Hey guys!
I bought the A700 a few months ago and now I stumbled upon this link in our forum. It's a port of Ubuntu on the A500 running natively with Wifi. Touchscreen runs out of the box, ARM Support is now supported natively by kernel 3.7.
The following things I need to mention:
-rootfs must be on the external sdcard as a ext2/3/4 partition
-sdcard can still be used when partitioned as FAT32/ext
-if internal wifi does not work out of the box, you can connect any wireless usb dongle via usb-host
My question to the devs here would be:
Is it too hard to port this to our A700 as it nearly is the same as the A500?
I hope this wasn't posted beforehand and was answered, but I'd like to support such kind of project so I can use Linux on my device natively.
As nobody answers the question...
After rooting, it'd be possible to use Ubuntu/Debian/Arch Linux via chroot. But I couldn't find links whether media applications , especially sound, is working. The possibility to use Linux fully on my tablet pleases me, but I rather have it boot natively, but for this we need some things I found in the Asus Transformer TF700 Forums(which is one of the first tablets to get dual boot Android/Linux):
-unlocked bootloader (that's quite a major fact in porting linux to our devices. I'm no dev, I can program a little in java but that's it.)
-devs willing to build armhf Linux from source or use Ubuntu armhf /Debian armhf versions(I'd prefer Ubuntu or Debian as both are quite the same but Unity would be better to use on touchscreens)
-compile the tegra drivers in this package (wouldn't be too hard if one package already existed, people could install it after installation for HWA)
-rootfs on sdcards (since Android is still on NAND and it'd be cool to dualboot, but still, the lack of an unlocked bootloader is hardening the entire process
I don't know if it'll work, but if we write an petition to ACER to unlock their bootloader, maybe they could send as a tool like ASUS did?
Or does such a tool already exist? I only know of rooting tools but none to unlock bootloaders (which could explain why you can easily brick your Iconia A700 , i think)
If somebody is willing to help/provide ideas to this project, I could do some work and ask devs who work also on the Linux Kernel to help us out. But we also need a volunteer to lend them their device. But first, and that's priority nr.1: we need to unlock bootloader as fast as possible.
Ninja Edit: Found out that the bootloader is already unlocked, so we just need an .img that boots from sdcard so the Iconia sees it.
So, I played around with chroot+boot scripts to boot linux "virtually" on the A700.
Wouldn't it be possible to leave the ubuntu.img on the sdcard, but get the bootscript on the NAND/internal memory, so it could execute while booting?
I don't know how to accomplish this, but there'd be a way to execute it to run natively. Ubuntu via chroot with keyboard/mouse via USB OTG and HUB works without sound working yet, but it's just a matter of time.
I really hope that more people start helping/providing info on this matter , just to provide more ideas to this project.
Hello All,
I bought a Craig CLP281x netbook at Rite-Aid (ICS) specifically to begin playing around with Android and learning how to modify it. I got an update.img from the craig website, and rooted the device.
My question here is more basic than basic - I can open the img and look around inside with just an explorer, but if I want to try "rolling my own", do I need to use Android SDK to somehow create it? Or do I just start reading up on component parts and swapping them out?
Essentially, what do I need to compile my own update.img?
Thanks!
TM
Hi . it will be appreciated if somebody offer me a step by step tutorial about installing Ubuntu Mobile onto HTC ONE S , please .
i found some instruction that says only nexus devices are allowed to install OS .
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Install
but in this [URL="http://blog.en.uptodown.com/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-your-tablet-or-smartphone/"]link [/URL]they said that :
"Ubuntu Touch supports audio, video, and connection hardware on your device, and runs its Linux kernel from a very basic version of CyanogenMod 10.1 from which elements that aren’t necessary on Canonical’s system have been removed, such as Dalvik, the process virtual machine that runs apps on your Android device.All you need to do is customize a ROM for your device by following the instructions on the Ubuntu Wiki"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://blog.en.uptodown.com/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-your-tablet-or-smartphone/
i've confused can anybody confirm this that i can't install ubuntu onto my HTC ?
There are some people working on it, but I haven't heard of any successes yet.
Hi guys !
I wanted to know whether the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 can run Windows 8./LINUX !!
Theoretically it shouldn't be too hard as it has an Intel Atom x86 processor and it shares a lot of it's specs with the Acer Iconia w510 and other tablets running Windows 8
Can you please tell me some of the issues that we may have to deal with ?
Like we will have to do something with the bootloader to make Windows 8 bootable and things like that :/
And please if you want to say something like -Why do you want to run windows on an Android tablet-
XDA is about modding. A new OS will not hurt anyone AFAIK.
What are your ideas ? I think it can be done but what will we need to do ?
