Debian on mobile devices

This page is about tracking every initiative to fully or partially install the system on mobile platforms:

About

Debian is the universal operating system. Thus, it should run on mobile devices. This wiki page is a tool to help bring Debian to mobile platforms.

It would be great if Debian could run on many kinds of mobile devices: iPhones, Android capable HW, Windows Mobile HW, tablets, but this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon for the majority of devices.

Devices built to run FLOSS stacks are more promising alternatives, for example ?PinePhone and ?Librem 5.

Debian on mobile devices should have GUI capabilities, appropriate to the hardware capabilities.

It would also be great if Debian could run applications written to be native to the original OS for the hardware. This will enable Debian to serve the many people in society who want to easily use those applications.

Debian might benefit from having its own User Interface, or UIs, based on progression from the desktop Debian UIs - ex, GNOME or KDE. It would be great if the GNOME, KDE and other GUI communities could come to agreement on a common UI for Debian, to save unnecessary duplication of development effort, both of the Debian UI, and application software for Debian.

Origin and Purpose

To get this wiki page started, see the original message I sent suggesting this project. It includes some reference URLs, to help seed thinking on Debian on smartphones development.

Contributions

Many people made useful replies to that email, and it would be great if they would add their suggestions of software components, foundations, and URLs thereof to this page. If we all take a few minutes to make contributions to this page when we have something valuable to add, this page will grow to be a great resource for us all. So, please take a moment to add something valuable to this page right now, or when you have the opportunity.

This page could use contributions like: Links to component software (embeded debian, GRUB, UIs, etc).

Software developers can write software for the many parts of this system and put links on this page to those components.

Writers can produce articles about Debian on smartphones in emails to the relevant Debian mailing lists, blogs, web pages and for the general media.

Artists can create the graphics and multimedia for Debian on smartphones.

Packagers can put it all together so people can download and install it on their smartphones.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for thinking. Thanks for all contributions you make. Let's all work together to enable Debian to fulfil its promise as "The Universal Operating System".

Use of the Debian bug tracking system

Bugs related to Debian on mobile devices may have usertags with the user debian-mobile@lists.debian.org. These usertags are currently defined:

• user-interface: mobile user interface related bugs, e.g. intents to package UI software or necessary changes of existing UI to improve user experience on small screens or styles input etc.

Contact

If you want to chat about Debian mobile user interfaces, please join the #debian-mobile IRC channel on irc.debian.org or subscribe to the debian-mobile mailing list. If you are interested in kernel, bootloader or middleware related issues you might want to join the #debian-arm IRC channel instead. Other discussions will be appropriate to have on these lists instead: debian-embedded debian-arm debian-kernel debian-cd debian-devel android-tools-devel

Meetings

• DebConf18 BoF: agenda, notes

• DebConf17 BoF: agenda, notes

• DebConf12 BoF: notes, video

People

Here are some people interested in running Debian on mobile devices.

Groups

• The people who work on various distributions

• FSO: umbrella project for free software on smartphones, grew out of the OpenMoko community

• Linaro: pushes upstream development on ARM, they work on Linux, GCC and related low-level stuff.

• TinkerPhones (formerly OpenPhoenux): development of tinker-friendly phones that can run mainline linux and thus Debian.

• XDA Developers forum: reverse engineering and developer discussion for Android and Windows devices

• CE Workgroup: workgroup in the LF working on Linux mainlining

• Debian Android tools team: working on packaging Android development tools (such as the SDK) for Debian

• DebianOnMobile team: Package software for Linux based mobile phones (currently focused around GNOME/Phosh based stack)

Howto

Learn software development. Port low-level stuff to a device. Package some middleware. Package a user experience. Package applications that can deal with small screens and touch input. Build images for users to flash onto the device. Get hardware to developers.

Articles

• GNU on Smartphones

• Debian on mobile devices

• Freeing my tablet

• How to run Debian or Ubuntu GNU/Linux on your Android

• Installing and Running a GNU/Linux Environment on Any Android Device

• Simple HowTo Debian in Android HTC G1 without chroot (Native)

• Install debian on a smartphone and get the text console working

Learning

At various stages you will need to learn some of the following. This can be done at the same time as working on Debian for smartphones.

• Languages:
  • ARM assembly: Linux, bootloaders
  • C: Linux, bootloaders, UIs
  • make: build systems
  • Python: middleware, applications
  • Vala: middleware, applications
• Tools:
  • Version control:
    • git: Linux, middleware, applications
    • svn: UI, applications
    • bzr: applications
  • Compilers: GCC, LLVM, GCC cross-compilers
  • Build systems:
    • make: almost everything
    • autotools: middleware, UI, applications
    • cmake: some things
    • other: Linux and bootloaders might have custom build systems based on make

Porting

Pick a specific device. Get support for it into a bootloader (u-boot/etc), mainline Linux. Ask relevant teams to build linux/bootloader packages that work on your device. Port the debian installer to the device.

This is most of the work. It is important to get your changes into Linux/u-boot mainline otherwise Debian will not be able to support your device since the Linux kernel team for Debian will not add non-mainline drivers/patches to Debian kernels and therefore you won't be able to support Debian on the phone you care about. It will be made easier since the Android drivers probably already exist and can be ported to mainline Linux. Some hardware vendors will be violating the GPL and not releasing drivers/patches. You might be able to get the code by contacting them or getting the Software Freedom Conservancy or gpl-violations.org involved.

Middleware

Pick some middleware, join the packaging group for it or package it for Debian and look for some sponsors.

UI

Pick a UI or create a new one, create a team, start packaging it for Debian and look for sponsors.

There are numerous existing FLOSS user experiences for mobile devices. As the universal OS, Debian should aim to support several of these.

Applications

Package some touch-friendly applications.

Images

Talk to the Debian installer, live and CDs teams about building daily, weekly and release images that people can flash onto their phones. This could significantly change the way Debian images are built so it will require a fair bit of discussion first.

Other tips

If you can get hardware into the hands of kernel developers that would help a lot. You might find some hardware manufacturers who are willing to give out some free samples to developers.

Install howtos

• Chroot on Android

• Debian Squeeze dual-booting with Maemo 5

• More links in the devices and installers sections.

Software

Jailbreaking, Rooting, Unlocking, Exploits

• OpenJailbreak, ipwndfu, Odyssey: jailbreaking iOS devices

• android-rooting-tools: rooting Android devices

• SunShine: (proprietary) bootloader unlock for HTC/Motorola devices (disclosures)

• WP Internals: (proprietary) rooting Windows devices

• Other: Replicant guide to rooting Android devices

• See also the devices section and the exploits.

Installers

• Lil Debi: Debian chroot manager for Android

• Debian Kit by Sven-Ola, an easy chroot kit (uses Android kernel to run a Debian from a loop sdcard disc image).

• More on the ChrootOnAndroid page.

Flashers and USB booting

• 0xFFFF: flasher for Nokia Internet Tablets based on the NOLO bootloader

• dfu-util: flasher for devices supporting the DFU 1.0 protocol. In practice this means the ?OpenMoko gta01 and gta02 and maybe other devices like the iPhone.

• Fastboot: flasher and memory booter for devices based on Android

• Heimdall: flasher for some Samsung phones

• rkflashtool: flasher for Rockchip based devices

• imx_usb_loader: flash devices using Freescale i.MX5/i.MX6 and Vybrid ?SoCs via the Serial Download Protocol (SDP)

Firmware

• OsmocomBB: free software for GSM baseband devices, currently only for the baseband on the Openmoko FreeRunner and related devices

• firmwares_nonfree: script to download and install proprietary firmware for Android devices

Bootloader

• Qi: supports gta01, gta02

• u-boot: supports various devices, forks for: gta01/gta02

• lk2nd: bootloader supporting some Qualcomm ?SoCs

Kernel

• Linux: supports some devices, forks for specific devices in various distributions.

Drivers

• GPU drivers:

  • OpenFIMG: FIMG 3DSE core from Samsung SoCs (inc S3C6410, S5P6442 and S5PC100)

  • Lima: ARM Mali (inc Mali-200 and Mali-400)

    • experimental mesa/Linux drivers in progress

    • Chai: Mali T-series

  • freedreno: Qualcomm Adreno

  • PowerVR: Imagination PowerVR

    • OpenPVRSGX Linux Driver Group: An effort to lay common foundation to make PVR/SGX work without hacks on OMAP34xx, OMAP36xx, AM335x and potentially OMAP4, OMAP5. (Related ML thread)

  • cedarus: GPU from Allwinner A10 SoCs

  • videocoreiv: Broadcom VideoCore GPUs

  • https://github.com/etnaviv: Vivante GCxxx GPUs

  • grate-driver: official nvidia Tegra open driver

  • tegra-re: nvidia Tegra reverse engineering project

  • DRI for the Freerunner: SMedia Glamo3362 from the OpenMoko FreeRunner

• Other:

  • glshim: video acceleration for OpenGL 1.x software on mobile devices that use OpenGL ES. note that this isn't needed for GPUs with Free Software drivers because mesa supports both OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL ES on the same hardware.

  • TinyGLES: a software OpenGL ES driver, intended for use with glshim

  • SwiftShader: a high-performance CPU-based implementation of the OpenGL ES and Direct3D 9 graphics APIs12. Its goal is to provide hardware independence for advanced 3D graphics. (RFP)

Middleware

• FSO: packaged by the pkg-fso team

• oFono

• pyNeo

• Ubuntu: some pieces like ofono, Qt libraries, could be synced relatively directly from Ubuntu

• others in Android/MeeGo/Maemo/Tizen/FirefoxOS

• CRAS: Chromium OS Audio Server. Looks like a good option for mobile devices. Further information. Source code.

• Shashlik: a way to run Android apps on GNU/Linux distros.

• Anbox: a way to run Android apps on GNU/Linux distros.

• AndroidChroot: a way to run Android apps on webOS.

• sfdroid: a way to run Android apps on Sailfish OS.

• ARC: a way to run Android apps on Chrome OS. Further information. Source code.

• ARChon: a way to run Android apps under the Chrome web browswer. Source code: 1, 2. Chromium for Debian.

• ParallelDroid: a way to run Android apps on desktop Linux in an X11 window.

• microG: libre replacements for Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.

• Hybris/libhybris: allows the use of non-free binary blobs (for example Sailfish OS Hardware Adaptation Development Kit) that were compiled against the bionic Android libc on glibc based systems. Useful to avoid having to develop open source drivers and possibly for reverse engineering binary blobs.

• SPURV: a way to run Android apps on desktop Linux using Wayland

User interface

• KDE Plasma Mobile

• KDE Kirigami UI: A framework oriented towards building mobile or convergent mobile/desktop applications using Qt.

• Enlightenment: Provides "Illume", which optimises the interface for mobile devices. Packaged by the pkg-e team. Previously packaged as E17 (stretch and earlier).

• Moksha: E17 fork

• Gaia: interface for FirefoxOS

• Mer/Nemo Mobile: The open parts of Jolla

• Hildon: Main website, Maemo CSSU repositories, Cordia (contains some stuff for GTK3) Latest GTK3 work (old Debian packages)

• Ubuntu: many Qt/QML libraries, applications, the Unity 8 shell

• Tizen UI: Based on Enlightenment and EFL, supports native and web applications. Source code: 1 2

• Glacier: Replacement UI for Nemo. Source code.

• fbkeyboard: Screen keyboard for linux text console. Useful on devices without hardware keyboard.

• osk-sdl: On-Screen-Keyboard based on SDL2

Discontinued:

• GPE: removed from Debian, suitable for stylus-based devices

• penguinphone

Application Repositories

• F-Droid: repository of FOSS Android-based applications

• OpenMoko: applications from the OpenMoko development community

• Ubuntu: core applications from Ubuntu Touch

• postmarketOS: applications list written by the postmarketOS community

Applications Suitable for Mobile Use

• Empathy supports voice calls and short messages via telepathy-ring

• Epiphany-browser is a web browser with a simple interface for GNOME, used by default on the ?Librem5

• Geary is a simple MUA for GNOME, used by default on the ?Librem5

• Kings Cross is a simple GNOME terminal designed for small screens and touch usage, used by default on ?Librem5

Applications Needed for Mobile Use

• Calendar (editing and displaying) with web backend for distributed use
• Note taking with web backend (like Google Keep)
• Mastodon Client

• Matrix Client (Element should work but it's not in Debian yet see Matrix)

• Remote desktop clients (Spice-client-gtk crashes on Librem5)

• OSM map viewer with offline support and use of vector data, e.g. Organic Maps

• Jabber/XMPP client with better support for small screens than the current Dino with libhandy patches

Distributions

• Debian

• Emdebian: discontinued cut down version of Debian for small and embedded devices

• Ubuntu: Ubuntu for touchscreen based mobile devices

• UBports: community continuation of Ubuntu for mobile devices

• QtMoko: distribution based on Debian

• PyNeo: distribution based on Debian

• QuantumSTEP

• Maemo: mobile distribution based on Debian

• Tizen: mobile distribution based on EFL, Debian/Ubuntu, backed by Samsung and others

