yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
SUCCESS. I now have Ubuntu 11.04 booting on the Gtab. Using Pershoots kernel and files from the Vega folks, we now have touch screen working. Wireless is not up yet, and have not tested sound.

Thread from the Vegan folks:

http://android.modaco.com/content/a...-com/332887/ubuntu-linux-11-04-natty-on-vega/

From vega get the boot intrd image and the vegan root files.

http://www.adebenham.com/vega/

Follow the instructions to copy and build Pershoots kernel. Edit drivers/video/console/fbcon.c and searching for 'navy' and uncomment the line. This will give you the boot messages on the screen.

Formant the card to ext3. Unzip the vega_root file to an micro sd card of 4GB or better. use unzip -vxf vega_root.tgz

This will take awhile.

Edit /etc/fstab on the card and change mmcblk3p2 to mmcblk2p1

Copy the following files from the staging directory that you made after building Pershoots kernel:

sudo cp location-of-staging-dir location-sd/boot

sudo cp -Rp location-of-staging-dir/system/lib/modules/ location-sd/lib/modules/

Command to build the boot image:

./mkbootimg --kernel zImage --ramdisk initrd.img-2.6.32-custom --cmdline "root=/dev/mmcblk2p1 rootdelay=5 mem=448M@0M nvmem=64M@448M vmalloc=192M video=tegrafb console=tty0,115200 fbcon=rotate:1 fbcon=font:VGA8x8 usbcore.old_scheme_first=1 cpuid=200102 devicetype=1002 btmac=9c5ed6131a00 tegraboot=nand mtdparts=tegra_nand:16384K@12032K(misc),16384K@62208K(recovery),16384K@79104K(boot),273536K@96000K(system),153728K@370048K(cache),4096K@7424K(bootbmp),32768K@28928K(logodata)" -o boot.img

Once you have the boot image, grab a copy of the boot-karmac.zip file. Replace boot.img in the zip file with the one that you created and rename the zip file.

Power down the Gtab, if need be. Put your micro sd card in that has the ubuntu files. Boot into CWM and go to mounts and mount the usbdrive, and connect to your computer. Copy the zip file that you made to the root of the usbdrive. Unmount the usbdrive from your computer and then umount in CWM. Now use CWM to zip the file into the Gtab and reboot.

You should see text scroll by and and it should boot into Ubuntu.

If you do the updates, it will cause problems with libgc. If you do the updates, then log into a terminal window and do sudo dpkg -i /root/glibc/*.deb

This will restore the glibc files needed.

3-23-11 Update

The latest image from the Vega folks fails due to nvrm_daemon. It causes you to loose the external sd card that your booting from. I'm using the first version that they posted.

I've gotten wireless to see AP's. I had to use the bcm4329 driver from Chenglu.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=892308

The Gnome nm-applet does not run, as it has issues with libappmenu.so, so I've not been able to test using it to connect to any AP.

Slow headway.
[G Tablet General] case-sensitive:
Interesting! Could you please clarify one thing:

> Unzip the vega_root file to an micro sd card of 4GB or better. Formant the card to ext3. use unzip -vxf vega_root.tgz

Do you reformat the sdcard before or after unzip the files to the card? (I thought formating would destory all content of the card)

THANKS!
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
Format before unzipping the files.
[G Tablet General] doihaveto:
Awesome

Thanks for the great work

obviously we would need wireless (wifi) to make it all useful but the touch screen working is awesome

do you know if this will be able to run or support any of the following: Now or in the Future

1 usb dvd or cd drives- will they be able to be mounted and or even read/writable

2 flash- will flash video be able to be played in browser etc.

3 wine- would wine be able to be installed and used

I do not know how much of these are possible or impossible but all of them would be great

Thanks again
[G Tablet General] Roxxas049:
I'm new to the G tab and haven't had any experience at all with ubuntu, but I always want the latest and greatest thing in terms of tech.

Having said that I'm wondering just what are the possibilities of having ubuntu on the G tab, what can be done with it, how will it effect what I can do with the tablet once it is complete?

Thanks in advance.
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
To add cdrom support, you need to add the modules to the kernel. The cdrom drive will need external power as the usb port does not supply enough power to run external hd or cd drives.

