This might belong on AskUbuntu, but I thought I'd start here... The ASUS Transfo...

noahl · on Feb 21, 2013

I think madmaze is correct about the difference between "ubuntu" and "ubuntu for phones".

You might also be interested to know that Canonical is going to release their "Porting Guide" tomorrow. It looks like they are going to help people port it to other devices, even if they aren't going to do it themselves. So, if it doesn't support the Transformer yet, it might soon. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Porting

madmaze · on Feb 21, 2013

I believe you may be confusing the "ubuntu" you are mentioning with the "ubuntu for phones" version of ubuntu.

The main difference is an optimized interface http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone

yebyen · on Feb 21, 2013

OK, but the instructions say for Nexus / Galaxy devices, well I believe that ASUS Transformer is an equivalent device except for having the option of a nice keyboard dock. Hoping that someone knows more than me.

The ubuntu that you mentioned my mentioning is ancient. I'm just looking for a modern way to get the latest, I would try Ubuntu for Phones unless I learn that it won't work for some technical reason / will brick my device if I try.

My biggest gripe with using Ubuntu in a chroot is that the kernel included with most Android distros does not support SYSV IPC, which rules out any local apache or sql servers. This is obviously not Ubuntu's fault, but I don't have the knowledge to compile and install a kernel on an ARM device that won't use GRUB for booting (or too scared to try.)

Otherwise, it's pretty good using the chroot, and I would need a compelling reason to switch (like possibly this new phone interface.)

EDIT: Same questions all around apply to Tizen.

disposabubble · on Feb 22, 2013

Have you tried the Debian Kit for Android? It is not a chroot OS, but is installed 'side-by-side' with Android. I successfully installed Ubuntu Lucid and LXDE using it to my TF201. Not sure about Apache, but Eclipse works well. I tried their Precise too, but ran into problems.

Edit: I guess this will not solve your kernel problems, but I'll leave it here for people thinking about Debian Kit for Android, which is not documented as working on TF201, afaik.

yebyen · on Feb 22, 2013

I really liked Debian Kit, but I decided eventually that I preferred Linux Deploy from http://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy

A word of warning: if you try to use more than one of these on the same system, you can easily hose the work that you've already done!

I really do not want a system that runs side-by-side, or chrooted, realistically I'm not so terribly concerned about SYSV IPC and what it brings (who doesn't love sqlite?), but I would like to know how to compile my own kernel and boot it without Dalvik or the Android userland stuff.

That used to be the most important thing to feel good about using Linux to me. I would like to have GNU Userland and X11 desktop. I would like to do this without destroying my existing Android (separate partition?) but beggars can't always be choosers. Using OLife Prime, I once was able to alter my partition table without understanding what I had done (is this what GPT is like?) and feeling very much like I had just started to install OpenBSD for the first time.

I have a great working system in that partition, mmcblk0p8.

I just don't have the foggiest idea how to boot to it directly. I think I would go back and start with oLIFE prime. I couldn't help but feeling like the trick to usurp the bootloader by overwriting the recovery tools was a hack.

So now, when I want to boot into GNU/Linux, I've got to hold the down volume like I used to do to get into OpenRecovery? (When I tried the instructions to reverse this, hold down arrow to boot into Android, I just couldn't boot anything either way.)

Can't I have all three of Android, TeamWin, AND GNU/Linux somehow? I will try it and submit something to HN next chance I get. Maybe there are more Transformer owners than I think. /rant>