Now we will be concentrating on Linux. it Will be easier.
Please use this thread for discussing Linux on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
Thanks for reading !
Nitro_123 said:
Hi guys !
I wanted to know whether the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 can run Windows 8.
Theoretically it shouldn't be too hard as it has an Intel Atom x86 processor and it shares a lot of it's specs with the Acer Iconia w510 and other tablets running Windows 8
Can you please tell me some of the issues that we may have to deal with ?
Like we will have to do something with the bootloader to make Windows 8 bootable and things like that :/
And please if you want to say something like -Why do you want to run windows on an Android tablet-
XDA is about modding. A new OS will not hurt anyone AFAIK.
What are your ideas ? I think it can be done but what will we need to do ?
Thanks for reading !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
much like apple windows 8 is closed source. Thats pretty much the end of the thread. Without a way to compile, edit the operating system and know what changes your making its just not a undertaking many will accept.
@trevd Do you have anything to say about this ?
@wranglerray I'm just talking about installing windows to a device. AFAIK no compiling/editing will be needed. There are other tablets out there that do the same thing so why not this one ? The only major hurdle I see is making some kind of a custom bootloader that can boot the windows stuff instead of the android stuff. THAT part will probably need to be made from scratch or it may be ported from a similar device.
There are quite a few devices like this that run windows with similar specs so why not this one ?
Nitro_123 said:
@trevd Do you have anything to say about this ?
@wranglerray I'm just talking about installing windows to a device. AFAIK no compiling/editing will be needed. There are other tablets out there that do the same thing so why not this one ? The only major hurdle I see is making some kind of a custom bootloader that can boot the windows stuff instead of the android stuff. THAT part will probably need to be made from scratch or it may be ported from a similar device.
There are quite a few devices like this that run windows with similar specs so why not this one ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well quite honestly your talking about porting windows to a device. Our device comes with android and you want to port windows to it instead. So on our device there are parititons chuncks of data of varying sizes allocated to hold a small part of the code that runs our phone. from ramdisk to the radio. The issue on its surface, we dont know how that partition table lines up with a different device.(which the partition table can and most likely is, completely different) and because winodws 8 is closed source we dont know how it boots, or how to edit the imstaller to ensure the os gets copied over the correct partitions. if porting were as easying as just flashing what ever you want and then changing some things to tweak it i'm sure you'd see hundreds of ports in a day or two. Unforntatley it really kinda sucks
The partitions are the biggest problem. We could in theory also boot from the SD card and as a result bypass all the android stuff and get it dual-booting but first we need to know how we can boot windows
Nitro_123 said:
@trevd Do you have anything to say about this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi There
I've not got a device in my hands yet to be able to give a proper device focused opinion on this.
but since you ask, I will say It really all depends on the bootloader setup on the device and how accessible that is, it could well be a proprietary Samsung Design in which case I wouldn't want to "mess" with it unless you had a JTag handy for when s**t goes wrong, otherwise you'll be holding a very expensive brick.
Even without bootloader access theoretically you could create a 3rd stage bootloader ( possibly Grub2/uboot ) which sits in place of the kernel in the boot image ( or recovery image ) , this would give the Option to load android or chainload into the windows boot manager, this is how things are done on classic x86.
If you have to go with a 3rd Stage Loader then the first steps is to get your own code running instead of the Standard Kernel Initialization inside an android boot image, There's all sorts of fun to be had after that as basically you'd need to place things in memory where the Kernel or the Boot Manager is expecting to find them amongst many other things.
Standard Windows 7/8 Installations setup a "hidden ( not assigned a drive letter in windows) " 100MB NTFS partition which contains the bootmgr.exe ( TRIVIA : boot manager replaced NT LOADER ( NTLDR ) which was used by Windows XP ). The boot configuration datafile ( BCD ) contains the settings for loading the actual operating system.
I wouldn't be too concerned about the closed source nature of Windows as there's still plenty of folks doing some absolutely bonkers **** with Windows/Windows Booting. Check out http://reboot.pro if you want to see some of that. My favourite is the 10MB WindowsXP that boots cmd.exe and nothing else LOL WAT!?! . I'm not saying you'll find the answers there but I'd consider it the "state of the art" when booting windows in unusual ways.
Without getting too far ahead, if you did get it booting then it appears the Asus Memo Pad FHD 10 which is a windows 8 device has the same SOC so I would expect there to be driver support already present ( or available ).
Additionally I've not even considered UEFI and how that would affect the whole scenario as I've not delved into the UEFI chaos yet.
Personally I've not used Windows in anger for a couple of years and I've only booted Windows 8 in VM's just to have a look, so my "WindowsFu" is getting a little rusty.
