Linux on Android via UserLAnd, Linux Deploy Tool

[DrMrLordX]

I'm tempted to get a Snapdragon 855+ phone, put it in a dock, and try running Linux on the thing with a tool like UserLAnd or Linux Deploy Tool. Has anyone tried that before? What kind of shortcomings can I expect using such tools? Are there overhead problems? Device driver problems? Wifi/networking problems? I'd prefer to avoid Linux Deploy Tool because rooting a phone is not always a great idea.

 

[lxskllr]

I used LinuxDeploy a couple years ago, but only ran it on the phone display. Everything seemed to work, but was a bit inconvenient as you might imagine a XFCE desktop on a phone would be. Docking it, and using it as a real desktop sounds much more interesting.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I used LinuxDeploy a couple years ago, but only ran it on the phone display. Everything seemed to work, but was a bit inconvenient as you might imagine a XFCE desktop on a phone would be. Docking it, and using it as a real desktop sounds much more interesting.

Hmm I might have to give it a whirl then. I know I can get a custom dock for the ROG Phone II. Not sure what kind of docks I can get for a OnePlus 7T.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I have an ROG Phone II now, and I have UserLAnd installed. It's . . . definitely different. Haven't got the dock yet. If I can get a few more things installed and working, that'll be my next step.

I don't 100% understand the internals of the app, but it seems to piggyback heavily on the underlying Android subsystem. It uses its own filespace in Android to download a minimal amount of system files to support a command-line window on top of what looks like a dead X session (funky grey background, no functioning GUI). Got a $9 USB3->USB-C adapter/hub to hook up mouse and keyboard, and by Jove they work! So if I really want to get away from the Android keyboard and add mouse support, I can do that. Everything's still pretty tiny unless I use touch commands to zoom in. Can't pan with the mouse either, which is somewhat vexatious.

But the kicker was getting LXDE started. UserLAnd's own documentation actually tells you how to start up LXDE, and I'm okay with using it since that's my preferred desktop environment anyway. For reference:

CypherpunkArmory/UserLAnd

Main UserLAnd Repository. Contribute to CypherpunkArmory/UserLAnd development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

LXDE installed properly enough (hint: the keyboard support you want for American English is "31", don't make the mistake I did and install an Arabic keyboard), and I even installed nano via apt to put together a shell script to launch LXDE in case I would have to do this multiple times from command line. So my first concern was addressed: network support under UserLAnd just piggy-backs on whatever network support you have under Android. I'm using 802.11ac to my 6300v2 router. It's arguably the fastest and easiest-to-set-up wifi I've ever had under Linux. So ironic.

XSDL wanted me to use port 4713, so I typed:

export DISPLAY=:0 PULSE_SERVER=tcp:127.0.0.1:4713
startlxde

and that's where hilarity ensued. I had the same basic problems from this thread:

Can't start x server · Issue #445 · CypherpunkArmory/UserLAnd

I followed the instructions, but the app xsdl can't connect to userland. There are missing pieces, first of all, the "start" command can not be executed.

github.com

XSDL just doesn't work under Android 9 right now. Bummer. Anyway, next I get to figure out how to make Firefox work in LXDE. Getting some nice errors there.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Okay, so might need some help here. If anyone feels like helping out I'd be thrilled.

It looks like launching Firefox via VNC is going to require gksudo or similar. Sadly, 18.04 and later don't have gksudo in the repos. I tried adding Artful repos following this guide:

For anyone who still needs or wants GKSU

I still need GKSU for a variety of applications. Or, at least, I want it since the alternatives are, for the moment, less than convenient. So, I have found the following solution that works for me. I have not detected any unforeseen issues as of yet (I have been running it for a few days now)...

ubuntu-mate.community

Though I edited my artful.list file by hand with nano instead of using cat. Same difference.

Updating the repos brought failure:

The repository 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful Release' does not have a Release file.
Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

Blah!

