Hey there, XDA.
So I've been puttering about with Ubuntu Touch on another device I have lately (Fairphone 2) and attempted a couple ports in the past...
(Moto X 2013, gave away to a friend, Galaxy Note 3, ran into a roadblock with partition sizes)
I got to looking at my Shield Tablet and was just thinking about how it'd be a near perfect poster-child for Ubuntu Touch for tablets. The device is still a relative power house, has great specs, native HDMI out for convergence, and even has OEM maintained device trees and kernel sources!
On paper, it's perfect.
So, I was thinking, would anyone else want to see Ubuntu Touch running on this tablet through the UBPorts project? Any dev support would be especially helpful, as Nvidia's hardware is truly a bit...unique.
Before anyone points it out: I am aware that there is a 'native' Ubuntu desktop port already, however it is awfully out of date and the developer does not seem very interested in maintaining it currently (and I don't blame him, considering how much work porting nvidia's L4T sources to the TN8 must be)
Interest from me, I can test. No good at developing though !
Yes of course! There is some interesting on having Linux in shield tablet. There's linux4tegra but it's dependent on lollipop kernel. So it would be nice having a dual boot stock nougat and Ubuntu for shield tablet thanks for the initiative.
Interest from me too. Also without dev skills, but happy to test
Son-j said:
Yes of course! There is some interesting on having Linux in shield tablet. There's linux4tegra but it's dependent on lollipop kernel. So it would be nice having a dual boot stock nougat and Ubuntu for shield tablet thanks for the initiative.
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Click to collapse
Well, sadly, might still be dependant on Lollipop blobs/kernel as Ubuntu Touch still relies on Lollipop device trees since it uses libhybris for device support. Most annoying thing about it.
Is it possible to request Ubuntu for an updated kernel dependency?
So, this is embarassing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ05o0RPwUQ
Which version of Ubuntu is this?
Lyokacanthrope said:
Hey there, XDA.
So I've been puttering about with Ubuntu Touch on another device I have lately (Fairphone 2) and attempted a couple ports in the past...
(Moto X 2013, gave away to a friend, Galaxy Note 3, ran into a roadblock with partition sizes)
I got to looking at my Shield Tablet and was just thinking about how it'd be a near perfect poster-child for Ubuntu Touch for tablets. The device is still a relative power house, has great specs, native HDMI out for convergence, and even has OEM maintained device trees and kernel sources!
On paper, it's perfect.
So, I was thinking, would anyone else want to see Ubuntu Touch running on this tablet through the UBPorts project? Any dev support would be especially helpful, as Nvidia's hardware is truly a bit...unique.
Before anyone points it out: I am aware that there is a 'native' Ubuntu desktop port already, however it is awfully out of date and the developer does not seem very interested in maintaining it currently (and I don't blame him, considering how much work porting nvidia's L4T sources to the TN8 must be)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Lyokacanthrope I can help with testing and stuff if we can get it booted
bneo99 said:
@Lyokacanthrope I can help with testing and stuff if we can get it booted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hah...I kinda put this idea on the backburner cuz I couldn't really get anywhere and ubports/yunit seems to be floundering currently.
Speaking of flounder (aka Nexus 9), it seems that had an [at least booting] Ubports in the past
https://plus.google.com/+Ubports/posts/iCHaKMTXC1y
https://devices.ubports.com/#/flounder_lte
I am very interested indeed. And I can speak for at least two more people that I know.
UBports still seems to be working on Ubuntu Touch, from what I can tell.
How about Plasma Mobile?
Related
The dual-form nature of this item would fit a dual-boot scenario perfectly. Boot into Android when used as a tablet, boot into Ubuntu when docked. Just curious as to the possibility of this.
As far as I know, Ubuntu supports ARM architecture, so the Tegra 2 chip should work well with it. Ubuntu 11.04 was just released with the integrated Unity interface, which looks wonderful with the touchscreen: http://unity.ubuntu.com/projects/utouch/
The Unity 2D interface should fly on the Tegra 2, even if the Unity 3D mode lags.
Now I know that on the Xoom, we were able to run Ubuntu on a VNC server and connect to it locally, but that is obviously not an ideal solution, due to VNC's weakness, and the general inefficiency of it.
Are there any devs working on something like this so far? I am sure there would be a very sizable audience for something like this. I'd be happy to do any necessary testing, and I'm sure more will as well. I also wouldn't mind taking this as an opportunity to get involved with the dev community (I have a thorough background in CS, just no experience with this specifically), I'd be happy if anyone were to take me under their wing. =)
You're not the only one hoping for this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1053641
I was just thinking about this yesterday. Dual booting Ubuntu and Android would make this the perfect device for me.
i would also love the ability to run linux on mine
I'm tempted to wait until this is guaranteed to happen before buying this thing. I need a new portable device for developing on the go, and I also want and need a Honeycomb device for testing apps and casual content consumption.
