The Complete Linux Installer app for Android will give you a selection of Linux distros to choose from. There are other ways that require root access and give you a full blown Linux distro with all functionalities, but they require root and as such are not good for my purposes. In short, applications that want to write a file or read one in the root directory will get turned down. The reason for needing porting is because since KBOX doesn't have access to your root directory (it doesn't use root) it cannot set up a conventional Linux file system. On rare occasion an installed package will run without being ported. The downside is that a package either has to be directly designed for it, or ported to it, with the latter option being more buggy. In short, it creates a mini Linux distro on your internal storage and installs files there.

The first (and my personal favorite so far) is KBOX. deb files on my Android, There are many ways to get a. I described the procedure on Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.Īfter a few days of frenzied googling, I have come to the conclusion that while I might not be able to directly install Linux. There used to be a project Ubuntu for Android, but since it's no longer supported, I can't recommend it.Īssuming a rooted device, you can also install a Debian or Ubuntu system manually. If you have a rooted device, you can try Complete Linux installer. Kernel versions since 3.8 (run uname -r at the adb prompt to check what you have) make it possible to go a long way without rooting, thanks to user namespaces, but I don't know if there are installers that use this feature. There are several prepackaged ways to install a Linux system on Android. Anything with a GUI requires an X server, but there are X servers for Android, even some on Google Play. Gnome 3) is out without some serious work that I think hasn't been done. things that require an init script) are likely to be hard to install as they conflict with Android's equivalents. The Android kernel is compiled with different options from a normal Linux kernel, though the missing features¹ aren't used by many applications.

Not all Linux software can work on Android. You'll need to install not just the program you want, but all the supporting software, in particular libraries. Since Android uses the same kernel as Linux, you can install a Linux system and run Android programs and Linux programs at the same time.

You can't simply install a Linux package on Android: Android is not a Linux, it is a separate operating system that only shares the kernel with Linux.

Deb file installer application