Do you have to root an Android device to install Ubuntu?

Question

Just as the title says. In order to install another ARM based Operating System or to dual boot your phone, do you have to have root access?

I'm currently using a Motorola Atrix, not sure if that matters or not.

Are you looking to install it directly to the hardware? I haven't actually seen anyone do this yet, though it's possible it may be out there somewhere. Usually it's just a chroot environment alongside Android that either 1) Replaces the webtop distro with a full-blown install (for the Atrix) or 2) Runs with a VNC server up so that you can connect to it from the Android userspace via a VNC client.
+1 I didn't know much about the process overall, but interesting that there is a webtop replacement distro. That'd be slick for the Atrix which is what I'm running. I'll check that out! Do you have any info on the webtop replacement?
I'm not incredibly familiar with it as I don't own an Atrix. There's a thread on XDA about it, though, and (if nothing else) it's a pretty interesting read. Seems like it's a pretty well-functioning install all things considered.

FoleyIsGood · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-14 16:13:58Z

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Yes. See this method or this one, for example.

As per eldarerathis' comment, these are both for running Ubuntu in a chroot environment.

answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:13

FoleyIsGood
2,043319

What about LXC? Does LXC require root, too? – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev Apr 17 at 0:33

imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev · Answer 2 · 2013-04-17 06:05:42Z

https://sites.google.com/site/taldewandroid/ is a working implementation of this idea for the OpnWRT distro (not yet Ubuntu though).

2 Answers