At the same time though, if anyone knows of a site or thread dedicated to making this dual-boot happen (similar to the dedicated Toshiba AC100 page here http://tosh-ac100.wetpaint.com/page/Ubuntu ), I wouldn't mind learning all about it and potentially help if I can, so please share.
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App
There are some devs who definitely pulled this off on the Atrix and I had Ubuntu on my phone so I'm sure we can get it on the transformer. I'll try to find them and see if similar methods can be used.
It'll take years but I don't see why it wouldn't work. If I can do this on my old ass wm6.5 phone then it's possible on the TF!
Maybe it wont take years, but more of these tablets have to hit the market. Still so many people waiting on their preorders, me included.
I think that there might be quite the interest in making this happen. I remember reading somewhere that Ubuntu allready runs on the Tegra2, so why should it be far into the future before we see it running on the Transformer?
Sorry for any typos. I have fat fingers, a 4" screen, a small child and a dictionary gone wild...
here's to hoping
So far i'm quite impressed with this little tablet. It crunches bytes as fast as i can throw them, and customizing it was easy enough. Although with the dock station and Tegra 2 it does feel more like a netbook than a tablet.
Android 3.0 IMO is the best compromise between a desktop and mobile phone OS. Although it's expandability is not quite what i would wish it to be. Possibly once more developers gear their programs for the higher resolutions and more powerful CPUs this will change. For now dual booting Ubuntu and Android would be perfect.
I'm on board with any project coming about to make this happen, and would offer up my hardware and feedback for beta testing. Hope to see a dedication in this direction soon!
Has anyone tried the method in the xoom development forums?
Sent from HTC Inspire 4G via XDA Premium.
gordec said:
Has anyone tried the method in the xoom development forums?
Sent from HTC Inspire 4G via XDA Premium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen the post, but I'm assuming you mean VNC?
Zach Alt said:
I haven't seen the post, but I'm assuming you mean VNC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it's VNC. That's not that hard, we're talking about straight booting INTO Ubuntu.
i have this image from my desire, which boots linux xlde (or something) i cant get it to connect to that image. Pockecloud just get Server disconnected.... maybe another image.. actually that was loading it from removable MicroSD, im now going to try copying to the internal memory "SDCARD" as that would be what the script would have orignally been setup for. I will post results as soon as this has finished pasting the files...
EDIT: still cant get this to work, seems like terminal is ending too quickly which i think means the loopback memory doesnt work, i think thats how it works anyway.
No lock with WYSE pocket cloud or android vnc, i think we need another build for honeycomb, well not so much the OS but the Tegra chip instead.
ubuntuforums.org
There is a thread over at ubuntuforums.org regarding this matter, though they have a different take on it.
One of the posts state:
Re: Asus Eee Pad Transformer
I plan to get one (not available in my region yet, plus I hear there'll be a 3G version next quarter) and install Ubuntu on it, albeit with KDE/Gnome instead of Unity.
There's not technical reason it can't run Ubuntu, it's just a matter of getting the boot loader working. The instructions seem simple enough, although dual booting with Android might be a little more challenging.
If anyone does get one and install Ubuntu on it, please let us know how it goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's not all that farfetched getting Ubuntu to run on this device, or any other Tegra2 base tablet.
The original thread can be found at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1741103&highlight=eee+pad+transformer&page=1
looks like dual booting may be fairly difficult; I wouldn't mind soloing ubuntu touch os on mine...
I think dual booting may be difficult, but I think chain booting (right terminology?) from Android first and then into Ubuntu would probably be possible.
I don't think many people understand how hard it will be to create a bootable version of Ubuntu. VNCing is easy for the most part.
Would it be possible to use the motorola xoom guide to get ubuntu running with vnc on the eee transformer?
Sorry for any typos. I have fat fingers, a 4" screen, a small child and a dictionary gone wild...
Is the VNC version that bad? Is it very slow or the picture is not full color? I'd like to use it maybe for Open Office (or something lighter) and some programming in text editor.
Looks like there has been significant progress on this. backtrack has been released for arm.. its a security-centric distro, but its built on an ubuntu base.
I'm downloading the img now.. dont know about dual boot though. guess someone needs to port grub over first =)
I cant post links....but a search for 'backtrack5 xoom' should get you there.
I checked out the specs of the newly-announced $249 chromebook, and I realized what an awesome android device it would make, if only android was successfully ported to it....
