Run Linux+X on phone or android tablet (no root needed)

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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wiak
Posts: 2040
Joined: Tue 11 Dec 2007, 05:12
Location: not Bulgaria

Run Linux+X on phone or android tablet (no root needed)

#1 Post by wiak »

Since GNURoot Debian is no longer maintained (and was getting old) I've now tried out UserLAnd alternative (with small Ubuntu Bionic Beaver installed via that). Much of this thread (using gtkdialog etc) will still work. For details of my UserLAnd test see my following post in this thread:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 67#1021267

Just playing with Android GNURoot Debian on my not-rooted 8 inch android version 6 tablet (EDIT: and also on old Huawei 512M RAM android phone - see below for details, including screenshots of Linux including X running on my old, low-powered, android version 4.4.2 phone - I've put a 16GB SD card in both systems, though only a small SD card would probably be enough for most things). On first install, GNURoot Debian only provided commandline shell, but will auto-install X when the xterm icon it also shows is clicked (see below for details) - seems to have pretty good Debian system on it with core utils and perl pre-installed. Currently installing gcc with:

Code: Select all

apt-get upgrade
apt-get install gcc
Seems to be working fine thus far.

Debian version 8.1 (jessie); kernel 3.4.39

Can use with X GUI apps if you install vnc or android X server such as XSDL.

Nice to play with and hope to set it up to work like my DebianDog systems and to adapt some Puppy utils/apps to work with it. Wonder if there is a version of gtkdialog that will work on this android set up - maybe fatdog has one (or hopefully will compile ok on GNURoot Debian running system)?


Just started playing with it though, whilst using free WiFi whilst drinking a coffee in local cafe...

Can get the apps from google play store.

Would be interesting if folk could post links to other android-based Linux systems they have experience of using, and whether they need rooted devices or not and if tried with X apps.


Above system involved no complicated installation steps. Just press install button and it just works...

EDIT1: Just for fun, have now installed GNURoot Debian on my old Huawei 512M RAM android 4.4.2 phone. Working fine at the commandline - no problem - very neat! Like my tablet this phone is not rooted. gcc compiler has even installed (using apt-get install gcc) successfully on the old Huawei phone... Screenshot of top command running on the old phone is attached.

EDIT2: Wow! I pressed the Xterm button at top of screen in GNURoot Debian and it seems to be automatically installing x11 and tightvnc, so if space doesn't run out it should be able to run X apps once install is complete... Alternative would be to install separate android X server such as XServer XSDL.

EDIT3: Yeah, X11 is now running on the old 512M RAM Huawei phone (I had to remove some apps to get extra space on it). An xterm has popped up and it has wm decorations of some sort. Might be twm window manager but I'm not sure since don't know how to use some keyboard keys (such as tab, ctrl or replacements for right and left click that a mouse would provide). Will find out eventually I'm sure. This is quite exciting...

EDIT4: Oh, there is a wee icon at the foot of the X display which, if you press it, opens up all the cursor keyboard keys I was just talking about! (similar icon opens up main android keyboard when required - just tap the twm background to see keyboard icon). Commandline completion/history works fine with the on-screen provided cursor keys too... And I've just typed 'ps aux' in the displayed xterm and see from the process list that twm window manager is indeed currently being used. This on an old crappy Android phone. Obviously it will all work even better on my 8in tablet or on a more modern android phone...

EDIT5: The system provides a drop-down Window command (kind of like screen application) so you can jump to different commandline sessions.

twm is fine, but I'll probably install openbox on my android tablet copy of this - just have to also find out how to get that onscreen keyboard with tab, ctrl and cursor keys also working under openbox!

EDIT6: I haven't played much with this yet, so may be wrong, but believe it likely uses a chroot jail for installation, in which case it will be isolated from the rest of your Android filesystem. That would mean you won't be able to directly access other files stored on your android. However, since the GNURoot Debian is able to access the internet you will be able to use internet client/server techniques to communicate with the main 'android system' for file-sharing and so on. There may of course be other means provided by GNURoot Debian system itself - I just haven't looked into that side of things as yet... Come to think of it, the GNURoot Debian installed vnc client/server provided might be set up to provide file-sharing as is.

