Full-fledged Ubuntu or Debian GNU/Linux on your phone!?

This past week I was introduced to a great Android app: Linux Installer. This sets up a chroot environment with a loop file on your phone which will boot into a full-fledged Debian or Ubuntu OS; between these two distros you can pick among various releases.

I installed the Debian Testing distro and the Linux Installer app walks you through a number of steps to get the loop file created and formatted, mounted, and the OS installed. On my Motorola Cliq, which is somewhat slow in comparison to newer phones, this base install took a few hours and I was happy to have the phone plugged into a power source.

My first installation attempt failed and the step-by-step installer has a button to email the console logs to the developers as feedback.  Within a day, I received a response and an updated Linux Installer was released to patch the error that I experienced.  That, my friends, is FLOSS dedication!  The new version worked perfectly.

Unlike one of the poor Terminal Emulators out there, this is a full-fledged Debian Testing OS.  My coworker installed X11 and tightvncviewer on his phone and was able to remote-access his desktop and interact fully, with a touch screen interface.  Wow!

This changes so much.  Finally I can run a webserver to share files, I can run 'host gnuski.blogspot.com' without permission failures, I can view remote machines and work on them, I can run KTorrent (well, maybe).  Finally, my phone can run the GNU/Linux that I know and love, not the Linux/Android stack that works well but isn't quite what I want it to be.

If you want to install Ubuntu on your phone or Debian on your tablet or something along these lines, I suggest you start with the CyanogenMod ROM to get your device working tip-top and to get the rooted permissions that you'll end up needing anyways.  Then, check out the Linux Installer in the App Market and enjoy!