom = minidom.parse(f).documentElement
File "/usr/lib/python3.3/xml/dom/minidom.py", line 1963, in parse
return expatbuilder.parse(file)
File "/usr/lib/python3.3/xml/dom/expatbuilder.py", line 914, in parse
result = builder.parseFile(file)
File "/usr/lib/python3.3/xml/dom/expatbuilder.py", line 202, in parseFile
buffer = file.read(16*1024)
File "/usr/lib/python3.3/encodings/ascii.py", line 26, in decode
return codecs.ascii_decode(input, self.errors)[0]
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 15597: ordinal not in range(128)

The warning at the top about mousetweaks can be dealt with by installing mousetweaks. *shrug* If someone who knows anything about onboard and/or python can tell me what I'm missing, that'd be awesome. A suitable replacement for Onboard would be equally appreciated.

As for which remote program to use, I don't see what would prevent someone from installing (or compiling) an arm-compatible program in the current chroot setup, but I haven't messed much with this at all now that Freedreno is working okay... The biggest disadvantage (as mentioned above) is that when I'm in my chroot, I don't have a phone anymore. Interestingly enough, even though Android is "stopped", certain functions do still work from Android's side of the fence.... such as the internet (WiFi or 3G). I can't control any of it, but it works... :P

I am really trying to reverse-engineer the "flipped" model of Ubuntu Touch right now. Their idea is that the device will boot into Ubuntu, and then run Android in an LXC container. Ubuntu Touch then uses pieces of that Android instance (such as SurfaceFlinger) in order to operate properly.

My hope is that I might be able to do similar - start the device into Ubuntu Desktop, and then load Android in some sort of container, emulator, or something useful. "What's this, want to use a native-linux app? Just minimize Android. Need to make a call? Bring Android back up and dial away."

But first, by friends, the basics... :P