Flash -- if there is an arm version for linux

wine -- would have to compile the source code for arm
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
Limited by your imagination and needs.
[G Tablet General] doihaveto:
will wicd work for wireless

in this post about ubuntu on the gtablet

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=894960

the wireless works only with wicd

would this maybe allow wireless to work in this port
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
At this time, the driver is not coming up. Running ifconfig does not show wlan0 at all, so I know I have an issue with driver. It does see my Verizon usb modem and my usb ethernet unit. With the ethernet unit, I can get online and surf. Currently, openoffice/librioffice are not available as there are dependencies between the two that cannot be resolved due to missing modules. The camera is not seen and I do not have any audio or power management.

I'll be working on this as I can over the weekend.
[G Tablet General] Blades:
Using a 2.6.32 kernel with natty might not be the best idea.. 2.6.38 also has broadcom drivers.. this is great and all. but whats preventing us from stepping away from the android kernel? In specific if you can..
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
I've pulled the nvida 2.6.36 tree but if fails to compile. Complaints about asm using odd registers cause the compile to fail. At this time, 2.6.32 tree has drivers for the hardware. If I can get the 2.6.36 to compile, I'll try it.

Right now, sound, battery monitoring, camera are not working. Buttons on the side and the volume up/down are also not working. This is a starting point.
[G Tablet General] noob4eva:
Forget about wine. Wine is an API translation layer, program loader plus libraries, it does not emulate x86, you are supposed to have it in the hardware. Wine on Gtab with ARM CPU will not do you any good, unless your windows applications are already compiled under ARM. And for that to happen you will have to wait until Microsoft comes up with windows on ARM first :)
[G Tablet General] Blades:
Try the latest git commit of 2.6.38 - its on rc8 fwiw.. I run it on my server (heh).. I also compiled it using a modded pershoot defconfig (in a silly attempt to see if I could be cooler than 2.6.36 xoom folk - and to get the new cpu stuff)

It did not boot android.... but it did compile with no errors. I think I disabled wifi tho.. so yeah, disable as much as you can... get a basic system running on 2.6.38, then start building up
[G Tablet General] doihaveto:
is there any progress here

just checking to see if there is any progress with wireless and or the kernel and drivers being used, is anyone trying this yet themselves besides op
[G Tablet General] Renegade8100:
i find this topic very interesting. I'd love to have this fully functional
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
I have not had luck with wireless. It looks like there is something missing the the vega image. I have gotten the wireless driver to load, but iwlist scan does not return any AP's. I pulled one of the 11.04 arm images for TI boards and tried to use the kernel that I built. I do not get a graphical screen and I cannot log in at a command prompt as I do not have a root password for that load. I've just built a generic 2.6.38 kernel to test on that image to see what happens.

I'm watching the vega forum on what they are doing.

I'm finding moving from working on x86 processors to arm interesting. As I get more information, I'll update the instructions. I want to get this running so I can use this on at a meeting in the first part of April.
[G Tablet General] dispozable:
get this running and expect a donate from me! i love android but compared to ubuntu it just doesnt cut it. i know you are using 11.04, but what ever happened to the ubuntu/kubuntu 9.04 (i think) MID Edition? Wasnt it made for arm? Did they stop development on this version?

Also, this may be a bit much to ask but could we get a pre-made image so we can test progress so far?

You guys are great! Keep up the good work!

edit: fixed my grammer
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
At this time I don't have a site to upload images to. I'm wanting to get the wireless sorted out, but as I make headway, I'll update the information that I posted on the first page. The vegan folks updated their vega image, but I cannot get it to boot. I get errors about inode from the sd card, but I know that the sd card checks out fine with fsck, so I've dropped back to their first image. I'm beginning to think that part of the problem is the modified driver for our wireless chip is different from the stock b43 driver in linux.
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
Headway

Update at the bottom of post #1. Wireless is working. Also, I tested an external CD drive and it was seen. The usb port did not supply enough power to spin the disk in the drive and I did not have an external power supply with me. :)
[G Tablet General] doihaveto:
This is great,but....

I am in no way knowledgeable of how to compile all this together, can we get more intensive instruction on how to get this running or can anyone get this done in a way that we can simply get it going by the same methods it takes to get this version running:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=894960

download the two files extract files to the sd card and flash the kernel that easy.

if not I may never get this up, I would appreciate it greatly

I could provide a drop box account to share the files if it is needed to get them available online just let me know

thanks:confused:
[G Tablet General] cuzzinz:
:-( i dont have my gtab with me... if anyone has a free moment and 11.04 with wifi working would you care to post a video?

