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Jay Freeman successfully ports Debian for Android

09 November 2008 by Staff Editor


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+7 [7 votes]


Since the first day we heard about Google’s Android platform we have been waiting for the open source phone that allows us to customize it just as we like. It seems now that the first Android-powered handset has been released we have all been a bit disappointed. We have quickly been able to make progress with gaining root access on the T-Mobile G1.

It seems just as quickly as we got root access, Google has come up with a way to prevent it. Jay Freeman (saurik), the man responsible for Cydia and many other amazing developments on the iPhone, has successfully gotten Debian running on the G1. Debian is a free open source OS that is usually used on a computer. Debian on the G1 will allow you to do a lot more than Android is allowing so far. The best part is that it will not at all affect your phones functionality.

With this breakthrough it opens the door to so many opportunities, such as putting a video recording application on the G1. There are instructions for those of you who are brave enough to give it a try, you can find instructions on Jay Freeman’s site.

[Via Saurik]

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  1. Wait, so what do I get out of doing all this on my phone?
  2. Yes I'm a bit confused as well, can someone explain what all this means? lol
  3. Debian for the phone. Umm pass.
  4. im so confused also
    read his blog and everything

    i want video on how this works on the G1

    gosh im so lost haha
  5. Yeah right......just as soon as I finish developing that more efficient space shuttle fuel
  6. What you get is "a fully functional linux environment on your phone".

    If you _want_ that, then you've got it and you're golden (assuming you do all of this before RC30 hits, as you no longer have the ability to set it up, since you can't be root anymore).

    If you _don't_ want that, then don't perform the operations he specifies.
  7. That is really freakin cool. If I only had the guts to do it...
  8. Would be nice to see how it operates but I dont want to risk messing anything up. I dont somehow what to render my phone useless if I need to send it in for a repair. I can hear the call from a Tmo rep asking me what have I done to my phone. LOL.
  9. You guys have no idea how excited I am. Imagine Amarok and GIMP on the G1? Or running Compiz???? (I doubt this but it would be nice)
  10. First, any mods like this are only for advanced Linux geeks who are not worried at all about warranties, customer support or brickin' their phone in general. If any of that applies to you - don't try it.
    Second, I can think of a few good reasons for running a more or less 'normal' Linux distro on a G1. But I can think of a lot more good reasons not to.

    Let's just say I think Android is a very good adaptation of Linux for the purpose intended, much better than even Mobile LInux, with lotsa future potential. Debian (or Unbuntu or Mandriva or CentOS - pick any disktop distro) is not well adapted for mobile use. Expect lotsa problems.
    In fact, I would think Android has a better chance of evolving into a good desktop OS than Debian does of evolving into a good mobile OS.

    I've used Linux for a long time and always will. But I'm not even the least bit tempted to try this. A lot more disadvantages than advantages.

    71CH wrote:
    Quote:
    Imagine Amarok and GIMP on the G1? Or running Compiz????
    Keep imagining. No phone yet has anything like the necessary horsepower to run such software really well. Well, Amarok - but then I hate Amarok...
  11. And seriously, why would you WANT to run GIMP on this tiny-a**ed screen? With this screen, I have to be real careful where I place my finger on the tiny links in browser to be sure I get the right one... GIMP would be completely useless... I'd spend 3/4 of my time hitting "undo" from the edit menu (since there's no CTRL key for the Z).

    After reading the source article, it appears that Debian and Android would be running side-by-side.... I'm not sure I understand what they're doing there.... is it merely chrooted?

    I agree, there's more likelihood (and benefit) of porting Android to desktop than Linux to handheld, but that's not the point. We learn by doing. We may not get anything useful out of *this* but who knows what we might learn by doing this that we may use elsewhere?

    I applaud the effort, myself, but I don't plan on trying it until I see that Debian has apps to turn my newly rewritten cellphone BACK INTO a cellphone so I can continue using the PHONE in it.




    However...


    What would be FAR more useful to me is (1) root access, even if I DON'T ever use it, and (2) the ability to edit my screen to do different icons, different text fonts, etc.



    Now, I guess I'm gonna hafta go google Amarok and Compiz to see what these are... I keep reading posts about them like they're some kind of Cocaine for nerds but I've never really paid them any attention...
  12. WOW!!! Compiz on a G1??? Never gonna happen! Not smoothly, anyway...


    Check it!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w#



    They'll have to do some SERIOUS squeezing to fit all THAT in our box... but it sure is pretty!


    *drool*

    Wait... I have a 64-bit AMD Athlon running at over 2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM... I should be able to get that working on my box!

    Awesome!
  13. I already said that I doubted it would work. Note the parenthesis. There is no way that it would run on the G1. BTW, you don't even need 1 gig of RAM to run compiz. You barely need 512 mb.
  14. Shouldn't that be Jay Freeman successfully ports Debian to the G1?

    Anyway, this is cool. Debian was the distro that I learned Linux on. I look forward to seeing the progress on this.
  15. This is really not all that exciting. The G1 and all releases in the foreseeable future are not computers and will never be. Even if a future release is actually more powerful than computers, the limitation is on the screen size. The G1 is more powerful than most of the computers from 10 years ago, but it cannot possibly run any of the software from back then with reasonable competence. Imagine using the desktop version of Word on the G1. Good luck clicking on any of the buttons up top. What we need is a way to exploit the G1's potential as a mobile companion to the max, not a way to turn the G1 into computer replacements.

    p.s. I'd like to hold Jay Freeman to his comment about developing on the G1.
  16. I agree with Stanovoy. I kinda fail to see the point of Debian-on-G1 at all. Android, Debian - each for it's intended purpose. Anyway, like I said, I really think Android actually has a better chance of evolving into a good desktop or netbook OS than Debian does of evolving into a good mobile device OS.
  17. Pics? Video? please?
  18. Saurik on G1.....!!
    Our G1 is about to change. For those of us from the iPhone world we know jay made the iphone a fun toy.

    Thank you lord.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crashdamage View Post
    Let's just say I think Android is a very good adaptation of Linux for the purpose intended, much better than even Mobile LInux, with lotsa future potential. Debian (or Unbuntu or Mandriva or CentOS - pick any disktop distro) is not well adapted for mobile use. Expect lotsa problems.
    In fact, I would think Android has a better chance of evolving into a good desktop OS than Debian does of evolving into a good mobile OS.

    I've used Linux for a long time and always will. But I'm not even the least bit tempted to try this. A lot more disadvantages than advantages.
    This seems to be based around a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm working towards. I am not /replacing/ Android and putting Debian on the phone. I am setting things up so that when you ssh into the phone (sorry, /telnet/) and type ls -la you don't get "-la: file not found" because you have the most pitiful userspace ever.

    Android is designed to do this. If you look at Android it entirely sandboxes itself into /system, /data, and /cache, none of which are part of the standard Unix directory hierarchy. This means you can throw all of Debian and all of Android on there and never will the two ever conflict.

    This is /not/ about replacing the GUI, replacing the applications, trying to get some crazy alternative cellular stack, using desktop bluetooth, or any other "he installed Debian onto his phone?" insanity. This is just a matter of taking the following statement to its conclusion: I am carrying around a computer with me, it has a 600MHz processor and a QWERTY keyboard, it has up to 16GB of disk space, and all I'm running on it is a phone?...

    Imagine being able to easily pop out nmap and figure out what the IP of the computer you are connecting to is, or quickly rsync some files from your office server to your phone (and even maintain all the permissions, something that wouldn't be possible if you just tried to copy it onto the vFAT SD card), or run your compiles and performance tests rapidly on the device itself without having to continually redeploy your applications to the device over the USB cable.

    Seriously, the possibilities here are endless and there is no cost. My method of installation doesn't even make permanent modifications to the phone (everything is on the SD card or exists as changes to the RAM mounted / that by definition gets reset every bootup). /Comparing/ Debian to Android is simply fundamentally the wrong paradigm: put your hands together.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by the_master View Post
    Pics? Video? please?
    A video or a picture would be really boring. The end resulting phone looks identical to the previous phone, except now you can SSH into it as if it were a computer.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by saurik View Post
    A video or a picture would be really boring. The end resulting phone looks identical to the previous phone, except now you can SSH into it as if it were a computer.
    Omg, I know you from Modmyifone! Haha, did you get a G1?

