Gentoo Linux on Android devices

[shimitar]

Hi guys!

first of all apologize if this is not the correct section... i had some trouble figuring out where to put this.

I am an android user mostly, now, on my "personal" devices. A powerfull phone and a good tablet with a great hardware keyboard. So trying out how to install my favourite linux distribution on it was only a matter of time.

I had quickly ho discard the idea of installing Gentoo natively without Android in the way, so i figured out the best way was installing on top of Android in a chrooted environment.

This is, of course, no news and has been done for many distributions INCLUDING somebody with gentoo itself. Unfortunately while there are automatic tools for othe distributions, nothing seems to be out there for Gentoo.

In the spirit of Gentoo, i am writing a "guide" with all the instructions on how to proceed am also working on a script to easy activation and deactivation of the chrooted environment... As a completition, a small set of files (customized scripts and make.conf additions mostly)

I am attaching the so-far work on this post. The instructions are quite complete (except for bugs and instruction on how to further optimize the installed gentoo), the script does work quite well also, but the "disconnection" part is still missing.

Please, try them out and let me know your ideas...


http://www.gardiol.org/linux_on_android/install_gentoo.txt
http://www.gardiol.org/linux_on_android/files.tar.gz
http://www.gardiol.org/linux_on_android/linux_on_android.sh
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Willy Gardiol
willy@gardiol.org

[depontius]

I have to look at your directions more closely, but I have one piece of advice - make sure you're running Gentoo on the external sdcard, not on the internal flash.

Gentoo, thy name is churn. Flash has a limited lifetime in terms of writes. For normal usage that probably won't matter, but for Gentoo it might. Putting Gentoo on the external sdcard means that if you wear it out, you can replace it. Wear out the "sdcard" flash soldered into the phone, and you can throw the phone away.
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.sigs waste space and bandwidth

[shimitar]

Thanks for the advice

Well, you will not actually run a Gentoo installation of course... unless you plan to start services and such.

My reason for it is running X GUI application on my tablet. And it works.

Looking for ways to reduce impact anyway, so any suggestions on how to reduce writes is welcome...
_________________
Willy Gardiol
willy@gardiol.org