Wishnu: Debian on android one-click launcher and more (now with TV!)

---

*YO! New version can connect to a TV via HDMI. If you have a USB-host, you can also connect a keyboard and a mouse!*

Hi. I want to introduce you Wishnu. The essence of our project is the launch of computer OS Linux Debian inside an Android mobile device. Then this device connects to a computer by means of the USB-cable. Actually that allows transforming any Android device into a real computer. You can connect the phone to different computers at home, at work and on a visit and use the phone’s own screen and input equipment on the journey.

We have taken "running chrooted debian/ubuntu on android" idea as the base and created something interesting with it.

First, we have created Android application which starts Debian on android mobile device with one click (no need to type any commands in the terminal etc).

Second, we have written desktop client application which shows Debian desktop running on mobile phone on the PC or laptop with wide screen, mouse and keyboard, so this actually turns the solution to the docking station like Motorola Lapdock or devices such as Pocket Desktop, but much better, cause you don't need to buy additional docking station device and you will immediately receive tons of common desktop applications available from Debian MIPS/ARM repositories (even pdf document viewers, image editors, office with spreadsheets and presentations editors etc).

Also device SD card available inside chrooted system in /media/sharedSD dir.

Watch the video in action
And this one (sorry for the quality, I used my matreshka as a camera).
Screenshots

Currently Wishnu uses Debian 5.0 ARM image taken from this thread. We are planning to add more customized and fresh Debian and Ubuntu OS images.

System requirements
PC client
- OS Windows XP, Vista, 7 (x86) or Linux (x86, x64)
- Java Runtime Environment must be pre-installed.
- Device ADB driver on Windows (on linux no adb driver needed, but adb server should be started as root in most cases)

Android device
- MIPS or ARM
- Mobile processor 500 MHz, 256 mb RAM (Recommended: processor 1 GHz and >512 mb RAM)
- Android OS 1.5 or higher.
- The device must be rooted.

Download and install instructions

Or download on Android Market

This one is much easier to start with than existing LinuxInstaller - no need to type any commands in terminal or adb shell - just download image file and press start. Also desktop client is great idea.

Needs more options for system control though and also Ubuntu image for desktop instead of old debian.

yo, we need some response, please download our awesome application! or at least tell us why you won't do it (maybe Wishnu is useless or smb is better). Thank you!

How does it do with running heavier weight applications such as thunderbird?

Originally Posted by agoodm

How does it do with running heavier weight applications such as thunderbird?

Actually it depends on your phone's performance. We use Sony Ericsson Xperia arc for testing and have no problems running such applications. You better try it and inform us about results)

Are you using the armel or armhf Debian distribution?

Originally Posted by nicktastique

Are you using the armel or armhf Debian distribution?

Currently we have images of debian squeezy for armel and mipsel.

A bit busy with the holidays and all, but I will give it a look. I definitely recommend checking out armhf. I've been testing it on my Droid 3 and cursory benchmarks show it to be something like 850% faster than armel. armel is basically useless in comparison.

Debian's armhf Icweasel 9.0 was actually faster than the native Firefox Mobile 9.0 app on the SunSpider benchmark (by 80ms, but still).

Thanks for your work, looking forward to checking it out.

Originally Posted by lokosokol

Currently we have images of debian squeezy for armel and mipsel.

Very interesting idea, and I'd love to give it a go. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me. I get an error, "Can't connect to OS image".

The checks run okay, so everything appears to be okay.

I'm using a Samsung GS2, on 2.3.5 (stock ROM), so hardware and OS are more than adequate.

Edit: Okay, so it was the stock ROM that was the problem. I assume it doesn't support loop devices (whatever that actually means!) I've got a custom ROM on there now and it gets a lot further, but I still have an issue.

It gets to the "Starting System" stage and I get the error message "OS start failed (bad program identificator)".

So, any advice?

Thank you for your advice, guys!