I am really interested in seeing this in action!
[G Tablet General] mpguy84:
So this 11.04 version has touchscreen but no wifi, and the other version floating on xda has wifi but no touchscreen. Cant someone merge these? I found the drive information in the tar ball on the other ubuntu released on here... I wonder if we can just add this tar ball and add the driver from the other tar ball?!

Will look into it tonight. need a nice class 6 microsd first! :(

Guess it was already discussed in there. Was this tried with the Wicd also? I know they stated that normal wifi through ubuntu wasnt working but the WICD does.
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
The current natty image that the vega folks have up does not work on the gtab. I'm using the first version that they posted that did not use the tegra video driver. I can post the config file that I use to build pershoots kernel and the command strings to do a compile, build the intrd image, and the boot.img that you have to flash into nvram. It's not that hard to build a kernel on a linux system. I've had to learn how to do things differently for the gtab as I'm use to building linux kernels for x86/x86_64 systems.

As there are problems with some of the programs in the vegan load that I'm using, putting up an image of what I'm working with would not be up to expectations of others. Most people expect images to have working programs, not to be what I'd call pre-alpha.

Issues that have yet to be solved:

sound (driver not being loaded)

bluetooth (dbus/hal errors)

gnome networkmanager (version of the library it is not avalable)

automount

In the last root filesystem load that vegan posted, nvrm-daemon loads and then breaks sdcard2 and you can no longer read the card with the system images. I'm trying to find out where that daemon comes from (probably nvidia only).

It's these issues that keep me from giving out copies of the images, unless people are willing work with an image that incomplete and have broken programs.

I really wish that there was a KDE version to work with instead of Gnome.
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
I have a usb ethernet dongle and I compiled the driver as a module in the version of pershoots kernel that I'm working with. This is the only way I have to update the programs in the natty image. Installing WICD removes the network manager programs and I don't have wireless except at work and it's down. I've had to use a different version of the bcm4329 driver than the one that's in pershoots kernel tree.
[G Tablet General] mpguy84:
I'm extremely intrested in building my own version for this using the 10.10 netbook edition. Might be lighter.
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
I've only seen 150Mb memory used with the early vegan image that was loaded.
[G Tablet General] deadfraggle:
It's cool to see the amount of effort that is going in to make this work. Perhaps the people at Canonical will take notice and release a tablet version of Ubuntu after all.

Can't say I know much about the situation, but are problems relating to acceleration and touch due to not having the access to proprietary drivers? Does Viewsonic have a partnership with Google, or are they just using Android on their gtabs because it is free? If the former is true, I can't imagine they would be too happy with people having the ability to change the OS.
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
I should have image for a test alpha up shortly. Many programs are not working. I checked Nvidia's tegra forum and they have moved Linux support to unsupported and are only working on Android. Until Nvidia gives us a Linux driver, we will not have acceleration support.
[G Tablet General] deadfraggle:
Well that's not very encouraging. If I buy another tablet, it will be one that a good build of linux can be installed on.

At this point, is installing Ubuntu on the gtab mostly a novelty, or can anything useful be done with it? For instance, could I use the tools in Ubuntu to change access rights on files and folders on the internal sd card? Is shell access better than what one can do in the Android terminal emulator? Does using samba in Ubuntu to mount a network drive, make the mount available to Android?
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
One we get a full load working (11.04 is still beta) we should be able to do all that you are asking about.
[G Tablet General] slysecretspy:
So, I have the most recent version booted up. Working on an issue with NVRM_Daemon pulling the wrong EDID information off the LCD. X is reporting everything correctly, but the actual display is off.

Works on Vega, not on Adam or Gtab. Possibly Malata found a cheaper LCD vendor and then applied it with out actually changing some internals as Android really doesn't care about this process.

GTAB is looking more and more like Harmony- where Vega is Harmony+
[G Tablet General] dantedom:
share a working boot.img plz

ive been having some issues trying to compile the harmony kernel correctly i think. at the end after flashing the boot.img and booting, it always says it couldnt find the libs and im sure i copyied them to the sdcard a thousand times. and if the problem is the rootfs then ill try a custom build or download different ones, but i need to know the problem is not the kernel. so can anyone share a natty or lucid working zImage and the initrd. a boot.img would be apreaciated ? please :(

and if is not much to ask, how is it webbrowing with the working system? does flash and video playing work? hulu.com, crackle.com, youtube?
[G Tablet General] cramleir:
Backout?

