Linux Mint on Android Tablet

[nightsoul]

I use Linux Mint on my computer at home. And I like it. for me, the best and more friendly distribution.

I think it would be very usefull to make Linux Mint work on the tablet with tegra inside like Acer A500, Asus transformer ...
It is becoming the new standard for tablet (using nvidia tegra processor) and they work on android 3.0 kernel Linux.
Ubuntu is already trying to make run on toshiba A500 (it s already working with some sound and wifi problems).

Linux Mint is beautifuller, easyer (with everything already preinstalled to be use) then perfect for the customer of this sort of products.

Do you think your team could (would have time...) to make a special version for the android tablet?

[AlbertP]

They may first have to buy such a tablet. If you want Linux Mint to run on it, you should donate some money.

[MarkX]

That can't be the best answer..

by AlbertP on Thu May 19, 2011 4:54 am
They may first have to buy such a tablet. If you want Linux Mint to run on it, you should donate some money.


AlbertP you are unfamiliar with the A500 tablet which already runs Linux. It runs Android 3.x (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%2 ... _system%29) I happen to own it and the hardware is excellent. Android on the other hand is....a bit lacking but getting better. Yes money can be donated to the people that work so diligently on Linux Mint however I don't see them posting such comments. I even searched very diligently for your name to see if you were part of the team or even on the list of sponsors. I did not find your name. Maybe you were just having a bad day on this one.

I do software development and in the past have contributed to various projects. It is absolutely great when people donate to my projects. Maybe this is mostly because no on is forcing them to or even hounding them about it. It is a sincere form of gratitude.

[ThistleWeb]

As I understand it tablets are a totally different architecture, so no normal distros or compiled binaries will work on it. So to get a tablet compatible version of an OS they'd need tablets to test and build on. Given that the Mint team is very small, it may be a good idea if it wasn't further diluted to produce another vastly different edition. I can see the comments already "great Mint 12 Tablet, can we get a KDE version now?"

Android isn't a regular Linux, it's a Linux kernel and a Java environment. The hardware is also likely to be ARM, not Intel or AMD. People with older PPC Macs have very limited options of PPC versions of Linux distros, because it's a separate load of work to maintain it. You don't just run an amd64 or i386 version on PPC hardware and expect it to work. All of that is before we even start to consider UI's.

Given the context, I don't think it was that flippant of a response, it was actually pretty realistic, specially considering Mint relies on donations and user contributions.

[AlbertP]

@ MarkX: The tablet indeed runs Linux, but not Mint. It needs special ARM compiled binaries and cannot run regular x86 code.

[MarkX]

As I understand it tablets are a totally different architecture, so no normal distros or compiled binaries will work on it. So to get a tablet compatible version of an OS they'd need tablets to test and build on. Given that the Mint team is very small, it may be a good idea if it wasn't further diluted to produce another vastly different edition. I can see the comments already "great Mint 12 Tablet, can we get a KDE version now?"

Android isn't a regular Linux, it's a Linux kernel and a Java environment. The hardware is also likely to be ARM, not Intel or AMD. People with older PPC Macs have very limited options of PPC versions of Linux distros, because it's a separate load of work to maintain it. You don't just run an amd64 or i386 version on PPC hardware and expect it to work. All of that is before we even start to consider UI's.

Given the context, I don't think it was that flippant of a response, it was actually pretty realistic, specially considering Mint relies on donations and user contributions.

I agree on some points. I also agree about it being a lot of work. But the straight out answer was hey why don't you pay for it.....I just didn't buy it. For sure this is too big a project for the Linux Mint Team. Most of mint's development comes from Ubuntu. I would say watch and see when Ubuntu supports tablets and its features etc.. Also a simple Google (Google in English) search provides information about a lot of teams working on Linux for ARM. especially arm.com


My point I suppose is in the end nothing is impossible. The real question is just where do you get it from and how can it be done. This I believe was the point of the original question. It was more of do you think, do you have the time kind of thing.