Any advice on where to go next? The alternatives to gksudo seem frankly quite awful, so I'm trying to avoid those.

I managed to add the Artful repos be replacing all instances of 'archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu' with 'old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu'. Everything updated correctly. Then I installed gksu via

apt-get install gksu

That caused VNC to crash. Looks like the Android back-end pitched a fit. Gonna have to nuke the entire filesystem and start over.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Reinstalled Ubuntu via UserLAnd. Still connecting to the session via VNC.

This time around, I installed gksu first, and then lxde. Starting lxde did not crash anything, nor did installing the gksu package from the Artful repos. Great!

So I tried starting Firefox via

gksudo firefox

In an xterm. The good news is that I'm not getting permission problems from Firefox anymore. Like this guy did:

Firefox crashes from Ubuntu/ · Issue #1112 · CypherpunkArmory/UserLAnd

Describe the bug After I start up the vnc client session, and run firefox from the command line, I get a segmentation fault with an error message, as follows: WARNING: failed to open shm: Permissio...

github.com

Now I'm getting

Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display "localhost:51.0"

Yay? I also get that error when starting lxde, though lxde starts but Firefox does not.

edit: looks like RANDR errors are a red herring:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=982114

Hmmmm

 

[DrMrLordX]

In other news, I got Liberica JDK running under Ubuntu 18.04 on my ROG Phone II. Woot! I can run actual Java applications instead of having to rely on DeX. Oh, the possibilities.

(haven't actually tried any of my old projects under it yet . . . will do that this weekend)

Liberica JDK/JRE is available here:

Java Download | Java 8, Java 11, Java 17, Java 21, Java 22 - OpenJDK Builds for Linux, Windows & macOS

Download Liberica JDK, supported OpenJDK builds. Open source Java 8, 11 and more for Linux, Windows, macOS.

bell-sw.com

By using this JDK, you can avoid Oracle's sneaky licensing terms on the core Java libraries. Liberica is one of the confirmed-working compiles of the OpenJDK JDK/JRE. And they provide Aarch64 binaries which is nice (and necessary for my Snapdragon 855+).

 

[DrMrLordX]

I was a slacker and only just now got around to running some Java software on my Snapdragon 855+. 3DPMRedux - a Java version of Dr. Cutress' original 3DPM benchmark - works! This Snapdragon 855+ is faster than my old A10-7700k in this particular benchmark. The fastest it ever got in 3DPMRedux was ~141 million steps/second, while my ROG Phone II achieved ~183 million steps/second. Actually I think it peaks at 189 or so, but whatever. Running the bench for too long seems to make it throttle back to 179 million steps/second so I have to figure out how to nix that behavior, if possible.

Still interesting that the Snapdragon 855+ can be that fast.

 

[scwunch]

@DrMrLordX , your temptation is also my temptation - Did you ever get this to work out smoothly?

Except one year later it is now Snapdragon 865+. I'm even dreaming of making that my main laptop. I know the Snapdragon still can't competewith modern i5-powered laptops, but I'm not a gamer and I'm hoping it will zip me around the web just fine.

I got Ubuntu to run on Linux Deploy on my OnePlus 5 (I didn't try testing its limits, but it seemed fine at first glance). And by the looks of your journey here last year, I may have some issues ahead of me that I am not skilled enough to deal with.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@scwunch

I never got the extra doodads for my phone to toggle to the big screen, but it is sort-of working. I just updated to Android 10 on my ROG Phone II and updated UserLand as well, so we'll see if I can get a better experience out of it now. Fortunately I haven't had to root it so that's a positive.

 

[scwunch]

I'm sure getting on a bigger screen will not be too much of a hassle. Are you using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse with no issues?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Actually I have a usb-c to usb-a/b adapter, and they do work. It serves as a usb hub so I can plug in both mouse and keyboard, no problem.

 

[scwunch]

Neat I'll let you know when I eventually try it out myself with all the paraphernalia