EDIT7: As pop-up window tells you: Direct, Swipe, Pan - Tap with one finger whenever you want to left-click, two fingers to right-click and three fingers to middle-click. Swipe with two fingers to scroll. Long tap to drag and drop. (I'm finding that I can scroll down, for example in long leafpad text, by using three fingers on the main leafpad window. Rotating the phone screen back and forwards often seems to get things 'back to normal' after using android pinch zoom, for example).

EDIT8: See link below for some more details about tablet/phones I've currently tried running GNURoot Debian on and answer to a query by mikeslr. Also includes some interesting links/tutorial about GNURoot Debian for android:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 328#986328

See also TERMUX. Links about that in second post of this thread.

wiak
Attachments
using leafpad on old android phone.jpg
running leafpad under X on old android phone
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LinuxX11_twm_xterm_on_android_phone.jpg
twm window manager running xterm on old android phone
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Screenshot_2018-03-22-15-40-29.png
df -h and more running on GNURoot Debian on old Huawei android phone
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Screenshot_2018-03-22-15-28-59.png
top command running in GNURoot Debian on my old 512M android phone
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Last edited by wiak on Mon 11 Mar 2019, 05:33, edited 10 times in total.

wiak
Posts: 2040
Joined: Tue 11 Dec 2007, 05:12
Location: not Bulgaria

#2 Post by wiak »

I see no reason at all, by the way, that a Debian Stretch (or ubuntu system, or other) for android could not be easily built in a similar android chroot using the likes of debian debootstrap (similar to: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=111222). One simple way, it seems to me, would be to run debootstrap from inside an android-running GNURoot Debian commandline terminal (or TERMUX - see below links about TERMUX). I'll have to try this!... Or feel free, cos I'm busy and lazy just now...!!

Should easily be possible, it seems also to me, to now build a modified android-based StretchDog in that chroot manner, in a GNURoot Debian terminal (or in TERMUX; see below), using a modded version of fredx181's mklive-Stretch script... This is similar to what I much earlier discussed here (though wasn't thinking of android at that time):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 751#963751

All food for thought for the adventurous, hopefully. See also "debian-on-termux" (Stretch for Android) in one of the links below.

BASICALLY: I believe all of this provides new development opportunities and direction for Puppy and the Dogs in terms of obtaining their functionality on most all of our android devices (particularly relevant to the Dogs, including say more Puppy-like implementations of the Dogs).

I believe that Proot is the key to how GNURoot Debian works (like chroot but works in a user-space environment):

https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot/blob/ ... manual.txt

Note that:
By default PRoot confines the execution of programs to the guest rootfs only, however users can use the built-in *mount/bind* mechanism to access files and directories from the actual root file-system, a.k.a *host rootfs*, just as if they were part of the guest rootfs
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRoot

https://packages.debian.org/sid/proot

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... being-root

SEE ALSO:

TERMUX


https://termux.com/

https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot

https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Debian

https://github.com/sp4rkie/debian-on-termux

EDIT: Have now also noted a related kind of post, from labbe5, albeit the system he points to requires a rooted android system (I believe) whereas neither GNURoot Debian nor TERMUX have that restriction:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 936#985936

wiak
Last edited by wiak on Thu 22 Mar 2018, 08:53, edited 15 times in total.

wiak
Posts: 2040
Joined: Tue 11 Dec 2007, 05:12
Location: not Bulgaria

#3 Post by wiak »

Anyway, a lot of information, but most just for those interested in the technical operation of GNURoot Debian or for developers here who want to play/develop this system.

Summary for everyone else:

1. On your Android device (it does NOT need to be rooted), visit google playstore and install GNURoot Debian.

2. Wait till it installs, and then open it. No harm if not finished setting up, just sit back and wait till it's finished...

3. GNURoot Debian system will then start in commandline mode.

4. Click the Xterm icon you see at the top of the GNURoot Debian window and wait ... GNURoot Debian will automatically install X window software components along with Xvnc client/server software (wait till it completes this... takes a while this first time round) and then automatically starts up an xterm in X environment.

After that its up to you (refer to first post of this thread for some hints and details...):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 303#986303

NOTE: Seems you can share files from underlying android device via sdcard which is seen in GNURoot Debian filesystem at directory /sdcard. Or could use say ftp or sftp client and server (but not so straightforward).

Also see old issues link for alternative share strategy: https://github.com/corbinlc/GNURootDebian/issues/130

GTKDIALOG Just tried copying the gtkdialog from Fatdog arm beta onto sdcard/Download directory and tried running it in GNURoot Debian and it seems to work (at least gtkdialog --help gave expected output), so possibilities are endless... Alternatively could compile gtkdialog under GNURoot Debian anyway.

--------------------------------------------

As an alternative you could try TERMUX (which I haven't myself tried yet so not sure of the facilities it provides, though again android device does NOT need to be rooted); it's also from google playstore (or opensource repository provided by f-droid) but latest version of TERMUX requires android 5 or above so won't work on my old phones. I suggest trying GNURoot Debian first anyway, since I know that works well, for me at least, and with easy X apps support provided!

EDIT: quickly tried TERMUX on my android ver 6.0.1 tablet and it was a quick/small install and uses low resources - basically provides a bash shell, along with apt package management capability - would have to do quite a bit more to get X gui functionality with it I think though and would need proot installed for debootstrap installation work.

wiak

keniv
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#4 Post by keniv »

@wiak
This sounds interesting. I see it will run on android 2.2. I have an old android 2.2 tablet though it runs a rooted version though I can't remember which one offhand. Don't remember specs but has 512 MB so might be OK for this. Battery is duff but works OK. I'll try it on this tonight and report back. I also have an android tv box. Specs are quad core 1.5MHz 1GB running android 6.1. I think it might run well on this. I have Kodi and some software defined radio apps on it and they run quite well.
I'm not great on this stuff so might be asking for some help.

Regards,

Ken.

keniv
Posts: 583
Joined: Tue 06 Oct 2009, 21:00
Location: Scotland

#5 Post by keniv »

Well I quickly found out it will not install with android 2.2. I was able to "install" it on the tv box running android 6.1 at least google play said it had installed, When I opened it I did get a display which looked like something happening in a terminal but I could not tell what as the text size was tiny (I am using a normal size monitor). Initially I could not find a way of increasing the text size but then I was able to bring up a menu which included 'preferences'. I was able to adjust the text size and could now read it. I also had three windows all of which seemed to be at various points in working through the OS showing on each line a further distance along a path. Looked a bit like a zipped file being unpacked. This process was slow. I closed two of the windows but this did not speed it up. I presume this was the actual installation process. I ran out of time and shut the app down at which point I was told it was not installed. Is this installation process incredibly slow? I will have another go at this tomorrow but I think this may already be beyond my ability.

Regards,

Ken.

wiak
Posts: 2040
Joined: Tue 11 Dec 2007, 05:12
Location: not Bulgaria

gtkdialog puppy app on phone (android)

#6 Post by wiak »

@keniv: Yeah, sounds like you were almost there but interrupted the installation. It installs a full commandline Debian system, so it's several hundred MBytes at least and you just have to wait for that installation process to complete. The installation extraction process also takes a fair amount of time; especially the X windows software and perl components. Runs okay once installed though. You probably could see the files being gradually installed. Pity it didn't work on you old phone, but that was a very old version of android... ;-)
---------------------
EDIT: POSSIBLE TIME-SAVING IMPORTANT TIP

If your android screen blanks during a dpkg/apt installation you may run into trouble with dpkg getting confused and needing re-configured to get it back to normal... Occasionally, you'll need to open the android Apps window and force close GNURoot Debian. Then when you start it up again have to reconfigure dpkg with:

Code: Select all

dpkg --configure -a
Then all should be fine again but anything you were installing will have to be installed all over again. Best is to set DISPLAY of android not to blank out whilst anything is being installed I'd say...
------------------

For the first time ever I have now seen a bash/gtkdialog Puppy application running on an android phone (my old Huawei android v 4.4.2 phone, which only has 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage)!!

To achieve this:

1. I copied Fatdog arm beta's binary of gtkdialog onto my GNURoot Debian /usr/bin directory.

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/arm/pa ... rmhf-1.tbz

Note that GNURoot Debian for android is nothing to do with FatDog for arm, but I just wanted an arm compiled version of gtkdialog binary and the one from FatDog works (an alternative would be to compile the gtkdialog source code on GNURoot Debian itself but whatever works...).

2. I then took my dotpet of domyfile-0.9.3.pet and copied the contents of that into the correct filesystem locations on GNURoot Debian.

EDIT: This was a daft method (even though it works) ... I already have a deb package of domyfile, that I prepared for XenialDog - I could have just used that straight away in GNURoot Debian since it contains only bash/gtkdialog code and no libs or other binaries i.e. could have sent it to the android /sdcard/Download and then unpacked it in GNURoot Debian with command:

Code: Select all

dpkg -i domyfile-0.9.3.deb
Indeed, the DebianDogs provide fertile ground in terms of already created debs for yad/gtkdialog/bash utility apps, including utilities to convert simple dotpets (that only contain bash scripts and no binary libs or other binary code) into deb packages that could be used immediately in GNURoot Debian for android. Furthermore, it would be straightforward to add fredx181's DebianDog jessie repository for such packages such that GNURoot Debian would find them via Internet and apt or Synaptic Package Manager. Only thing I'm not sure of is if there still is such a DebianDog Jessie repository - or was that deleted during the time the DD developers had some issues? Hopefully Fred will enlighten us on that and provide a DD Jessie repository address that could be added to the apt lists in GNURoot Debian.

3. Lazily... I actually used gmail to send the files to my phone and then downloaded them on my phone from gmail. I had my phone set up to save everything to sdcard and found the gmail downloaded files in GNURoot Debian directory /sdcard/Download.

4. To get domyfile to run I also had to apt-get install gettext since domyfile accesses that.

I need to work on easier method of copying files up to the android from my local computer though. Maybe sftp server or some other file sharing methodology. Of course, easiest is just to use a usb direct cable connection and copy the files to sdcard for GNURoot Debian to read.

I've attached a screenshot of domyfile bash/gtkdialog program (by mcewanw) running on the phone.

You could also 'apt-get install synaptic' gui package manager of course and with that, or the commandline apt, install anything from Debian's huge repositories. So could easily set this up to look like a Dog/Puppy.

However, truth is, this simple twm window manager provided in GNURoot Debian does all I really need (since phone is also running full android system in parallel so have full power of that at same time...). I just need to apt-get install pcmanfm and then copying files around inside GNURoot Debian will be as simple as on Puppy or Dog. The 4 in phone screen is tiny of course, but funnily enough I find it pretty easy to use (can even read the small txt though can pinch zoom if necessary). The only problem I'm having is that the wee phone has very little internal storage available and so I keep having to delete installed android apps to make some space for new Linux stuff and I'm running out of what I can delete... Don't have that problem with my android tablet, which is what I'm really likely to use this with.

wiak
Attachments
Screenshot_gtkdialog_app_domyfile_on_android_phone.png
Puppy gtkdialog utility domyfile running on old android phone
(118.9 KiB) Downloaded 1623 times

wiak
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lots installed to android tablet GNURoot Debian system

#7 Post by wiak »

twm proving a bit problematic in that I can't easily get it to re-size windows when using android touch screen, so will try replacing that with an alternative window manager (maybe openbox, or maybe even jwm).

I installed a lot of apps on the android tablet since it has plenty of space.

At this stage using wbar as a launcher seems appropriate - and very easy to configure.

Correction to earlier comment - can't use debiandog repository simple bash/yad/gtkdialog-type debian packages immediately because the debian control files will contain wrong architecture, so these debs will need modified with architecture listed as arm.

Screenshot really just an illustration of how powerful Debian apt is since was no problem installing everything. Oh, I also have Synaptic Package Manager but forgot to show it running in the screenshot.

Apps shown here running on my 8inch android tablet are: wbar launcher (not yet configured), xterm, Lxterminal, Rox filemanager, DoMyFile (bash/gtkdialog Puppy util), Lxtask, pcmanfm filemanager, and cherrytree ultra-flexible hierarchical notetaker.

Getting cherrytree availability on my android is a big plus for me; there currently is no actual android version of that.

Of course, the availability of the multi-language Linux programming environment is another big plus: perl, bash, and python already installed.