    Good seeing Jay working on Android too btw!
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crashdamage View Post
    I agree with Stanovoy. I kinda fail to see the point of Debian-on-G1 at all. Android, Debian - each for it's intended purpose. Anyway, like I said, I really think Android actually has a better chance of evolving into a good desktop or netbook OS than Debian does of evolving into a good mobile device OS.
    The whole point of my article is installing Debian and Android onto the same device simultaneously and getting the benefits of both platforms at once without compromises. In the end you have Android's entire phone stack and interface with Debian's entire userspace Unix and daemon potential.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sheraz150 View Post
    Omg, I know you from Modmyifone! Haha, did you get a G1?

    Good seeing Jay working on Android too btw!
    Yeah, I promised people I would run and get a G1 the minute someone root'd it so we could get a usable user space on it ;P. I therefore dropped everything I was doing Wednesday and drove to LA (about an hour and a half from here) to buy one from a store.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by saurik View Post
    Yeah, I promised people I would run and get a G1 the minute someone root'd it so we could get a usable user space on it ;P. I therefore dropped everything I was doing Wednesday and drove to LA (about an hour and a half from here) to buy one from a store.
    Now thats dedication lol, it's about time we get some progress on this whole "Open Source" thing i've been hearing about. Now lets see what its all about!
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by andrews240 View Post
    Shouldn't that be Jay Freeman successfully ports Debian to the G1?

    Anyway, this is cool. Debian was the distro that I learned Linux on. I look forward to seeing the progress on this.
    Technically, this isn't actually a port at all: Debian already supported ARM EABI Linux (aka, Android's kernel) and has for almost two years now. I am just putting thought into the mechanisms of installing it on a G1 and making it work in harmony with Android.
  26. Quote:
    Originally Posted by shoo View Post
    Saurik on G1.....!!
    Our G1 is about to change. For those of us from the iPhone world we know jay made the iphone a fun toy.

    Thank you lord.
    ;P I actually think I can get something like WinterBoard working for it as well. (I do a lot of work with JVMs, classloaders, etc., and have published work on things similar to Mobile Substrate for Java. We therefore should be able to do almost identical "change any graphic in any program entirely safely" tricks as we are doing on the iPhone. I'm also going to be looking into video recording.)
  27. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stanovoy View Post
    This is really not all that exciting. The G1 and all releases in the foreseeable future are not computers and will never be. Even if a future release is actually more powerful than computers, the limitation is on the screen size. The G1 is more powerful than most of the computers from 10 years ago, but it cannot possibly run any of the software from back then with reasonable competence. Imagine using the desktop version of Word on the G1. Good luck clicking on any of the buttons up top. What we need is a way to exploit the G1's potential as a mobile companion to the max, not a way to turn the G1 into computer replacements.

    p.s. I'd like to hold Jay Freeman to his comment about developing on the G1.
    I don't think many people, definitely not myself, want to run graphical programs from Linux on Android devices. I actually had a long conversation with the people from LIMO and I think they even agreed: it wasn't really a good way to go, the user interface paradigms are just too different. Luckily, that's not what I'm trying to do here.

    Most of the advantages of Debian are not about it being a graphical desktop operating system, they are about it being a strong set of console applications and daemons that make it into a good server. For the same reason that people are excited by ConnectBot (the awesome SSH client in Android Market), people are to be interested in this: you don't use ConnectBot to run word on some remote computer, you use ConnectBot to run vim or emacs or some other console-based text editor on some remote computer (and probably not for terribly long).

    Also, this entirely ignores the interest in being able to SSH into the device. When you are working on rather advanced software, such as hooking display routines for something like a theming engine, doing performance critical hardware work like a real-time encoded video recorder, or just poking around and having fun learning about a system, it is incredibly useful to be "on the device", and by "on the device" I mean sitting at my laptop, using it as a giant keyboard and screen (a dumb terminal) connected over PuTTY or some other SSH client into the phone, running all my software there.

