Re: Installing Debian on an android device
On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 2:13 PM, Fungi4All <fungilife@protonmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: joel.rees@gmail.com
> To: debian users <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
>
> On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Fungi4All <fungilife@protonmail.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>> Installing a real debian will require first jailbreaking the device,
>> then getting access to the drivers that the manufacturer provides
>> and customizing them for Debian, then cross-compiling a lot of stuff ...
>
> It isn"t easy, and that"s why we don"t find a debain architecture for
> any android devices.
>
>
> It seems as there is a variety among them. The architecture gnuroot
> identified is armhf and I haven't investigated far enough to see what
> its peculiarities are. I am wondering though whether this is the true
> architecture or a simulation by gnuroot to build the environment within
> the container.
> If you give/force gnuroot to go through orbot to connect to the net,
> would it be safe to assume anything contained in it connects through
> socks5 proxy?
>
> Is the main obstacle of all this is to crack through the root passw of
> android? Would one then be able to replace one system for another?
You're on the right track to understanding, but you may be tempted
again about the frisbee thing when you gain the understanding.
gnuroot debian is not debian. It is a shim that hooks most of the API
necessary to simulate debian in the Android environment. And it runs
in a sandbox, like a good little Android app should.
If you want more access to the system, yes, you have to jailbreak the
tablet -- usually using an app that is not a good little Android app, and
is opaque, to boot.
I haven't tried it yet because of the opaqueness, but my tablet is still on
Android 2.4, so it's getting to be time to jailbreak the thing or throw it
away.
The manufacturer has indicated that it will not provide a system update
for the device, so, if I want to update it I will have to waste a lot of time
and money setting up a build environment, work the
manufacturer-supplied drivers over myself, and build the updated thing
myself. I do not have
the money to buy the time, much less the hardware and software.
If I jailbreak it, I may be able to upgrade to something new, like an
Android 4 or 5 pseudo-foss look-alike, or I may not -- assuming I don't
brick the thing while trying to jailbreak it.
I was never able to figure out how to use Google's dev tools to
jailbreak it by hand. They try really hard to convince you it's not
possible.
If I were to try to install Debian on it, it would be the same as trying
to install an updated Android. I'd have to assemble the build
environment and build it myself. Except for one more thing, I'd have
to expect to do even more work making the manufacturer's drivers
work with Debian.
Oh, and one more thing, learning how to set up a Debian build
environment will probably require learning how to set up an Android
build environment first.
I've been looking at this page for a while,
https://www.linux.com/learn/how-get-open-source-android
But the information there is old and getting older.
--
Joel Rees
One of these days I'll get someone to pay me
to design a language that combines the best of Forth and C.
Then I'll be able to leap wide instruction sets with a single #ifdef,
run faster than a speeding infinite loop with a #define,
and stop all integer size bugs with my bare cast.
http://defining-computers.blogspot.com/2017/06/reinventing-computers.html
More of my delusions:
http://reiisi.blogspot.com/2017/05/do-not-pay-modern-danegeld-ransomware.html
http://reiisi.blogspot.jp/p/novels-i-am-writing.html
Reply to: