Run Debian Linux on your Android device
With no root-access required, this technique runs Linux on any recent Android device. Darren Yates explains how.
We all use and love Android — and Oreo/8.0 looks set to make it better still — but if you also need a desktop environment, Android apps can sometimes leave you feeling a bit restricted. Android itself is built on a Linux base, so wouldn’t it be great if you could install a Linux desktop OS on your phone or tablet and launch it like an app. Thanks to two free apps you’ll find on Google Play, you can — and best of all, unlike many fancy Android tweaks, you don’t need to have root access.
GNUROOT DEBIAN
When you install apps on your Android device, they’re installed in their own little separate storage space or ‘sandbox’ to prevent security crosscontamination. The Linux operating system has a similar kind of feature called ‘chroot’, which allows you to create a ‘fake’ root folder to build a second independent Linux environment that can only access this alternate path. However, chroot requires root-access, something most Android devices don’t usually have. But if Android already installs apps into their own sandbox, do we really need chroot to create another user space?
It turns out the answer is ‘no’ — clever developers have created a modified version of chroot called ‘proot’ that creates a similar Linux environment within the confines of a standard Android app sandbox. In other words, we can build a full Linux desktop environment and have it act like an Android app, all without needing root-access. Importantly, in running the Linux code in its own space, it essentially runs as fast as the device CPU allows.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
Since you’ll be installing a full-on Linux desktop OS here, having a reasonably recent Android device will help — by that, we mean at least 1GB of RAM (preferably 2GB) and at least 16GB of storage (with a good 5–7GB free). If you have a quad-core CPU, bring it along and a physical Bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse wouldn’t hurt either. We tested this technique on a Motorola Moto G5 phone, a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone, plus our own cobbledtogether dual-core Intel-powered Compaq Presario CQ42 laptop running Android-x86 6.0-r3/Marshmallow and it worked on all three. The app claims to work on Android versions going right back to Froyo/2.2, but realistically, unless you’re using Android-x86 on a laptop, it needs to be a device not much more than two or three years old, simply for the processing horsepower.
What’s important about this technique is that it doesn’t interfere with your ability to run Android apps or anything else to do with your Android OS (other than chewing up RAM and flash storage, obviously). Further, should you need to get rid of the Linux install, just uninstall the GNURoot Debian app and the whole