    I will say that, for example: I did /all/ the development work on Cycorder (the real-time video recorder for the iPhone) "on" the device. I ran my text editor on the device, I compiled on the device, I debugged on the device, and I even did the reverse engineering work I had to do on the device. Of course, I was sitting at my laptop the entire time (well, except for one multi-hour long presentation I sat through, where I actually /did/ type out a massive new feature on the tiny iPhone on-screen keyboard, but I digress ;P), typing on my giant keyboard, but feeding all the directions to the phone.

    The reasons this is advantageous are numerous. Sometimes its just difficult to understand what you are doing in a different context, such as the theming engine (if it even works at all). Sometimes you are dealing with particular performance characteristics that make no sense in an emulator (like video encoding). Sometimes you simply can't use an emulator as the emulator doesn't emulate the hardware (like hardware JPEG compressors or video cameras). Doing your development, therefore, running all the tools on your desktop means you have to constantly be transferring end results around, which is just slow/tedious.

    So yes, you can easily hold me to that comment, I'm already doing it, and I've been doing similar things for years, on the iPhone now and on previous embedded devices running Linux for clients in the past. ;P
  28. Quote:
    Originally Posted by talkbackdroid View Post
    ...open source phone that allows us to customize it just as we like. It seems now that the first Android-powered handset has been released we have all been a bit disappointed
    Wow. Really? Gonna have to disagree here. That's pretty negative, all things considered. A lot of us are really patiently enjoying the phone, and I for one am very impressed with where it's headed so far...
  29. I mean from the standpoint of an open source background. Sorry people. Not disappointed as far as the device. Just Androids overall open source latitude.
  30. saurik -
    Thanks for all the explanation. I think we all have a better idea why you did the Debian install and where you're going with it. I admit to not doing much more than skimming over it, enough to get it that you were installing Debian along with Android, not in place of it. But I'm not a developer and not so bright anyway, and it went past me exactly what the point of that was. Now I do get it. I shoulda given it a little more thought before posting, after reading your posts it seems kinda obvious now.

    Again, thanks. The future of Android looks good.
  31. Quote:
    Originally Posted by saurik View Post
    ...When you are working on rather advanced software,...it is incredibly useful to be "on the device", and by "on the device"

    The reasons this is advantageous are numerous. Sometimes its just difficult to understand what you are doing in a different context, such as the theming engine (if it even works at all). Sometimes you are dealing with particular performance characteristics that make no sense in an emulator (like video encoding). Sometimes you simply can't use an emulator as the emulator doesn't emulate the hardware (like hardware JPEG compressors or video cameras)....P
    These are EXCELLENT points. I was wondering, when I was playing with the SDK, how a developer could possibly test the camera functions out on their computer, since it doesn't have the camera hardware. Pretty hard to test it if it's not emulated. Keep up the awesome work, Jay.
  32. Quote:
    Originally Posted by saurik View Post
    ;P I actually think I can get something like WinterBoard working for it as well. (I do a lot of work with JVMs, classloaders, etc., and have published work on things similar to Mobile Substrate for Java. We therefore should be able to do almost identical "change any graphic in any program entirely safely" tricks as we are doing on the iPhone. I'm also going to be looking into video recording.)
    Is anyone else a little turned on right now?
    (j/k)

    Hi saurik,

    I donated $10 via paypal to you because I loved your work on Winterboard and Cydia. Thanks for making the iPhone so much better than what Apple only allowed with their strict rules. Looking forward to anything you can whip up for Android.

    BTW, as far as Video Recording, check this article out (specifically the "Video" section) as maybe that will affect your work... just an FYI and something to look into.
  33. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrGibbage View Post
    That is really freakin cool. If I only had the guts to do it...
    Lol - I have the gut's. Just need a video or someone to guide me on how to do it and i'll have no problem doing it.
  34. It would be nice to have a *real* linux shell on there. How many times I've longed for the up-arrow to repeat my last command already.

    If I get really antsy, I might go for it.
  35. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stanovoy View Post
    The G1 is more powerful than most of the computers from 10 years ago, but it cannot possibly run any of the software from back then with reasonable competence.

    Well, then! You obviously haven't installed Pac-Man yet!
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