Installing ArchLinux on Android

youarefunny · 2012-06-12 19:51:31

I posted this in ArchLinux ARM forums but though you guys might be interested in having Arch on your phone.

I wrote a quick tutorial about getting an Arch environment up and running on Android.

Here is the original blog post: http://devwithopinions.blogspot.ca/2012 … droid.html
Here is the Arch ARM post: http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3070

Last edited by youarefunny (2012-06-18 19:16:26)

hadrons123 · 2012-06-13 12:13:51

I don't have an ARM device, But good job though !

youarefunny · 2012-06-13 12:28:01

hadrons123 wrote:

I don't have an ARM device, But good job though !

Thanks, and if you want to try it you probably just have to find the right image (if it's the same architecture as your desktop you could do all of the work on your computer and copy it over).

crondog · 2012-06-14 00:08:26

Hey nice tut. I actually followed one a little while ago which also lets you use lxde

http://thomaspolasek.blogspot.com.au/20 … rd_16.html

Have you tried playing with X on yours? If you have have you been able to get your touch screen working?

youarefunny · 2012-06-14 02:35:16

crondog wrote:

Hey nice tut. I actually followed one a little while ago which also lets you use lxde
http://thomaspolasek.blogspot.com.au/20 … rd_16.html

Thanks, and interesting, thats the first one I have seen that doesn't use VNC.

The idea obviously isn't original, I basically just cleaned up the scripts and tried to explain a bit more of what you are actually doing (a small bit) rather than a list of things to type into your terminal. The main difference in my method is calling the initscripts (I'm still not sure if I should run all of /etc/rc.sysinit but it seems to work for me) rather than trying to mount everything myself.

crondog wrote:

Have you tried playing with X on yours? If you have have you been able to get your touch screen working?

No, I am not really interested in the GUI stuff too much. If I see more working Mer/Nemo (or MeeGo) packages in the AUR I might try to "convert" my phone from Andorid. But I doubt that will work because of driver issues.

For now I really just wanted SSH and Unison although I am excited to have a compiler I'm thinking about starting some sort of "Linux from Android" project that allows Android apps access to Linux tools/libs/utilities. I am imaging things like full-featured IDE's and other stuff (Android from Android development?). But to be honnest I am not that intrested in Android and instead of twisting it's arm to make it do what I want I would rather get something like Mer/Nemo/MeeGo running and support that cause.

I tried to stay focused on getting Arch up and running in this tutorial, I figured you can take it anywhere from there. (It would be awesome if someone wrote a "getting X to work on Android" that followed up on my tut.)

tl;dr No, not really interested for now.

crondog · 2012-06-18 04:49:21

Sounds like a great idea. I'm just waiting on a new phone to arrive then I'll be being a bit more experimental with my current one ie rewriting the initramfs to not boot into android but arch

youarefunny · 2012-06-18 16:01:53

crondog wrote:

Sounds like a great idea. I'm just waiting on a new phone to arrive then I'll be being a bit more experimental with my current one ie rewriting the initramfs to not boot into android but arch

That sounds awesome. Best of luck and keep us posted.

raining · 2012-06-22 22:23:05

i am trying to install alarm in motorola charm http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_charm-3420.php with ArchLinuxARM-omap-smp-latest.tar.gz as the image.

but i cant get pass the

chroot . /bin/bash
[1]   Segmentation fault      chroot . /bin/bash

i have busybox v1.19.4 installed in android.

what do i do?

youarefunny · 2012-06-25 00:53:38

raining wrote:

i am trying to install alarm in motorola charm http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_charm-3420.php with ArchLinuxARM-omap-smp-latest.tar.gz as the image.
but i cant get pass the
chroot . /bin/bash
[1]   Segmentation fault      chroot . /bin/bash
i have busybox v1.19.4 installed in android.
what do i do?