In Summary : Technically Possible ( anything is possible ) - All depends on the bootloader and how much you want it! and to paraphrase @wranglerray "If it was easy, everyone would be doing it"
Trevd
@trevd @wranglerray Thanks so much for the input
This shouldn't really be too hard to do for an experienced dev IMO but I don't have mcuh experience with all this stuff
The stuff that has been done to the HD2 was a lot harder I think but Cotulla still managed to make a custom bootloader and boot WP7 things like that
Thanks again for the comments
@wranglerray @trevd
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2540480
Please read the above link
basically we can now understand what the partitions are and what they do
Is it really that hard to make some kind of a zip file that can be flashed in recovery to boot the windows 8 bootloader ?
Why can't we just install an image of windows 8 to the SD card and boot off it ?
What do I need to know in order to understand and try to make this work ? Since no one is developing for the tab 3 10.1 I thought I'd give it a try
Nitro_123 said:
@wranglerray @trevd
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2540480
Please read the above link
basically we can now understand what the partitions are and what they do
Is it really that hard to make some kind of a zip file that can be flashed in recovery to boot the windows 8 bootloader ?
Why can't we just install an image of windows 8 to the SD card and boot off it ?
What do I need to know in order to understand and try to make this work ? Since no one is developing for the tab 3 10.1 I thought I'd give it a try
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a newbee I will guess:
Windows can take a bigger effort.
Runing Linux natively, easier. Android drivers should be already Linux Compatible. Tweeking them under Linux I do not know. My best guess is looking how to make grub to run first for dual booting. Or even better, Create a partition on external SD forl Linux, To be safe on TWRP recovery add a bottom to boot Linux or even esier re-use one temporary to test posibility.
Good Luck.
dale_para_bajo said:
As a newbee I will guess:
Windows can take a bigger effort.
Runing Linux natively, easier. Android drivers should be already Linux Compatible. Tweeking them under Linux I do not know. My best guess is looking how to make grub to run first for dual booting. Or even better, Create a partition on external SD forl Linux, To be safe on TWRP recovery add a bottom to boot Linux or even esier re-use one temporary to test posibility.
Good Luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@dale_para_bajo EXACTLY my friend. You stole the words right out of my mouth
Objective: Get Linux booting. SD card way is better.
Any updates on this?
SharpnShiny said:
Any updates on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will never happen, the firmware isn't compatible.
calden74 said:
It will never happen, the firmware isn't compatible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I've looked a bit more into it since, I think the best chance was Windows RT, and that isn't downloadable I believe, so that's it. Thanks for the reply though.
SharpnShiny said:
Yeah I've looked a bit more into it since, I think the best chance was Windows RT, and that isn't downloadable I believe, so that's it. Thanks for the reply though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if Windows RT aka an ARM optimized ISO, was downloadable, it COULD NOT be used on Tab 3 10.1
Because this Tab doesn't have an ARM CPU, it have a x86 (32Bits) CPU. So better get a x86 ISO. I also got the same idea (like many other Tab 3 10.1 users). But the dream is NOT going anywhere. Also, Android apps are honestly BAD OPTIMIZED for this CPU ! That's why the Tab lags.
I sold mine and have bought a Tab 7.7 w/ SuperAmoled HD Screen but I broke its screen and can't now find any replacement in my region
Our best chance would be:
Ability of instally Windows 8 into a single .IMG file like Windows XP has been installed !
However, QEMU and KVM refuses to install Windows 8 into a VM idk why !
The RAM of the Tab is also a bit low to run Windows 8 inside Android.
If only a Great Dev could port or create "The Multi-boot bootloader" for Tab 3 10.1 as done on Nexus 7, then I won't waste my money buying a Windows 8 Tablet again since I would manage to install Windows 8 natively, whatever happened !
Sent from my roomate's computer
Can this work?
trevd said:
Hi There
I've not got a device in my hands yet to be able to give a proper device focused opinion on this.
but since you ask, I will say It really all depends on the bootloader setup on the device and how accessible that is, it could well be a proprietary Samsung Design in which case I wouldn't want to "mess" with it unless you had a JTag handy for when s**t goes wrong, otherwise you'll be holding a very expensive brick.
Even without bootloader access theoretically you could create a 3rd stage bootloader ( possibly Grub2/uboot ) which sits in place of the kernel in the boot image ( or recovery image ) , this would give the Option to load android or chainload into the windows boot manager, this is how things are done on classic x86.
If you have to go with a 3rd Stage Loader then the first steps is to get your own code running instead of the Standard Kernel Initialization inside an android boot image, There's all sorts of fun to be had after that as basically you'd need to place things in memory where the Kernel or the Boot Manager is expecting to find them amongst many other things.