This time I used a usb cable between my XenialDog64 system and the android tablet (running MTP protocol, which is also commonly available in many Puppy distributions I believe):

https://wiki.debian.org/mtp

The attached screenshot here is a bit too low in resolution to see clearly unfortunately.

wiak
Attachments
linux_on_android_tablet2.png
GNURoot Debian using twm and wbar on android tablet
(137.75 KiB) Downloaded 1487 times

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rufwoof
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Re: lots installed to android tablet GNURoot Debian system

#8 Post by rufwoof »

wiak wrote:twm proving a bit problematic in that I can't easily get it to re-size windows when using android touch screen
Just to make sure you do use twm resize windows correctly. The concept is you press the resize button and then move the mouse (finger) into the window, and then out of the window in the direction you want to scale the window (and drag back into to the window if you want to reduce down the scale in that direction).

If you use the resize window menu option then the next window you press/hold will operate in a similar manner.

I use twm by preference now. Does have some limitations such as not supporting more modern controls such as set window placement, full screen switching ...etc. But it does come as part of core Xorg so conceptually (excluding Puppy) its available wherever Xorg might have been installed. With some colour coding and no icons, just a icon list, it works well for me. I have a window title button to show the iconlist and right click of the window title shows the same twm menu as when the desktop is right clicked. http://trihexagonal.org/rufwoof.html

keniv
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Location: Scotland

#9 Post by keniv »

Well I've started the install again. Stared at 14.15. It's now 16.00 and we are at /usr/lib/docs/....... It certainly takes it's time. Have got a copy of the gtkdialog from fatdog ready. Were you able to copy this to /usr/bin from a usb drive? If not how did you do it. I was wondering if apps from the raspbian repositories would run.

Regards,

Ken.

wiak
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Joined: Tue 11 Dec 2007, 05:12
Location: not Bulgaria

#10 Post by wiak »

keniv wrote:Have got a copy of the gtkdialog from fatdog ready. Were you able to copy this to /usr/bin from a usb drive? If not how did you do it. I was wondering if apps from the raspbian repositories would run.
Yes once you have unarchived the gtkdialog out of fatdog arm's /usr/bin archive file (Xarchive program in Puppy/Dogs will open uncompress the fatdog archive for you) and got it into /sdcard/Download it can then readily be copied using the GNURoot Debian terminal (or it's gui xterm) into its /usr/bin ready to go (you might need to do a chmod +x /usr/bin/gtkdialog to make it executable - I can't remember off the top of my head - sometimes that is required).
---------------------

Well twm window manager was fine on small phone where there wasn't much space so not such a big deal wanting to resize an applications window. However it was a pain on larger screen android tablet - I just couldn't get it to do it with finger touches (perhaps there is a way?). Anyway, I now have jwm as window manager instead (not yet using any menu bar though, just using it for window decorations EDIT: The jwm taskbar is there though - I didn't see it at first cos was off the bottom of my android screen... android pinch zoom is proving useful on the taskbar to change desktops etc...).

Installing jwm is the usual:

Code: Select all

apt-get update
apt-get install jwm
To change the window manager over from twm to jwm you are also going to need a text editor. I just installed nano so could work from terminal rather than in X itself:

Code: Select all

apt-get install nano
To check where you are on the GNURoot Debian system and what is in the directory (hidden or otherwise), the usual already available commands are your friends: pwd, cd, ls -al

To activate jwm instead of twm:

When you start your android and start GNURoot Debian application, by default it opens a commandline terminal emulator at the GNURoot Debian directory / (as far as I understand it). You need to do the following:

cd /root/.vnc

nano xstartup

when viewing that file in nano simply change the reference to twm to jwm.

i.e.

Code: Select all

twm &

becomes

jwm &
Now press the Xterm icon at top of the GNURoot Android window, and X will start as usual, presenting an xterm window but this time the decorations (and overall window manager) will be jwm. No taskbar or anything else by default yet (EDIT: yes, there is - was just off the bottom of my android screen), but anyone familiar with jwm should now be able to add such things if wanted as well as wallpaper and so on. For example:

You could add an appropriate .jwmrc file to $HOME directory. Quick way to get to $HOME is simply to enter cd command with no options. Most of the stuff in $HOME will be dot files and directories (i.e. hidden) so need ls -al to look at what is there is a terminal (or non-hidden mode in gui filemanagers of course).

fredx181 of mklive-Stretch Dog-fame would probably substitute openbox along with maybe tint2 but jwm fits nicely here in my opinion ;-) Perhaps this GNURoot Debian could be easily distribution upgraded to Stretch?