What is the current backout if you want to get to Android? Bekkit's nvflash?
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
I use CWM and have a backup of the Android setup that I'm running. When I need to go back to Android, is go into CWM, backup & restore, advanced, select the last backup, and reinstall just the boot image. That is why I'm using the micro sd to test linux with.
[G Tablet General] Renegade8100:
Hey guys! What's the status of this project? I am really interested in this. I'd love to do any testing.
[G Tablet General] ekennes:
Sierra Wireless 3g Usb Dongle

I wonder if this would work? ^ as it has worked with Ubuntu in the past
[G Tablet General] NMCBR600:
stimied by nvida pulling the l4t images and that ubuntu is only releasing arm images for ti.
[G Tablet General] wasserkapf:
I'm not sure what you mean by l4t?

I purchased a second Woot tablet just to try and put Linux on it. About the same time I learned that nVidia had removed the Linux downloads, the NDK I believe.

They say that they will release a version that supports the latest kernel, but no promises.

I will keep my Woot tab bit longer. But if I can't install Linux on it, I will sell it.

I will not purchase another tablet (ARM) unless it supports Linux out-of-the-box. I now have been burned by two tablets manufacturers on that.
[G Tablet General] mpguy84:
Linux 4 tegra. its been brought down temporarily until they get a new one out which will have more support for the tegra devices. If you buy an android device that is ready for linux out of the box then you probably bought a linux tablet (which i dont think exists). Until then you have to be patient and wait for the devs and others to build you one. Seems kind of ungrateful all of the work individuals and groups put into these projects and you expect them to just work. Buy a cheap netboox with linux on it and save your money.

"L4T removed from Downloads page

by nvdru, posted Mar 25 2011 at 6:12PM

Linux For Tegra (L4T)

We have removed the L4T downloads from the site due to some bugs and while we prepare for a forthcoming release. Please continue to report if you are having issues (or successes)."

http://developer.nvidia.com/tegra/taxonomy/term/36/0
[G Tablet General] wasserkapf:
You misunderstood me. I didn't expect it to "just work". But right now there isn't anything to install (as you pointed out).
[G Tablet General] Misty soul:
I would also like a lot to test a Linux distribution on my Zpad (either Ubuntu or Debian, which are the distributions I use on a daily basis).

Did someone update the files after the recent Natty Narwhal release ?
[G Tablet General] n21klin:
It is amazing
[G Tablet General] mpguy84:
Yeah its kind of a pain in the @$$ as of right now. I might create something for this. Im a pretty good C# and vb.net programmer so we'll see how this turns out. Just finish taking my Linux admin 2 course for college so I have a clue of whats going on lol.
[G Tablet General] mpguy84:
finally got 11.04 working, im using it through android and vnc'ing into it so it gives me everything working, wifi! touchscreen! not fast at all though, but it should be enough for me to build the image to a stable version and a fast version so when it gets booted natively it will have all of the goods working. getting wifi and nvidia drivers working are priority for me though. Wish me luck.
[G Tablet General] Misty soul:
Congratulation!

I hope we will all be able soon to see a complete GNU/Linux system on the tablet.
[G Tablet General] Renegade8100:
Hey guys, eager to know if there is any update! I am real anxious =p
[G Tablet General] wasserkapf:
nVidia has pulled the L4T (Linux 4 Tegra) files from their download page. They say that they needed updating, and will return after they are updated. See this page:

http://developer.nvidia.com/node/19086

They also have moved the tegra forum discussions about Linux to the "Unsupported" section!

There is some hope yet that an updated version will still be released. There is a recent post by nVidia Developer Technology Engineer David Chait:

So, keep checking that downloads page.
[G Tablet General] bandroidx:
wish my college had linux admin courses! i had to take windows admin courses :puke:
[G Tablet General] wasserkapf:
Wifi on Linux sometimes can be tricky, it depends on the maker of the chips on the card. If you need help using a regular Linux distro on a regular PC, I would seek help from a Linux forum. One that I have personal experience with is Linux Forums. In fact I created a How-To there for gathering the info needed to diagnose wifi problems:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wireless-internet/137532-wireless-setup-start-here.html

If you are referring to wifi on a g-tablet installation of Linux, you should start a new thread here on XDA.
[G Tablet General] DKS1282:
Id love to be able to do this, but your instructions are so bad.