Standard Windows 7/8 Installations setup a "hidden ( not assigned a drive letter in windows) "* 100MB NTFS partition which contains the bootmgr.exe ( TRIVIA : boot manager replaced NT LOADER (* NTLDR ) which was used by Windows XP ). The boot configuration datafile ( BCD )* contains the settings for loading the actual operating system.
I wouldn't be too concerned about the closed source nature of Windows as there's still plenty of folks doing some absolutely bonkers **** with Windows/Windows Booting. Check out httpdouble slash)reboot(dot)pro if you want to see some of that. My favourite is the 10MB WindowsXP that boots cmd.exe and nothing else LOL WAT!?! . I'm not saying you'll find the answers there but I'd consider it the "state of the art" when booting windows in unusual ways.
Without getting too far ahead, if you did get it booting then it appears the Asus Memo Pad FHD 10 which is a windows 8 device has the same SOC so I would expect there to be driver support already present ( or available ).
Additionally I've not even considered UEFI and how that would affect the whole scenario as I've not delved into the UEFI chaos yet.
Personally I've not used Windows in anger for a couple of years and I've only booted Windows 8 in VM's just to have a look, so my "WindowsFu" is getting a little rusty.
In Summary : Technically Possible ( anything is possible ) - All depends on the bootloader and how much you want it! and to paraphrase** @wranglerray "If it was easy, everyone would be doing it"
Trevd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am new to the forum but not windows and android though not advanced but do you think that getting those files in the 100mb partition and making an ext2 image of them with slight modifications to fit in the architecture and flash the image as a recovery image?
or perhaps we could use rom manager and by creating a virtual rom composing of windows and boot them via the rom manager tool.
or perhaps we could use grub or a similar tool to boot into an image file or sdcard with windows installed on it and flash the grub files onto the recovery partition but some one with advanced info please confirm all these possibilities!
________________________________________________________________________________________
Hit thanks if I helped, its not that tough
Go ahead guys !
This thread is becoming IRRELEVANT !
Tab 3 was made to run Android (and possibly Ubuntu since Android is a mobile version of Linux) but NOT Windows !
So just use Android or Nothing.
Sent from my roomate's computer
yes but
Nonta72 said:
Go ahead guys !
This thread is becoming IRRELEVANT !
Tab 3 was made to run Android (and possibly Ubuntu since Android is a mobile version of Linux) but NOT Windows !
So just use Android or Nothing.
Sent from my roomate's computer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but since both Windows and any x86 Linux are designed for the same architecture, shouldn't we be able to boot Windows?
glorified sd card
Dani515 said:
Yes, but since both Windows and any x86 Linux are designed for the same architecture, shouldn't we be able to boot Windows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think it's possible
check this out starting at angel_666's post #18
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2589370&page=2
finding out where the flag checking starts and finishes would probably make the third stage boot
more realizeable. i directly flashed both grub and then plop to recovery block and got nowhere,
so it's mmcblk0boot0 or mmcblk0boot1, i haven't found anything in param===>/dev/block/mmcblk0p16 yet
and if p5210 has the little kernel burnt onto the chip setup, from my understanding of what i've
read it's a really basic/small/simple setup so even if the flag was there and unchangeable we should
still be able to get past it somewhere else, right?
Really ?
Dani515 said:
Yes, but since both Windows and any x86 Linux are designed for the same architecture, shouldn't we be able to boot Windows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I firstly got this idea and have posted here on XDA about it :good:
Look at this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2682603
However, mine was about running Windows 8 inside Android
Sent from my roomate's computer
Done already?
Hello,
I have found this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2070139
If you read further, you can find almost complete solution for archlinux natively on Note 10.1. WIth multiple fixes/scripts. Any reason why it cannot be done on tab3 10.1? I'm asking because I might try to compile proper kernel and prepare some distribution as tablet provides power that ends up completely wasted by android.
Hello all,
I want install Ubuntu to my tablet Asus Transformer TF101 as dualboot with Android. I found a lot of topics about this, but all are very old (about 3 years) and links for tools are down. Could you help me what way - tool, approach is appropriate in this time? I found several ways for Windows/Linux OS with different tools, I can use Windows or Linux - it does not matter, but I can not find currently right way and tool. Thanks for advices.
I don't think that there is "right way" for such dualboot. "Kexec" should do that, but as far as I know, there were no success of using it with TF101. However, there is "wrong" (but still working) way to reach similar result.
It is possible to create blob that flashes kernel/initrd of linux/android disto and reboot afterthat. It is one-time solution, however and it will require to flash same blob again after OS boot, but it is still better that nothing.
+1