[Land_Of_Tears]

Isn't that new Spark tablet supporting a Linux distribution? not sure which one and I think Ubuntu are looking into the tablet market and taking it more seriously.

[mank_in]

I see a lot people is thinking all linux kernel can run on android tablet.
see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Li ... hitectures
LM use x86 architectures. If you want LM run on ARM processor ( NVIDIA tegra is ARM processors developed by license ), it must base on ARM architecture.

[Monsta]

Isn't that new Spark tablet supporting a Linux distribution? not sure which one and I think Ubuntu are looking into the tablet market and taking it more seriously.

Hmm, interesting. I googled a little and found some articles about that Spark tablet, here's one of them.
Looks promising. It's not just another Android machine with proprietary, closed-source Tegra drivers (and other modules) shoved into kernel, so Linux developers are having a "nice" time adapting them or just rewriting them from scratch. It's an open system from the start.

[samriggs]

I think its a great idea if it can be done.
Will keep my eyes open for this one to come in the fututre, if it can be done which Im sure it can.
ya I can see the folks asking for kde or xfce etc etc etc that should start another war
plus it leaves the doors wide open for developers to have a blast writting more aps for it although all should woirk on it as long as they can somehow make the touchscreen standard which should really not be an issue hopefully so all the developers don't have to recode their software to add that into for the tablets.
Should be interesting thats for sure.

[mank_in]

Something like this Install And Run Ubuntu On Your Android Device With Ubuntu Installer

[AlbertP]

That works only with distros having an ARM port, which Ubuntu has but Mint hasn't. Mint in its present form will never run on any ARM device.

[bimsebasse]

Of all the major Linux distros Mint is probably the most tablet-......uninterested. I'm buying everyone a drink if clem comes out and says he's gonna start developing Mint for tablets in the next 3 years. Ubuntu is a much better bet.

[xenopeek]

Of all the major Linux distros Mint is probably the most tablet-......uninterested. I'm buying everyone a drink if clem comes out and says he's gonna start developing Mint for tablets in the next 3 years. Ubuntu is a much better bet.

Perhaps we should sticky this topic so we won't forget this promise But seriously, you have a point. I don't see this happening either, but I'm happy with it anyway. Linux Mint on my desktop, OpenBSD on my firewall / server, and who knows what on a future open tablet / phone... Linux Mint doesn't try to be everything, and it doesn't need to be.

[bimsebasse]

Nah it doesn't bother me either though I love the no-connection-with-reality idea of running some sort of official mintified Android on my phone

[Monsta]

In the meanwhile, "pre-order registration" for Spark Tablet has been opened at http://makeplaylive.com

[sunewbie]

boshi Linux also has ARM support.

Does ARM support it depend upon DE and Kernel or anything else? I ma not a programmer, so please talk in plain english which i can understand

[AlbertP]

You need to have two releases, one for the normal computer and one for ARM. It isn't too different from having seperate 32- and 64-bit ISO files. But building ISO's for yet another architecture costs a lot of time which the Mint team currently does not have, and they probably also lack the ARM hardware to test it.

[sunewbie]

Thank you @AlbertP

[anantshri]

hi all,
I am new to LM forums here however my linux experience dates back since 2000 (my first distro was RH desktop 5.2).
I also have fair share of experience with running Ubuntu and BackTrack on Arm Devices (ch-rooted mode)(http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr ... ?t=1028464 and http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr ... ?t=1074169)

Now making my context clear here is my opinion on the topic in consideration.

1) Linux Mint would actually be a good edition in the Arm Tablets range.
2) As rightly pointed out we will require ARM edition on Linux Mint.

Besides the method in which i am familler could be done by just getting point 2.

however in order to achieve pure dualboot we will also require proper kernel with drivers specific to each device and this specific task makes this whole efforts very troublesome.
some of the efforts where made based on my work ealier (forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1079898) however as you can see they are also marked as unstable at this point.
so the best bet is to select one hardware and focus efforts on that specfic hardware.