How to Run Ubuntu on Your Android Phone

Android is  the most popular mobile operating systems in the world. It has a featured applications framework that allows users to add or replace existing applications. Android comes with over 10 pre-installed applications that add to the functionality of the smart phone.

Ubuntu is a free Linux-based operating system. There are thousands of free applications developed for this OS, many of which cannot run on Android. To run these applications, you must run Ubuntu on top of Android on your mobile device, which must be “rooted” in order to run Ubuntu. Rooting your Android phone is legal, but will void its warranty.

Follow these steps to install Ubuntu on your Android Smartphone

Rooting the Android Phone

Step1

Download the Super One Click Root archive and extract it anywhere on your hard disk drive. The “SuperOneClick.exe” executable file will appear.

Step2

Take the SD card out of the Android phone and connect the phone to your computer by using the USB cable.

Step3

Go to “Settings,” select “Applications,” tap “Development” and enable “USB Debugging.”

Step4

Double-click the SuperOneClick.exe file to run it. Click the “Universal” tab in the SuperOneClick window and click the “Root” button. This will root your Android phone.

Step 5

Select “Allow Non Market Apps” in case you want to install third party applications later.

Running Ubuntu

Step1

Open the Web browser on your computer and download the “ubuntu.zip” archive. Save the archive anywhere on your hard disk drive.

Step2

Connect your Android phone to the computer by using a USB data transfer cable.

Step3

Extract the archive and copy the resulting “ubuntu” folder to the phone’s SD card. Note that the folder must be in the root of the SD card, so do not put it in any other folder.

Step4

Go to “Settings” on your phone, select “Applications” and tap “Development.” Turn on the “USB Debugging” feature.

Step5

Start the Windows Command Prompt and navigate to the SDK platform tools folder by running these commands:
cd /sdk
cd /platform-tools

Step6

Run the “adb shell” command to enter the Android shell. Connect in super user mode and enter the ubuntu folder on the SD card by running these commands:
su
cd /sdcard
cd ubuntu

Step7

Run the script that configures Ubuntu to run on your Android phone by running this command:
sh ubuntu.sh

Step8

Run this command to boot Ubuntu on top of the Android operating system:
boot ubuntu

Note

If you don’t get any errors, it means that your Android OS supports loop devices and Ubuntu is successfully running on top of it. You can now install Ubuntu applications and run them on your Android phone.