I'll upload a screenshot once I've played with this more later today - main thing is window resizing is now easy using finger touch...

Note: to get drop down Debian menu when in jwm, the three finger tap works well once you've mastered it. Method is to tap on X background with first the index finger (keep it down), then the middle finger (keeping it down) and then the ring finger - drop down menu then appears and you can use your kept down index finger to drag down to the selection you want...
EDIT: Turns out that simply single finger tap (hold down) on X background results in drop down menu when using jwm... so no 3-finger tap required... You can of course also use the jwm MENU button at the bottom of the screen on its taskbar and you also have the usual multiple desktop buttons there too...

Alternatively, I am sure there are keyboard commands you can use...

wiak
Last edited by wiak on Fri 23 Mar 2018, 23:21, edited 5 times in total.

wiak
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#11 Post by wiak »

Screenshot of jwm on android attached. See above post for how to make the change from twm to jwm in GNURoot Debian for android. Image shows xterm, DoMyFile bash/gtkdialog Puppy app (mcewanw), pcmanfm, and lxtask running on one desktop. With jwm now running can easily run apps on different jwm desktops of course (very useful for android small phone screens).
Attachments
jwm_android1.png
screenshot jwm running on android
(162.57 KiB) Downloaded 1412 times

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fredx181
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#12 Post by fredx181 »

wiak wrote:Furthermore, it would be straightforward to add fredx181's DebianDog jessie repository for such packages such that GNURoot Debian would find them via Internet and apt or Synaptic Package Manager. Only thing I'm not sure of is if there still is such a DebianDog Jessie repository - or was that deleted during the time the DD developers had some issues? Hopefully Fred will enlighten us on that and provide a DD Jessie repository address that could be added to the apt lists in GNURoot Debian.
It's still available here (but not updated with latest fixes or updates that Stretch live/dog has):
https://debiandog.github.io/Jessie/i386/Packages/
For in /etc/apt/sources.list, add:

Code: Select all

deb https://debiandog.github.io/Jessie/i386/Packages/ ./
EDIT: I guess it's about 64-biit, also still there, in /etc/apt/sources.list:

Code: Select all

deb http://smokey01.com/saintless/64-bit-DebianDog/Packages/ ./
Very interesting stuff, btw, unfortunately I can't test because I don't have either android tablet or smartphone, but I might help in some way, just tell me how.

Fred
Last edited by fredx181 on Sat 24 Mar 2018, 21:03, edited 2 times in total.

keniv
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Location: Scotland

#13 Post by keniv »

Well I have it installed I think. It took from 14.14 until 19.00 for the first part and from 19.05 until ? for the second part. ? represents the fact that I got fed up and left it on overnight. I can see what I guess is the window manager as a small screen of about 10x10 cms on my monitor but cannot read anything. The only thing that clicking on anything does is bring up a terminal in another window. The writing above this terminal is purple on black. It is large enough but I can't read it an cannot find a way to change the colours. I can read the text in the terminal as I am able to change it's size.
On rebooting it boots up to the page with purple writing. I tried clicking and right clicking which only changed windows, however, at one point a window appeared showing this

Code: Select all

 new X desktop is localhost :51
starting applications specified in /root/.vnc/xstartup
logfile is /root/.vnc/localhost :51.log 
cd /root/.vnc/xstartup I think takes me to xstartup but ls shows nothing. Are all these files hidden?

Using file explorer from android shows intents, home and debian, however, trying to open any of these shows nothing. Surely I should see something in home.

I did try apt-get install pcmanfm and got an error. This is an issue with the pop-up keyboard. Using this with a mouse gives apt_get. I could not see a way round this using the pop-up keyboard. I used a small rf keyboard and this worked. However, the installation is so slow I left it to finish. even when installed I can't use it. I cannot see any way to install gtk even although I can access downloads. I noted in your previous post you mentioned the commands pwd, cd, ls and -al. To give you an idea of how little I know of the command line I do not recognise -al.
Can you give me instructions as to how to get into the window manager and resize it.

