[Dec 27] Ubuntu for HTC HD2 - v0.3 released

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cortk

Senior Member
Aug 29, 2007
87
6
For those people not getting the unity interface, I did this:
I clicked on my storage card on the desktop, then clicked the purple computer icon in the toolbar, then clicked file system, usr, share, applications, login items. Clicked unlock, entered "ubuntu" as password, changed the login environment to the netbook one (instead of blank), then clicked close.

Then rebooted:
Pressed the lock icon on topmost taskbar, switch user, clicked power button and shut down, rebooted.
 

shree.cse

Senior Member
Apr 30, 2010
2,878
1,541
Bangalore
Here is screenshot:

SsM7x.jpg
How did you got that Overlay? I have nothing on the screen, except the task bar
 

TacoLoco

Senior Member
Nov 28, 2007
529
34
Pls somebody make a lil video.. Still waiting for my new display but want to see this in action ;)
 

chris5932

Senior Member
Nov 14, 2009
305
55
For those people not getting the unity interface, I did this:
I clicked on my storage card on the desktop, then clicked the purple computer icon in the toolbar, then clicked file system, usr, share, applications, login items. Clicked unlock, entered "ubuntu" as password, changed the login environment to the netbook one (instead of blank), then clicked close.

Then rebooted:
Pressed the lock icon on topmost taskbar, switch user, clicked power button and shut down, rebooted.

Works BUT the overlay keyboard is on top and if i close it any overlay disapears and clean desktop is shown
 

curiousGeorge

Senior Member
Feb 17, 2008
661
111
35
Saint Paul, MN
Performance is certainly better this time around. I think posting (part of) the readme on the first page would help a lot of confused users. It includes a changelog, password (ubuntu), a list of what works and what doesn't, etc -- just like the Android builds.

My impressions of 0.3 are in some respects better than 0.2, but for all of my use cases, it is one step forward, 2 (or 3) steps backward. But I do not mean ANY insult by this, honestly. It is obvious a lot of work has gone into the release, despite delays. The lack of sound and keypad (X issue? Did you open a ticket/report?) and proper stand-by are the biggest remaining administrative niggles. I'm impressed by the Unity interface, even though it occasionally fails to load properly. (It loaded the first time, but on every subsequent reboot it never loads.)

- I see the available memory is now 412.3MB. This is good.
- Applications (as well as boot) speeds are much improved.
- There is no openoffice. This is a big regression, since the "Zoho" nonsense is no better than Office Mobile, Android's QuickOffice, or anything else, but much worse due to compatibility trouble, functionality, and usability on the go. A big allure to "Ubuntu" is that it contains full desktop compatible software, not watered-down items tethered to an internet connection (read below: wifi does not work). Real Office (OpenOffice) was one if not THE major use case for Ubuntu on the device, since a system with no sound, no calls, etc is only truly useful for desktop use cases.
- Wifi does not work, and my home network is not even detected. I'm looking into this and seeing if there isn't something I can do to get it running. (edit: only eth0 interface is detected by wicd, there is no wlan anywhere). Is the firmware included?
- Battery status partially works (you need to click an icon to get the status and fill %), and charging still does not seem to work (tested by hooking the USB to the computer).

All in all, this release is not usable in its current form -- no unity launching, I had to create desktop launchers for system monitor, terminal, etc, and no wifi means no ability to download openoffice from software center, I cannot browse the web or view/work on documents, etc.

An impressive effort, and I can see this is a step forward. But again, it is with great pain (and hours of struggle with the system) that I must report that for me it is multiple steps backward as well. I also wish, in hindsight, that the development progress had been posted here so I could comment/test/help out wherever I could. I'm going to keep trying to enable wifi, which will allow me to debug Unity (or remove it and install a real netbook interface like KDE's).
 
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    Ubuntu for the HTC HD2 version 0.3

    This is the new v0.3 release of Ubuntu for the HTC HD2 I announced a while ago on twitter.

    Ubuntu is a full Linux distribution - and it's not designed for smartphones. But with the large touchscreen, high display resolution and fast system speed of the HTC HD2 I decided to make Ubuntu easily available to HD2 end users!
    This is not a secret warez ROM proprietary junk. Source code information below ! Wiki use for contribution purposes is highly encouraged! You can find all information needed to reconstruct my builds there.