• webOS: mobile distribution based on HTML/JS, OpenEmbedded, backed by HP

• LuneOS: open source successor for webOS

• webOS OSE: open source successor for webOS from LG

• FirefoxOS: Mozilla project to create an web-based OS

• GerdaOS: aims to liberate !KaiOS, the proprietary !FirefoxOS derivative

• Gentoo on Android: Gentoo project to run Gentoo in a prefix on Android

• Mer: distribution aimed at re-use by device manufacturers

• Nemo: mobile distribution based on Mer (RPM), MeeGo Handset, Qt

• Cordia: discontinued mobile distribution based on Mer (RPM), Maemo Hildon stack ported to newer GTK+/etc

• Seadot: mobile distribution based on Mer, successor for the WeTab OS

• SailfishOS: commercial distro based on Mer

• postmarketOS: Alpine Linux derivative aimed at 10 year life-cycle for smartphones

• Maemo Leste: aims to provide a free Maemo experience on mobile phones and tablets, built on top of Devuan Ascii (Debian Stretch)

• PureOS: is a derivative of Debian that will work on Librem5 the new device of Purism will be released at 2019

• Devuan: a fork of Debian, optimised for use without systemd. Provides images for a variety of mobile and embedded devices built with the arm-sdk.

• Mobian: working on getting Debian on ?PinePhone and similar devices, with tweaks and configuration in an external repo

• NixOS: OS built on the Nix declarative package manager, has a mobile effort.

• JingOS: Ubuntu-based Linux OS that mimics iPadOS and is designed for (x86?) tablets

• FydeOS: Chinese-centric cloud based OS mimicking ChromeOS

• ExpidusOS: OS for the Pinephone using the XFCE4 DE (based on Void Linux)

• dahliaOS: OS that supports Zircon and Linux kernels, with a Flutter-based UI

• Capyloon: Spiritual successor of FirefoxOS, ported to mainline linux

Android-based

• Android

• Replicant: aiming to remove all the blobs and non-free stuff from Android

• OmniROM: a community Android derivative

• ?CyanogenMod: a commercial Android derivative

• LineageOS: renamed version of ?CyanogenMod community

• AsteroidOS: open-source operating system for smartwatches

• MaruOS: containers on Android

• Halium: group maintenance of Android parts that cannot be added to normal GNU/Linux distributions, as well as compatibility shims. This includes proprietary blobs as well as Android forks of the Linux kernel.

• GrapheneOS: successor of CopperheadOS, a hardened fork of AOSP

• CalyxOS: AOSP fork focussed on privacy

• Project Sandcastle: running Linux and Android on Apple devices.

• DivestOS: LineageOS fork "divested from the norm"

Devices

General hardware support pages for various groups/distros: FSO oFono SHR Replicant (targets) OmniROM (unofficial ports) LineageOS Mer webOS Ubuntu Touch Firefox OS Gentoo postmarketOS (wishlist) AsteroidOS NixOS CalyxOS DivestOS

Porting guides for various groups/distros: oFono SHR (Android devices) Replicant (1, 2, 3) OmniROM LineageOS Mer webOS Tizen SailfishOS Ubuntu Touch FirefoxOS (2). postmarketOS AsteroidOS NixOS Halium

Events

• DebConf

• embedded Linux events

• Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE)

• Linux Embedded Conference

• Android Builders Summit

===== References: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOnHandhelds http://wiki.debian.org/Handheld http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware http://wiki.debian.org/

- How can open source survive in a post-PC World? http://www.h-online.com/open/features/How-can-open-source-survive-in-a-post-PC-world-1210071.html How can open source survive in a post-PC World? (h-online.com) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348907

List_of_open_source_Android_applications http://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-store-apps-updated-with-10-new-apps/

Open Source iPhone Apps List – Real App Store Code Examples! http://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-store-apps-updated-with-10-new-apps/

- http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ CyanogenMod

Android_%28operating_system%29

- Permanent root for the Samsung Intercept http://forum.sdx-developers.com/intercept-development-2-2/sprint-intercept-wfroyo-permanent-root-using-epic-expoit/

[HOWTO] Rooting your Samsung Intercept the Easy Way http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=890460 Samsung Intercept > Intercept Android Development http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?s=b6120fd362a554792ba666425dc5e102&f=901

• }}}

OLD_Misc_OLD

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileTeam

• https://garage.maemo.org/projects/moebian

• http://rzr.online.fr/q/mobile

• http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=961128#post961128