Ubuntu on the Desire

partyatmygaff

Ubuntu (And almost all Debian based Linux distros with a bit of tweaking) now work on the Desire and Nexus One.

The Nexus One is fairly straightforward provided it's already rooted but the Desire needs a few tweaks to get it working.

The reason for this is that all Desire kernels lack a certain module used for loopback devices (Which is needed to run a chroot Linux distro). Simply put, the kernel for the Desire needs to be recompiled for it to work perfectly. I'm working on that at the moment and you can check my progress on the following XDA-Dev thread. You'll also find instructions on how to install Ubuntu to your Desire in the same thread. Give it a shot! Some custom ROMs already have loopback device support but many more do not.


http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=723493

Edit: Wasted effort, the kernel i'm using apparently does have loopback device support. Must be another issue.
Edit2: Now working but i've no idea what it is that fixed it.
Edit3: Instead of typing bootubuntu to start ubuntu you have to run ubuntu.sh first. To do that I used the following commands
cd /sdcard/ubuntu
sh ./ubuntu.sh

Then you type in bootubuntu. The phone locks and restarts but when you type in bootubuntu again it starts up fine.

jimmycrackcorm

All well and good but why?

partyatmygaff

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

All well and good but why?

Why not?

That and the fact that with ubuntu running on your phone you can use pretty much any application that works on Ubuntu ARM. Web servers, bittorrent clients, desktop firefox. All of that.

Stephen

Does it still work as a phone though? Desktop OS on a phone looks rather inconvenient

conor.hogan.2

It is being done because it can be done, and before they knew it could be done to see if it could be done

Fair play - i doubt anyone would install this as the main use case on their phone but the desire and n1 are quick and able enough to run both I imagine and it would be cool to have.

Fair play - I wont be using it my g1 is finding it hard enough at times to run 2.1...

partyatmygaff

Stephen wrote: »

Does it still work as a phone though? Desktop OS on a phone looks rather inconvenient

It does. It runs through a VNC app so you can treat it as any other app. I can swap between texting and using ubuntu for example just as I would swap between texting and the mp3 player.

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

It is being done because it can be done, and before they knew it could be done to see if it could be done

Fair play - i doubt anyone would install this as the main use case on their phone but the desire and n1 are quick and able enough to run both I imagine and it would be cool to have.

Fair play - I wont be using it my g1 is finding it hard enough at times to run 2.1...

Ubuntu with GNOME is fairly slow but it's not unusable though to be fair. Firefox for example takes only about 6 seconds to start up. LXDE is smooth as butter though.

Goodshape

Have you actually got this up and running? Any screenshots?

partyatmygaff

I do but its no different than a regular ubuntu desktop.

Why Should I

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I do but its no different than a regular ubuntu desktop.

Hi mate,

If you don't mind taking the time, Could you explain why would one do this?