I know at the same price point we can get a n7 32gig, but the larger 11.6" LED HD tempts me, though the res at 1366 x 768 is not that great. also, all the hands-on reviews have heaped a lot of praise on the high-quality keyboard-touchpad on the device, which is even more tempting and would make up for the lack of touch input on the device...
Its config is pretty identical to a flagship android phone/tablet with two cortex-A15 cores on the Exynos 5250, 2gig RAM and 16GB onboard storage with an expandable mem slot, 2 full usb ports and a full HDMI out, with the usual WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0.
I'm a noob when it comes to creating ports and ROMS, but I guess it would not be such a difficult task for the awesome dev community out here to manage that feat. Maybe we need to wait for an actual android device with the exynos chip inside to release, whose android ROM we could use as a base to port to the chromebook...
windows 8 RT would be more awesome, but seeing that its a licensed OS, porting it might amount to piracy/illegal hacking, so its not something that I would discuss/encourage here....
Chromebooks boot with UEFI (Basically a modern BIOS), so the Android source code would have to be heavilly modified to be bootstraped from UEFI. Not to mention drivers and custom kernels (which isnt much of a pain if the hardware has documentation, all eyes on you Samsung.)
And I dont think we will ever see Windows on a chromebook unless someone creates an emulator for ChromeOS... Which I dont think is possible, but dont quote me on that.
i know it would take a ton of modding to find a workaround for it, but enabling the developer mode on the chromebook allows booting of an unsigned linux installation off the external memory (eg. gentoo ubuntu) on the x86 chromebooks currently available (Cr-48 etc..)
trying something similar for booting android off an image on the mem card might be a possible way...
UPDATE : https://plus.google.com/109993695638569781190/posts/b2fazijJppZ a google employee has already begun work on porting ubuntu..!!
drivers would be difficult, esp for the SoC as there is no device currently on the market with it. but maybe after Samsung releases a couple of phones/phablets running the A15's, porting of the drivers could be attempted...
I was wondering the same thing and figured I would come here to see if anything was planned. I just ordered the new one and was curious if there would be much interest in modding this thing. Guess in due time!
rumors say the upcoming google nexus 10 tablet is running identical hardware (exynos 5 dual omap15 / 2gig ram) which is gonna run android 4.2
once its out, MAYBE porting the ROM to the chromebook may become a teeny bit easier...
the_crazy_devil said:
rumors say the upcoming google nexus 10 tablet is running identical hardware (exynos 5 dual omap15 / 2gig ram) which is gonna run android 4.2
once its out, MAYBE porting the ROM to the chromebook may become a teeny bit easier...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I'm not wrong Nexus 10 will have exactly the same processor than the new Samsung Chromebook. If someon manage port android to this new latop I won't hesitate to buy it.
there is a developer board with same hardware and as far as I know it has android source codes, you can check the website http://www.arndaleboard.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Wasnt this done a while back with the CR-48 thanks to Hexxeh?
http://hexxeh.net/?p=328117655
Just got to find a way to port it over to the new Chromebook, then port Android.
Since Android was ported to the HP Touchpad I'm pretty confident that it can be ported to this device... I mean the touchpad was the last thing I thought Android would run on and it runs like it was made for it... COME ON DEVS!
Following this thread with anticipation.
Well seeing as this device uses the same SoC as the nexus 10 i would be hopeful someone will manage to port android. I for one would be keen to have this option!
Touch Chromebook?
If this article on Android Community turns out to be accurate and Google release a touch chromebook any time soon, I would throw some money at a kickstarter to get android on it. Would be cheaper than an N10 - and probably quicker than waiting for a keyboard dock...!
Can't link because I'm new... androidcommunity.com/google-reportedly-plotting-12-85-inch-touch-chromebook-20121126/
Very hopeful!
^ here's a +1 form me
started..
OK...I was able to get into the uboot portion of chromeos and managed to load uvboot ( unverified boot )which will allow the booting of non chrome os kernel's. however it seems its looking for something else. I already got Ubuntu loaded on it so maybe I'll try to get it booting off the SD first so I don't brick my cb.....keep you guys posted.
rawtek said:
OK...I was able to get into the uboot portion of chromeos and managed to load uvboot ( unverified boot )which will allow the booting of non chrome os kernel's. however it seems its looking for something else. I already got Ubuntu loaded on it so maybe I'll try to get it booting off the SD first so I don't brick my cb.....keep you guys posted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
great work! i'm still waiting for my chromebook the stock's very erratic, and i cant find anyone willing to ship it to my country...will try to help as soon as i lay my hands on one!!