    The interest seems large enough so you can expect an improved version 0.4 :
    -The no-menu problem will be solved
    -It will be bootable via cotulla's MAGLDR and HaRET (Handhelds Revers Engineering Tool)

    beta closed!! please do not in quire any longer.
    => I am looking for people to test a 0.4 beta version soon as I'm done. If you are interested please direct message or @ me via twitter @htc_linux as I will send the beta download link there.


    Features

    * You can get online using 3G and WiFi
    * Attach all kinds of USB devices like mice, keyboards, flash drives, card readers, networking devbices, etc. to turn your HD2 into a full PC
    * Use full desktop like web browser without the usual limitations found in smartphone browsers
    * Use instant messaging
    * Watch videos
    * Handle text messages and make calls (without sound so far)
    * Install thousands of programs for your internet experience, office needs, social networking fun, etc.
    * Be cooler because you have something special on your phone!

    It is difficult to create a release like this as opposed to all the Android builds for the HD2.
    Technical background to this:

    The Linux kernel we ported to the HD2 is originally designed for use with Android user space (because we based our work on the Linux kernels of official Android devices) and Ubuntu is originally designed for large laptop or desktop computers.
    This means many workarounds on kernel and user space level must be made in order to make this usable.
    Despite lots of work not all problems could be tackled yet: Audio and suspend/resume do not work as of v0.3 and it is a bit tricky to navigate.


    http://oe.netripper.com/files/hd2-ubuntu_0.3.zip.torrent
    md5sum hd2-ubuntu_0.3.zip aa7ad65d247594e95bb7abe2e7aa7688
    You can run an Md5sum program on your download. If you get the above hash you have a 100% trusted release.

    Direct mirror: ( Torrent usage encouraged. )
    http://hotfile.com/dl/92426365/63801e6/hd2-ubuntu_0.3.zip.html thx to shah_vm
    Additional direct mirrors welcome.

    If you like it you can buy me a beer

    Posted from my HD2 via firefox-3 on hd2-ubuntu-0.3 :cool:

    Thanks to Jaxbot (from windowsphonehacker website) for shooting this video!
    Additional pics / videos welcome

    INSTALL
    ######

    1)Extract the linux folder to the main directory(!) of your Storage Card.
    If the linux folder is not located in the main directory of the Card,
    it will not work.
    Note: This will not touch your phone's internal memory. WinMo or other Linux/Android builds remain unchanged.


    QUICKSTART
    #########

    1) Save all your current work and start the HaRET exectuable to boot Linux.
    2) Watch the system boot up fully until you see a graphical desktop interface.
    3) It is useful to set the CPU speed up for better performance. Tap the CPU speed meter in the mid of top bar.
    4) Use shutdown icon in the home menu to bring the system down savely.
    Enjoy!



    TUTORIAL VIDEO
    ############
    Thanks to Jaxbot for shooting this video


    SIGNIFICANT CHANGES
    ##################
    Please read the attached and included readme.txt for detailed information.

    Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick basis
    -optimized for our hd2 CPU
    -large performance improvement
    -up to date app versions
    -new graphical interface

    Better connectivity
    -3 modes to interact via USB selectable
    -file transfer and interactive shell via ADB and USB ETHERNET (ssh)
    -USB HOST mode to connect thousands of peripheral devices like keyboards, mice, usb mass storage devices.

    Improved drivers
    -Backlight control
    -Battery charging and state reading


    IMPORTANT NOTES
    ##############
    -There is a known problem with the menu not appearing so you will only see a single icon on a normal desktop instead of the fancy menu seen above. You can fix it as explained below.
    -There is still no audio in calls and generally due to lack fo ALSA driver for hd2.
    -The hardware keys don't work
    -No screen rotation added
    -The battery % can only be read via shortcut. Icon will always show low state

    Please do not report these problems.

    In case you are affected by the no-menu problem here is a quick fix:
    Add the 'main menu' in the top panel in order to start apps:

    -Tap and hold a free spot in the top panel for like 3 secs (note that the area between the left and middle icons is not free s1pace but the window picker) and release the cursor. This is supposed to simulate right click. It is a big tricky..
    -A drop down menu should appear
    -Select add to panel
    -Drag the 'main menu' item to the panel
    -You can now start programs and edit settings.
    a)In settings menu select session settings and make 'Ubuntu netbook 2d' session default settings menu. Only drawback is you can't add programs to the panel in it.
    b)Go to 'startup applications' and try raising the delay in seconds for nbl (netbook-launcher-efl) to start.

