š°How to Install a Complete Linux Distro on Androidš°
ā»ļøFor users who want to experience a complete desktop OS on their Android phone, especially tech-savvy people who donāt want to carry around a laptop or tablet, itās entirely possible to install a fully-functional Linux OS on your Android phone.
You will need a rooted phone for this operation ā you can search Appuals for a root guide for your device if you arenāt already rooted. Once youāre rooted though, the process is fairly simple.
Requirements
BusyBox
VNC Viewer
Linux Deploy
šŗThe first thing youāll want to do is install BusyBox ā either directly from Google Play store, or the Magisk BusyBox module if youāre rooted with MagiskSU.
If you install BusyBox from the Google Play store, you just need to download the app, launch it, and hit the Install button from inside the app.
šŗIf youāre rooted with MagiskSU, you need to launch Magisk Manager and go to Settings, then enable the Enable Busybox button, which will utilize Magiskās built-in BusyBox for your device.
What BusyBox does is allow your Android system to use Linux commands normally not accessible to you ā many root apps depend on this. With BusyBox installed, youāre now going to launch Linux Deploy on your device.
šŗIn the Linux Deploy menu, choose Download, and then youāll be presented with an options menu. Here is where youāll configure your Linux distro before itās installed, and Iāll explain the important settings:
šŗDistribution ā Choose your Linux distro to install. Thereās quite a large list, but the most user-friendly would be Ubuntu.
Distribution suite ā Choose a version of the Linux distro you selected above.
Architecture ā Do not change this, it is automatically selected based on your device.
Image size (MB) ā The default is 512, but you should change this to a higher available number. Just donāt enter a number greater than 4095mb.
SSH Settings ā Youāll need to change the default port of 22 here, but Android devices can only use ports about 1024. Most users would opt for port 2222.
Custom mounts ā If you want to access your Android filesystem from within the Linux distro, go to Mount points and choose the ones you need. If you cannot enable the internal storage, change the default storage mount /storage/emulated/0 to /data/media/0.
šŗYou should set your username to root ā this will give you permanent super-user access inside the Linux distro. When everything has been configured, press the Install button, and after itās finished, you may launch the Linux distro with the Start button ā but this will launch it in chroot, which is like a command-line terminal. So we need to access the GUI using the VNC Viewer tool.
šŗLaunch VNC and set the address to localhost:5900 and enter your password. You now have a fully-functioning Linux desktop OS on your Android phone. You may want to begin installing Linux apps, which is done through the Linux terminal. Here are a few worth grabbing (use the commands in the terminal):
LibreOffice ā apt-get install libreoffice
Firefox ā apt-get install iceweasel
Python Idle ā apt-get install idle
GIMP ā apt-get install gimp
DropBox ā apt-get install nautilus-dropbox