Ok ... DD'd the system.img from the stock N10 factory image and created a new BOOT partition. Booting the Chrome OS kernel worked ( which should be fine due to the fact that the CB and N10 have the EXACT same ARM SOC ) it seems the boot partition need to be re-written to work with the UEFI. im going to keep digging until I find something ( or someone lends some expertise dealing with UEFI and BOOT ).Happy New years !!
Kernel boots..just has a hard time mounting the ROOTFS...any want to shed some light on this.
Thanks
Super stoked for this!! Have been thinking this would be good to have Android on from the minute I got it!! Looking forward to this!!
Just installed ubuntu on my tablet, and still getting used to linux, but I wanted to know, even if pure speculation, will ubuntu touch be possible on the TF700? I am sort of regretting getting my android tablet, due the lack of the ability to multi window. I hope that ubuntu will help me there for when i need it, but Id really like to know if I possibly could get my tablet to do all the fancy stuff they were doing in that video.
For those who havent seen it, here is the article:
http://phandroid.com/2013/02/19/ubuntu-touch-for-nexus-tablets/
Yes, it should be possible. Canonical is releasing a porting guide on Ubuntuwiki 22 Feb 13. I know this weekend end I will be working on porting it this weekend. I know Rabits will probably be working with it also.
Don't expect a whole lot as of now it is still in alpha stages of development. I was reading that the next few updates will be based off of 13.04, which should bring some improvements in speed and memory management. I have been running 13.04 on a laptop and it is a lot smoother and faster then 12.10.
Sounds sweet, very excited
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2013/02/releasing-the-ubuntu-touch-developer-preview-and-sdk-alpha/
So i've seen this working on nexus tab 7 and its awful. The OS is more smooth than android. Will this be a portable OS?
Devices that are currently being worked on: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
A tutorial for porting the OS: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Porting
scorpionking674 said:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2013/02/releasing-the-ubuntu-touch-developer-preview-and-sdk-alpha/
So i've seen this working on nexus tab 7 and its awful. The OS is more smooth than android. Will this be a portable OS?
Devices that are currently being worked on: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
interesting to get it to work on our device, there's a quite detailed tutorial on how to do it here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Porting but to be honest, i don't think it's worth the effort trying to get it to work on our tabs for now.
scorpionking674 said:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2013/02/releasing-the-ubuntu-touch-developer-preview-and-sdk-alpha/
So i've seen this working on nexus tab 7 and its awful. The OS is more smooth than android. Will this be a portable OS?
Devices that are currently being worked on: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
A tutorial for porting the OS: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Porting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
". The OS is more smooth than android. "
LOL, Now how in the world would you know that since there is not yet a single fully functional version of this on any device.?
ubuntu is, like ANdroid, simply yet another derivative of Linux which is based on Unix born in 1969, now 44 years old OS
My brother owns NExus 7, and yes it is smooth and better than android. Though after sometime of use, it starts lagging as its only a DEVELOPER PREVIEW
scorpionking674 said:
My brother owns NExus 7, and yes it is smooth and better than android. Though after sometime of use, it starts lagging as its only a DEVELOPER PREVIEW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ignore him, he's just trolling. been doing that on some thread lately. about ubuntu touch, i do agree that it is at least looks much better than android, but it still depends on a lot of android's components. it still uses android's surfaceflinger, the audio/video are still using android's abstraction layer, and the kernel itself is still android's kernel. it would be interesting to see how does it compare to android on our device. someone have ported it to samsung s3, search for the thread to see how it perform on exynos devices.
gingerboy92 said:
ignore him, he's just trolling. been doing that on some thread lately. about ubuntu touch, i do agree that it is at least looks much better than android, but it still depends on a lot of android's components. it still uses android's surfaceflinger, the audio/video are still using android's abstraction layer, and the kernel itself is still android's kernel. it would be interesting to see how does it compare to android on our device. someone have ported it to samsung s3, search for the thread to see how it perform on exynos devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But first, we need to unlock our bootloaders right? And yes i've seen that UBUNTU touch compilation uses CM 10.1 bases.
Im not a DEV.
scorpionking674 said:
But first, we need to unlock our bootloaders right? And yes i've seen that UBUNTU touch compilation uses CM 10.1 bases.
Im not a DEV.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i don't know if all of the Tab plus are the same, i'm assuming that most of them came with unlocked bootloaders, if there's any locking mechanism at all. i'm pretty sure we will get a running Ubuntu Touch on our devices sooner or later, it's not impossible to be done, but how functional it will be is not for me to talk about since i'm not a developer too.
so, there's a port being goin on for 7.7 and TAB 2.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
For TAB2 and not for ours? :[
It Seems they've done a good job porting Ubuntu touch os to tab 2.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices/p3110
Almost everything working.
could tizen be ported to different devices like the ubuntu touch?