    Let me know if you get the workaround going in case you were affected


    DEVELOPERS' CORNER
    ################

    I documented the most important stuff about 'Ubuntu for HD2' in the htc-linux wiki. With that information you can rebuild it from scratch - or implement other OS like meego, kubuntu, etc.
    http://htc-linux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ubuntu/Leo
    Some parts are not yet updated to match the 0.3 status but I hope I can do it soon.

    Get the Linux kernel souce code:
    git clone git://git.linuxtogo.org/home/groups/mobile-linux/kernel.git htc-msm-2.6.32

    Compile Linux kernels for your HTC
    http://htc-linux.org/wiki/index.php?title=QuickDeveloperStartGuide#Kernel
    38
    http://www.multiupload.com/BQPKC7PPHF

    Mirror to ease server loads, should be up soon. :)
    8
    Here is screenshot:

    SsM7x.jpg
    5
    Hey guys,
    yesterday i finally found the time to try out the fix posted a couple pages before in this thread. And since there were many requests to write a guide on how to boot ubuntu 0.3 with magldr and nand android, i wanna share the following. please notice, that you wont be able to use the touchscreen or the hardware keys. at this time i dont know what causes this problem, but the only way to input ubuntu on my htc hd2 was through a hardware mouse.

    Guide to get ubuntu 0.3 running with magldr and nand android:

    1. first of all download all the required stuff ... ubuntu 0.3 (first thread) is needed, linit.zip (look at the attachments of this post) and if you not allready have a linux distribution, download a ubuntu or opensuse livecd on distrowatch.com or somewhere else

    2. now unzip hd2-ubuntu_0.3.zip and linit.zip to whatever folder you like.
    rename a zimage of your choice to "zImage", rename "initrd.cpio.gz" to "initrd.gz", put your zimage and initrd.gz to the root of your sdcard. all the other files inside hd2-ubuntu_0.3.zip belong into /linux

    3. open up your terminal and execute the following command to gain root rights: "sudo -s" if your on ubuntu or simple as can be "su" on other distributions.

    4. mount your ext2 image: to do so, execute the following commands:
    a. "mkdir /mnt/ext2" (creates a folder ext2 in your mnt folder)
    b. "mount /path/to/your/image/rootfs.ext2 /mnt/ext2 -o loop"
    (mounts the image rootfs.ext2 to the previously created folder)

    5. now the command "mount -l" should be listing your image ("/dev/loop0") as mounted, followed by the directory "/mnt/ext2" where it has been mounted in

    6. now you can access the mounted image with the following command:
    "cd /mnt/ext2" (changes directory to "/mnt/ext2")
    "ls" (shows you the content of the mounted image)

    7. after that you need to copy the "linit"-file to the bin directory of the mounted image with the following command:
    "cp /path/to/linit/file/linit /mnt/ext2/bin" (copys your linit file)
    "ls /mnt/ext2/bin" (should now show you the linit file inside the binfolder)

    8. the last step to success is the following:
    open up "/mnt/ext2/etc/rc.local" with your favorite text editor. you could use kwrite or vim, and edit the following:
    before editing rc.local looks something like this:
    __________________________
    #!/bin/sh -e
    #
    # rc.local
    # stuff
    # stuff
    # stuff
    # stuff
    # stuff

    exit 0
    __________________________

    after editing rc.local should look like this:

    __________________________
    #!/bin/sh -e
    #
    # rc.local
    # stuff
    # stuff
    # stuff
    # stuff
    # stuff

    /bin/linit >> /var/log/linitlog
    exit 0
    __________________________

    dont forget to save rc.local

    9. now you can unmount the rootfs.ext2 image again by executing
    "umount /dev/loop0"

    10. congratz your rootfs.ext2 image has been successfully edited and the reboot loop problem should be fixed. you can check if "linit" is being executed correctly by reading the "/var/log/linitlog"- logfile. of course you need to mount your image again before being able to access the logfile.

    please gimme some feedback on this guide since i dont know if i forgot something or made a mistake.

    greetz :)