Regards,

Ken.

wiak
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Joined: Tue 11 Dec 2007, 05:12
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#14 Post by wiak »

keniv wrote:Well I have it installed I think. It took from 14.14 until 19.00 for the first part and from 19.05 until ? for the second part. ? represents the fact that I got fed up and left it on overnight. I can see what I guess is the window manager as a small screen of about 10x10 cms on my monitor but cannot read anything.
Sorry, Ken, I would have given up too if I had had all these issues and end result on my very different small android phone and android tablet. Fact is, when I said it takes a while to install from google play I was only referring to half an hour or maybe less at most (especially after clicking the Xterm icon). And once X starts for me (on either my old phone or on the much larger android tablet) the display takes up most of the android screen realestate as is, so works fine without any further tuning.

Files in /root are hidden, but you cannot anyway cd into /root/.vnc/xstartup since xstartup is a file not a directory. You should be able to read the contents of that file with 'cat /root/.vnc/xstartup, (or edit it with any text editor you have managed to install - nano, for example).

Alas, I have no idea on what the difference is with your android tv box system - perhaps, unfortunately, it is just incompatible (and your older android tablet ver 2.2.0 was simply too old). Hopefully there are a lot of people with android phones or tablets with ver 4.4.2 or above, since GNURoot Debian works fine on all my such devices as you can see from my screenshots.

I don't know, offhand, how to resize the X window display - I suspect GNURoot Linux is simply incompatible with your android tv box since it proved so slow installing everything anyway.

Truth is, to my own surprise, installation was almost trivially easy on both my android phones (the Huawei and the Vodafone/alcatel) and my tablet. Hope some others will try the system out and report back so we can get a clearer idea of what hardware it works on.

wiak

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#15 Post by wiak »

fredx181 wrote: Very interesting stuff, btw, unfortunately I can't test because I don't have either android tablet or smartphone, but I might help in some way, just tell me how.

Fred
Yeah, I picked up my cheapo android ver 4.4.2 phone new a year ago for about 10 dollars (US), otherwise I wouldn't have bothered at the time! More recently I got my 1GB RAM 8in android ver 6.0.1 tablet new for ridiculous cheap price of around 40 dollars.

Until now, I hardly used the tablet (preferring the phone for quick text/Messenger stuff), but now that I have Linux Debian running so well on both the tablet and phones my impression has changed and I really now appreciate how convenient they are for taking with me to the cafes I like to visit...

keniv (Ken) has had many problems trying this out, but just unlucky with the devices he has I feel (which are a bit old or unusual); I think most phones/tablets available probably work as easily as mine have.

Anyway, hope some others will try this out and report back to give a better idea of what works.

wiak

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davids45
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Old Aldi Un-smart phone

#16 Post by davids45 »

G'day,

I'm looking for advice regarding a Bauhn SphereB5 phone (Android version 4.2.2) now about 4 years old.
Its catalog specification was 16GB phone memory and today the phone 'settings' reports over 12GB 'Total space' and 'Available'.

However, its original un-smart set-up had limited the usable 'internal memory' to 1GB. With Google Play Store, etc., this now runs out very quickly, even though I have set the 32GB SD card to be the install location for added applications, videos, photos, and so on.

Whirlpool told me an updated update.img file would fix the phone's memory 1GB 'limit' but the phone now lacks support from Bauhn or Aldi, so no update.img file available.

I think all I need to do in 'Puppy' terms is to resize the phone internal memory partition with GParted from its 1GB to say 10GB?

Would GNURoot Debian allow this in some way? I briefly tried installing GNURoot Debian but ran out of memory! A second try could be more successful by removing stuff in 'Internal memory', if warranted.

Is this simple re-size 'solution' feasible, or is there an alternative for fixing this internal memory restriction (that doesn't involve buying a new, actually-'Smart' phone :oops: :D )?

Thanks for any advice.

Feeling un-smart myself,
David S.

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Re: Old Aldi Un-smart phone

#17 Post by wiak »

davids45 wrote: Is this simple re-size 'solution' feasible, or is there an alternative for fixing this internal memory restriction (that doesn't involve buying a new, actually-'Smart' phone :oops: :D )?
This I really don't know, sorry, David. Seems unlikely this Debian app would prove to be a solution since it runs in userspace on the Android, which doesn't even need to be rooted. Not being rooted I doubt therefore the Debian OS would have sufficient rights to re-partition anything. Also, what you are looking for is more RAM is it not, whereas partitioning is to do with storage space? I'm left wondering what the 12GB available on your phone is exactly; is it actually possible RAM or just ROM or some kind of electrically re-programmable ROM, which would just be for storing programs and not RAM per se? Hopefully an Android OS expert will see your post and suggest any mechanism that might do what you want.