I'm not sure why chroot is segfaulting, I don't know the details but it could be that the program it is trying to start segfaults. It does appear that your phone is ARMv7 but I had better luck with the v6 image. If you want to try the exectuables you can try running `"$dir/bin/ls` (or another command) and see if that gives a segmentation fault. If so I would try the 6 and even ARMv5 if that is not working, otherwise I honestly don't know. You may be able to get more help on the ArchARM fourm.

raining · 2012-06-25 11:28:40

youarefunny wrote:

I'm not sure why chroot is segfaulting, I don't know the details but it could be that the program it is trying to start segfaults. It does appear that your phone is ARMv7 but I had better luck with the v6 image. If you want to try the exectuables you can try running `"$dir/bin/ls` (or another command) and see if that gives a segmentation fault. If so I would try the 6 and even ARMv5 if that is not working, otherwise I honestly don't know. You may be able to get more help on the ArchARM fourm.

also my initial suspicion that binary is not compaitable with phones hardware. so i did

# pwd
/sdcard/arch
# $PWD/bin/ls
/sdcard/arch/bin/ls: not found
# ls -l bin/ls
-rwxr-xr-x root     root        92408 2012-05-15 21:00 ls
# cd /sbin
# cp /sdcard/arch/bin/ls tmpls
# tmpls
tmpls: not found

why cant i execute even file is there and its executable.

anyway i am trying armv6 and v5 images. lets see how it goes.

thanks

youarefunny · 2012-06-25 11:33:53

raining wrote:

also my initial suspicion that binary is not compaitable with phones hardware. so i did
# pwd
/sdcard/arch
# $PWD/bin/ls
/sdcard/arch/bin/ls: not found
# ls -l bin/ls
-rwxr-xr-x root     root        92408 2012-05-15 21:00 ls
# cd /sbin
# cp /sdcard/arch/bin/ls tmpls
# tmpls
tmpls: not found
why cant i execute even file is there and its executable.

It is the weirdest error message ever but that is what happens when you try to run a binary of the wrong architecture.

raining · 2012-06-26 08:57:29

well i am in. ArchLinuxARM-oxnas-latest.tar worked.

# chroot . /bin/bash
[root@localhost /]#

thanks youarefunny.

gabx · 2012-06-26 09:25:35

For Samsung Galxy SII users, there is a custom kernel, Syiahkernel, wich allows dual booting. It is very easy to use when you have a second ROM as an image.

Please find below useful links:
http://tinyurl.com/cvjcl52
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr … ?t=1555259
http://www.gokhanmoral.com/ : original page of the creator of Syiahkernel.

This dual boot option works very smooth and is not only experimental.
Please refer to the beginning of this link for dual booting Android 4/B2G. This shall not be very different from dual booting Android/Arch:
http://tinyurl.com/8473ogx

As for the touchscreen part, Enlightenment, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Enlightenment, supports touchscreen. It already works on some tablets.

All this is beyond my skills, but it could be possible to run Arch with Enlightenment.

Last edited by gabx (2012-06-26 09:36:06)

crondog · 2012-06-26 10:56:45

gabx,

Nice tutorial. I have actually been pulling my hair out today trying to make the initramfs init to boot arch linux. Im really close

The only thing i cannot do is mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 which is the external sdcard of the i9300 so switch_root can take over to finish booting Arch Linux

If anyone is interested here is the code https://github.com/crondog/i9300-archlinux-initramfs Busybox is compiled with mdev and switch_root support

gabx · 2012-06-26 12:11:57

crondog wrote:

gabx,
Nice tutorial. I have actually been pulling my hair out today trying to make the initramfs init to boot arch linux. Im really close

TY for your appreciation.

What you can do is to PM Gockhan Moral. He is a very nice guy and deeply involved in anything about initramfs and Kernel when it comes to Android on SGII or SGIII.
I do not know if you are a XDA Forum member. If yes, PM'ing him is very easy, and I have no doubt he may well be interested in having a look at your code. If you are not a member, I can be the bridge between you and him with pleasure. Just let me know.

crondog · 2012-06-26 12:37:07

Hey thanks for a contact info

dr-peppa · 2013-03-21 11:10:14

Hi,

so did anyone make some progress on this? I'd be really interested :-)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-12 19:51:31

Installing ArchLinux on Android

#2 2012-06-13 12:13:51

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#3 2012-06-13 12:28:01

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#4 2012-06-14 00:08:26

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#5 2012-06-14 02:35:16

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#6 2012-06-18 04:49:21

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#7 2012-06-18 16:01:53

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#8 2012-06-22 22:23:05

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#9 2012-06-25 00:53:38

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#10 2012-06-25 11:28:40

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#11 2012-06-25 11:33:53

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#12 2012-06-26 08:57:29

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#13 2012-06-26 09:25:35

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#14 2012-06-26 10:56:45

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#15 2012-06-26 12:11:57

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#16 2012-06-26 12:37:07

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

#17 2013-03-21 11:10:14

Re: Installing ArchLinux on Android

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