ubuntu-nexus7 team mailing list archive

[Sergii Pylypenko <x.pelya.x@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi. You might be interested in another attempt to port Ubuntu to Android.
It uses an opposite idea to your port - instead of overwriting Nexus 7
system partition with Ubuntu installation, it's just a regular Android app,
and it does not need your device to be rooted, so it can be installed on
stock Nexus 7, and most other high-end Android devices right from Google
Play.
It achieves that by using fakechroot, so technically it's not a "full"
Ubuntu OS, it's an X server session with Ubuntu environment, run atop of
the Android OS (so I don't care about kernel and drivers - Android provides
that). However as far as I can tell, users don't care about the kernel and
underlying stuff, they care about applications, and my port provides that,
without the need to root/remove Android, or to sign any deals with device
manufacturers.
It's not without bugs of course, the biggest bug is that Android kernel
does not have pseudo-terminals support, so Gnome, KDE, Unity, LibreOffice,
and lot of other applications do not work, I'm using XFCE4 because of that.
There are few important apps that work - Gimp, Synaptic, AbiWord and
Gnumeric are the ones I've tested, and they are pre-installed in my custom
Ubuntu image.
This bug can be fixed by creating another LD_PRELOAD-ed library in the
manner of fakechroot, and most other bugs can be fixed too (like crippled X
server, or missing audio), however I've stopped development, because it got
too little interest from users (porting games gives more fame for far less
work).
Currently I'm considering to resume development on this port, however I'm
not doing that without community support, or some kind of approval from
Canonical, and I have no idea how to gather a community.
On the other hand, Canonical stance seems to be "use our kernel or die", as
it appears to me, so my port might have been a wasted effort.
Does this app have any future? I will appreciate your comments.

Google Play release:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu
Sources: https://github.com/pelya/cuntubuntu
My email: x.pelya.x@xxxxxxxxx