Yeah most stuff doesn't work on Linux at the moment but maybe?
Today successfully booted up windows 10 arm on my surface rt.
I am so hasppy android ports are coming to this tablet
pedrofssf94 said:
Today successfully booted up windows 10 arm on my surface rt.
I am so hasppy android ports are coming to this tablet
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Click to collapse
well dang
FoxyDrew said:
Who told you android ports are coming to this tablet? lol glad your optimistic though
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Click to collapse
Actually yes, Android 5.1 is coming to this tablet.
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pguarache said:
Actually yes, Android 5.1 is coming to this tablet.
Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities
Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do know no one can see that because you would need to be in the discord server that we dont have an invite to lol
In theory It would work...
Older versions supported ARM32 pretty well and since Linux is already working It would not be harder to port Android to The surface RT and 2.
The problem is that these devices are almost 10 years old and few people care about them anymore.
Even with Android installed running apps with 2gb of very aged memory would prove to be a pretty bad experience...
Nicknackpaddywack101 said:
In theory It would work...
Older versions supported ARM32 pretty well and since Linux is already working It would not be harder to port Android to The surface RT and 2.
The problem is that these devices are almost 10 years old and few people care about them anymore.
Even with Android installed running apps with 2gb of very aged memory would prove to be a pretty bad experience...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Eh, I've run worse. I have a moto E LTE running android 9 (RR Custom Rom based on a GO version of android) and it runs fine (1gb of ram and a worse cpu than the RT) sure it would be nice to have more ram but it works.
WinDVD said:
Eh, I've run worse. I have a moto E LTE running android 9 (RR Custom Rom based on a GO version of android) and it runs fine (1gb of ram and a worse cpu than the RT) sure it would be nice to have more ram but it works.
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Yes, I understand your point. But the fact is that it had Android to start with, with the surface RT you have to use loopholes and bugs to get Linux working in a inefficient way and even the currently working(sort of ) Raspbian based Linux system has a bunch of bugs and missing drivers etc. Power control lacks behind Windows RT (mentiond here:https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/porting-chromium-to-windows-rt.2095686/post-87719273. The sad fact that this device is already 10years old means that it is unlikely people would pay attention to it and use it to develop Android, and even with Android installed the experience would be very limited due to the ram. support would be almost non-existent similar to what happened to the windows phones that got unofficial CM versions. Developers are already moving away from ARM32 to newer ARM64 and a few years later most apps would have a minimum api equivalent to android 6.
There is still a silver lining though. RT devices are dirt cheap since they are almost or practically useless now and Android still has excellent backward compatibility. Anyone who really has interest and the time could pick up the pieces of the Linux project and move on with doing it, but it still would not be easy.
Maybe a crowdfunding project could give devs some incentive?
But for now you could try to run a vm in linux or simply run their linux equivalents. Chromium, firefox, WPS office etc. Raspbian is compatible wih the snap store too, so you could use it just like ubuntu.
I am not trying to pour cold water on your idea, and I really look forward to this project taking off. However, there ultimately is a reason why Windows RT and their RT devices failed to take off.
working with the progress made with opensurface-rt, we managed to get android 7.0 booting on the surface RT using the 3.4 kernel, got wifi working, but minor gpu bugs that make it an unstable setup. had a play about with 4.4 and 5.1 too. android 7.1.1 and above have critical gpu bugs which make it completely unusable. and probably unfixable. development into getting other devices such as sound, camera, bluetooth etc has yet to be done. so far we have, screen, touch screen, type/touch keyboard, 2d/3d gpu working. recorded a quick video of it running
maybe it would be possible to get all things sorted but it's quite the task.
jethro tarw said:
working with the progress made with opensurface-rt, we managed to get android 7.0 booting on the surface RT using the 3.4 kernel, got wifi working, but minor gpu bugs that make it an unstable setup. had a play about with 4.4 and 5.1 too. android 7.1.1 and above have critical gpu bugs which make it completely unusable. and probably unfixable. development into getting other devices such as sound, camera, bluetooth etc has yet to be done. so far we have, screen, touch screen, type/touch keyboard, 2d/3d gpu working. recorded a quick video of it running
maybe it would be possible to get all things sorted but it's quite the task.
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Click to collapse
Wow! Nice work! Would be interested to know the team behind this marvelous project. (since you mentioned 'we')
Also probably should embed the boot screen with your team's name...