"Follow the instructions to copy and build Pershoots kernel. Edit drivers/video/console/fbcon.c and searching for 'navy' and uncomment the line. This will give you the boot messages on the screen."

Link perhaps? Unless you would like to detail the instructions.
[G Tablet General] toadleyb:
http://developer.nvidia.com/tegra/forum/linux-tegra-release-12-alpha-1-released

The new L4T has been released. Anyone still working on this. Ubuntu on the grab would be awesome
[G Tablet General] k2mahajan:
Has anybody tried the latest builds?

Has anybody tried the latest builds? I believe the supports for wifi and the non-working applications would come along as new builds get released... Please let us know if anybody is already trying this out..
[G Tablet General] Blades:
The instructions are hard to translate into the world of non-dev board harmony devices. I'll have to take a second look.
[G Tablet General] heinrich:
Not the 1st time i've seen Chenglu's BCM driver make things work. Nice :)
[G Tablet General] mf9120:
is anyone still developing linux onto the g tablet?
[Atrix 4G Android Development] hobbit19:
http://depositfiles.com/files/nkfms8rj8

mirror

http://dangdeals.com/OLYFR_U4_1.5.2_SIGNED.rar

Change .rar to .gz then extract

RSD:

http://rapidshare.com/files/452152932/rsdlite_5.0.msi

http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1TFKDEHB/rsdlite_5.0.msi_links

32-bit drivers

http://www.multiupload.com/QNFILE4F07

http://www.multiupload.com/QNFILE4F07

64-bit drivers

http://www.multiupload.com/FIN3KYUD7S

http://www.multiupload.com/FIN3KYUD7S

How To: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=12042256&postcount=245

(c) http://forum.androidfan.ru/index.php?showtopic=7390

by _shadow_
[Atrix 4G Android Development] malfuncion:
Very nice! And many thanks. I will wait for more info before I get RSD happy though :)
[Atrix 4G Android Development] KaLiBLeeK:
Oh snap.

I'm at work, so I can't flash even if I wanted to.

From the link in the OP, translated by Chrome, probably poorly...haha:

*fingers crossed* that this is legit.
[Atrix 4G Android Development] Fixter:
Wow. O.o Downloading now! THANK YOU!
[Atrix 4G Android Development] LancerV:
Wow this changes everything
[Atrix 4G Android Development] clubtech:
Is this the at&t sbf?
[Atrix 4G Android Development] Ririal:
My phone is already bricked, testing this file.
[Atrix 4G Android Development] Fixter:
Now lets see all those people that were talking trash about the Atrix come back with their legs between their tails. Saying Inspire this and Inspire that... Sure...! Sure...! :D :cool:
[Atrix 4G Android Development] KaLiBLeeK:
Downloading this using my Atrix as a wifi hotspot at work = TORTURE. 15hrs left, according to Chrome. Hahaha.

I'm going to be refreshing the begeezus out of this thread today.
[Atrix 4G Android Development] YellowGTO:
If anyone has this that can remirror. Its painfully slow.
[Atrix 4G Android Development] rozzco:
<crossesfingers> I hope this is legit. :D
[Atrix 4G Android Development] Fixter:
Im on that Yellow, give me a few.
[Atrix 4G Android Development] YellowGTO:
^That made me laugh

Awesome!
[Atrix 4G Android Development] jpinoy:
Yes, it is slow..haha

Yup, really slow.. have 60MB right now.. 4/hrs left.. and also doing it on my Atrix.. :( talk about watching paint dry.. haha..
[Atrix 4G Android Development] naturefreak85:
While I agree, I'm stuck at work, so I just VNC'd into my home comp and set up the file to download. Home comp says it will take 2 hours to download, so by the time I get home I can check it out and play around with it. **** just got real. Let the true hacking begin.
[Atrix 4G Android Development] darkamikaze:
Oo someone beat dg on the upload?
[Atrix 4G Android Development] xxtsfxx:
I dont even have the Atrix yet and I'm excited :D
[Atrix 4G Android Development] Ririal:
This could just be a leaked OTA update. The source site isn't specific as to what it is.