[DEV] Booting Ubuntu nativ!!!

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This is about booting Ubuntu natively on the DHD. (without chroot and without an Andriod running at the same time)

Based on the version for the HTC HD2



What works:

• touchscreen (touchscreen works as touchpad) (thanks to Jhinta)
• two finger scrolling (thanks to Jhinta)
• Wifi
• dragging windows (double click and holding second click)
• right click (double two finger click) (thanks to dronf)
• adb (thanks to torsrex)
• incoming calls (thanks to liljom)
• SMS (thanks to liljom)

What doesn't work:

• sound
• keys (hard and soft keys)
• usb host
• firefox (only as root)

Instructions:

• Download ubuntu4dhd.zip
• Download easy to use.zip
• Put the linux folder from ubuntu4dhd.zip to the root of your sdcard
• Put the easy to use folder to your windows PC
• Bring your DHD into the bootloader
• Connect DHD to the PC
• Double click Start here.bat
• Tip "fastboot boot boot.img"
  (without ")
• after restarting your old rom will start

Change log:

• Working touchpad driver
• two finger scrolling
• Wifi working out of the box

Modifing the rootfs on your PC or virtualBox:

• mkdir /ubuntuDHD
• sudo mount -t ext2 -o loop /path/to/rootfs /ubuntuDHD
• rootfs is now mounted under /ubuntuDHD and can be modifyed as root
• umount /ubuntuDHD

Dual boot option:

1. Download two different cwm from Rom manager
2. Open the clockworkmod folder on you sdcard an open the download folder.
3. Search for the version number for the old recovery. You will find an image file, open the containing folder and copy the boot.img from the Ubuntu4DHD.rar into it.
4. Now, rename the boot.img file to the recovery image filename and deleted the old recovery.
5. Now, when you select the old recovery from Rom manager, it will flash the ubuntu boot image.
6. Booting into Recovery will now boot Ubuntu

When you want to go back to cwm, just select/flash the newer cwm version with Rom Manager.


Download:

Ubuntu4DHD.rar (reuploaded as rar)
MD5 of image: 79a9faa2d49725fb6bfdc30d4c5fb885

easy to use.zip


appendix:

• easy to use.zip
  with:
• My boot.img
• boot-usbhost.img (boot image with usb host support)

Tips:
Password: ubuntu

For porting to other devices

Originally Posted by Chaosz-X

Hi,

I saw you got native Ubuntu up and running on the Desire HD, and I wanted to do the same with my Flyer. I know how to compile kernels and an Android build etc., but I can't figure out how to set the partitions, that the boot.img boots from a partition on the SD-card. So I was wondering if you could tell me, what modifications are made to your boot.img to make it boot from SD.

Thanks in advance!

Changes on the boot.img:
I guess you know how to extract a boot.img.
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.ph...ck_Boot_Images

When you try split_bootimg with my boot.img you will find two things.
1) a special command line arguments
2) a complet other ramdisk image containing
2a) a busybox
2b) a init script

The commad line arguments refer to the init script in the ramdisk.
The init script mounts some partitions including the ubuntu "partition" (in this case a image file on the sd card".
For mounting the partitions the init script calls a other script called MAKEDEVS also based in the ramdisk image.
In this second script you need to change the major and minor numbers of the block devices to match your kernel/device.


Placing the ubuntu image on the sd card:

I use a image file on the sd card.
You could use following commands on a linux machine to edit the image.

mkdir /mnt/ubuntuimg
sudo mount -t ext2 -o loop,rw /pathToTheImage/rootfs.ext2 /mnt/ubuntuimg
Then you will see the content of the image in /mnt/ubuntuimg.
Don't forget to unmount.
umount /mnt/ubuntuimg

Edits on the kernel:
In the kernel the framebuffer must be activated to run ubuntu

make menuconfig
Device Driver->Character Devices-> Set Virtual Terminal
Device Driver->Graphics support->Console display driver support->Remove VGA Text console

Maybe same patches for the framebuffer are needed to use the framebuffer.
Some information can be found under:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...ghlight=ubuntu

getting this working would be awesome, better than a working honeycomb possibly .

If this would be possible. DesireHD Can Dual boot. Thank-you

Sent from my Desire HD

If this ever works, is it possible to modify the normal Android system to allow a virtual environment within which you can run Ubuntu? That way you can have the benefits of both.

I think, I must not start my init script directly. Instead I shloud start it from within the init.rc.

But how?

Originally Posted by raze599

If this ever works, is it possible to modify the normal Android system to allow a virtual environment within which you can run Ubuntu? That way you can have the benefits of both.

See leedroids post on booting ubuntu through Android. A bit closer to what your looking for and working although a bit of experience would be needed.
But like another said. Dual boot Android and ubuntu should be possible if we can get this to boot.

Man if you do it, it will be exciting! Even better than working sense 3.0 Good luck!

Originally Posted by twiztedvvv

See leedroids post on booting ubuntu through Android. A bit closer to what your looking for and working although a bit of experience would be needed.
But like another said. Dual boot Android and ubuntu should be possible if we can get this to boot.

Keep in mind this is native and not chroot !!!

1: Use the android init. It directly references init.rc
2: move your init script into init.rc
3: you have failed booting due to the system not knowing the executable paths;
you HAVE to export your paths. Either reference your binaries directly, for example:
/bin/mount, /bin/dosfsck
or
export PATH /bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
Furthermore, you need to diet your boot.img; 5Mb is not flashable on the DHD unless you move and resize the partition tables (risky). The stock max is 4Mb.

You can also force the kernel to execute the init script by referencing it in the kernel cmdline. Check this option in your kernel config and compile it with such support.