EDIT: Okay, so I checked the specs and re-read you post, David. The phone apparently has 1GB RAM, but 16GB internal 'memory' (meaning storage in this case). I realise now that your issue is simply that you want to be able to use that 16GB storage (that it is being somehow limited by the phones firmware). Again, I doubt the Debian OS can help here since will be limited to whatever the phone provides userland I expect. It is a bit odd how the phone reports 14 GB available but really only give 1 GB but alas I know nothing about Androids.

EDIT2: I think I understand the problem you describe now, though have no idea how you can re-partition the reserved Apps area:

http://www.stevesandroidguide.com/under ... d-storage/
This time the tablet is showing 3 partitions and not 2. They are: Reserved, Apps and Data.

On this older tablet part of the storage was reserved for Apps and App data only . This is usually called Internal storage but sometimes the term photo storage is used.

The other part is for user data e.g.photos etc which is often called SD storage.

The problem with this arrangement is that if the Apps partition becomes full you can’t install any new Apps even though the data partition had lots of space.
wiak

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#18 Post by davids45 »

G'day wiak,

Thanks for your replies and comments.

Your interpretation of my phone problem is what I understand to be 'wrong' with the phone - the link you posted is a very good explanation, if a bit depressing as the page-writer also doesn't know how to fix this Andoid issue.

At least, if I see a new 'special offer' on a so-called Smart Android Phone (or Tablet), I'll know what to check straightaway, rather than four years later :roll: .

David S.

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userLAnd recommended alternative to GNURoot Debian

#19 Post by wiak »

I've been temporarily distracted. There is a newer kid on the Linux on non-rooted Android front:

https://userland.tech/

Get it from Google Playstore. It's opensource and on github.

Seems very similar to GNURoot Debian. Indeed so similar I suspect main developer of GNURoot Debian may be involved. I read somewhere that GNURoot Debian is no longer supported anyway and wouldn't work on newer Android OS (ver 8+) so its developer said to use userLAnd instead. I'm trying it now on my 8in Android tab and seems fine and similar keys and other facilities to GNURoot Debian. I'm installing JWM via apt (per my GNURoot Debian notes earlier in this thread to see if that works the same (not finished doing it yet).

One advantage is that this uses Debian Stretch whereas the GNURoot Debian I installed was Debian Jessie. Apparently there is also Ubuntu (or coming) - I guess that will be Bionic.

Reason I'm interested in this is that I'm often out cycling to local cafe and can't be bothered taking my laptop but would like to do some GTK-related development work whilst drinking my coffee. Hoping I can set up development environment on this... Also want to compile gtkwialog on this.

Which reminds me, I have to put this aside so I can get my local gtkwialog repo up-to-date so I can push latest/recent source code changes I made for version 0.8.7.

wiak

EDIT: Proving a bit flaky so far (hanging as I try to sudo apt install geany). Oh well, it is under new development; I think I'll stick with GNURoot Debian for now...

wiak
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#20 Post by wiak »

Hmmm... can't install GNURoot Debian any more. App claims it is broken and tells me to install userLAnd instead. Despit userLAnd being opensource I have a feeling that monetization must be in the dev plans - seems to check back home everytime I start a new userLAnd session. GNURoot Debian didn't have any catches - I'm disappointed so far.

EDIT: Did manage to re-install GNURoot Debian on my Android ver 6 tablet, but I think that won't be possible for much longer so probably not worth the bother. Anyway, I've re-installed GNURoot Debian, and also put build-essentials and lots of other parts of build system on it - will do just now for testing GTK+ progs including gtkwialog armv71 cpu compile. Good thing is, GNURoot Debian doesn't keep checking/downloading updates which UserLAnd seems to do. Ah... but waste of time so far - GNURoot Debian isn't letting me chmod +x on files... so I can't do much development in that case!
EDIT: sdcard mounted with noexec flag on Android - though I didn't realise I had cloned repo to sdcard... Trying:

sh autogen.sh #but bit limited this, to say the least...

wiak

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