Want to enjoy the popular desktop Linux OS Ubuntu on your Android powered mobile device, it can’t get easier than this – the free “Ubuntu Installer” app from Android Market. The application allows users to install and run “Ubuntu” inside Android – The market application installs an customized Ubuntu 10.10 image optimized for the ARM processor allowing users to run a full Ubuntu system within android. The great thing is users can make calls, text, and use other android features without having to reboot their phones.
The application supports quite-a-lot mobile devices and the list can be found from the supported devices link posted at the end of this post, another requirements are :
- Android must be rooted.
- 1GHZ processor (recommended)
- Android 2.1 or higher
- Kernel will loop device support (this is included in most custom ROM’s)
- SD card with at least 3.5GB of free space for large image (2.5GB for small image)
- Data connection on your device
- Ext2 file system support
Key features include:
Two types of Ubuntu image ‘large’ and ‘lightweight’ Both have:
Ability to install a full operating system on your phone
LXDE Desktop (very lightweight)
Working update manager
Working software centre
Ability to access files on your SD card and internal memory from Ubuntu
Ability to set screen size on boot (you no longer have to download a certain image for different screen sizes!)
Large image includes:
1.5GB download, which is 3.5GB once extracted
Ability to boot into either Gnome or LXDE desktops
Lots of apps perfect for ‘developing’ including:
Firefox, Thunderbird, openoffice.org suite, GIMP Image Editor, Emacs Text Editor (geared towards programming), C and C++ build-essential, Java JDK, Python, TeXlive and TeXmaker LaTeX editor, Transmission BitTorrent Client, eVince PDF Viewer, File Manager, Terminal, Image Viewer, Leafpad Text Editor, Synaptic Package Manager and Ubuntu Software Center with all repositories enabled (Ubuntu Software Center is pretty and well organized – but bloated and slow), SSH server, Gnash
Lightweight image includes:
500MB download, which is 2.5GB once, extracted
Includes only apps required for everything to work, leaving lots of space for your own programs but having a smaller image
