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    Installing Ubuntu on Nexus 7 2013 deb (LTE)

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    nexus 7 2013
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      • Z Offline
        zubozrout
        last edited by NeoTheThird

        Hi,
        today I was finally able to install Ubuntu using this server on my device and I am quite happy about that after something like month and a half without Ubuntu on it.


        Here is a little how-to:

        ubuntu-device-flash --server http://system-image.ubports.com touch --channel ubuntu-touch/rc-proposed --bootstrap
        -- once it fails to instal, poweroff, boot to bootloader and run:
        fastboot flash boot boot.img
        fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
        -- then boot recovery and run:
        ubuntu-device-flash --server http://system-image.ubports.com touch --channel ubuntu-touch/rc-proposed

        or optionally you can use the official Flo's image:

        ubuntu-device-flash touch --channel=ubuntu-touch/stable/ubuntu --device=flo --bootstrap
        -- once installed, let it boot and then reboot to bootloader:
        fastboot flash boot boot.img
        fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
        -- boot recovery and run:
        ubuntu-device-flash --server http://system-image.ubports.com touch --channel ubuntu-touch/rc-proposed


        here are the boot.img and recovery.img files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_T_rjYvwUdgQ3RJMHhSLWVvY0E/view?usp=sharing


        What doesn't work:

        • bluetooth
        • for some reason camera, but this one should work - may be fixed with server update

        Also, I sent an email to mariogrip with a possible fix so it may not be long before this works out of the box - anyway for those as impatient as myself this can be used and works pretty well.

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        • Z Offline
          zubozrout
          last edited by zubozrout

          Unfortunately and apparently -each update you'll have to reflash boot.img- (Update: Ok, this is not true - had to do this just once, but normally it works just fine with system updates) so that it installs properly until an update is made to the images. If you then boot the recovery it may start installing the update automatically as it did for me - or you can update manually by the "ubuntu-device-flash --server http://system-image.ubports.com touch --channel ubuntu-touch/rc-proposed" command.

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          • D Offline
            doniks
            last edited by

            Can you explain what's the story behind that boot.img and recovery.img?

            I'd love to install it on my Nexus 7, but the idea of flashing binary files from some random google drive isn't very appealing to me. Would you mind telling where you got them from or how you made them?

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            • Z Offline
              zubozrout
              last edited by

              Hi,
              I created the boot.img and recovery.img using this guide https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/devices/porting-new-device/ and as N7 is a Google device supported by AOSB I did not have to do any specific changes and all worked quite well out of the box. However, I believe the fact this site's repository doesn't work out of-the-box is the fact mariogrip doesn't have the N7 LTE and therefore has no way of extracting the device specific drivers from it as explained on the "Enabling a new device" section on developer.ubuntu.com.

              So you can either believe me that the files I created are ok (I only followed that guide) or create them on your own. Unfortunately because I got no response from mariogrip (after our initial chat) even thought I was trying to help him with the device support, I got rid of my N7 and can no longer help with this any further, but it would be awesome to see someone else contacting him and asking to finish what he started - the N7 LTE's full support is most probably only a step away.

              Good luck...

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              • Z Offline
                zubozrout
                last edited by

                However, the device status has changed radically from not-being-listed to being featured as almost working: https://devices.ubports.com/#/deb ... doesn't it work without any modifications yet?

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                • D Offline
                  doniks
                  last edited by

                  Yeah, it's listed as almost working, but I think neither the boot.img nor the recovery.img are working right now. I was talking to mariogrip a couple of weeks ago about the unbootable recovery.img and we went through a couple of rounds of me trying to boot them, showing him the error or any observations, him changing things and rebuilding and sending me a new file. In the end ideas and time ran out and we gave up. It looks to me as if the recovery is still in that same state.

                  Cool, so you were able to compile them for your self. I had been dabbling with this on and off, but never managed to produce anything that worked. Would you mind me asking some more specific questions after I have dug up my build attempts and reminded myself where I got stuck?

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                  • D Offline
                    doniks
                    last edited by

                    Ok, I think I know where I got stuck.

                    I followed the steps from https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/devices/porting-new-device/ , choosing aosp_deb-userdebug in lunch, that did actually build something and I find recovery.img and boot.img in phablet/out/target/product/deb.

                    I can
                    fastboot boot recovery.img
                    and it seems to work, but no such luck with boot.img
                    fastboot boot boot.img appears to be stuck on the bootloader screen of the N7, while
                    fastboot flash boot boot.img appear to be stuck on the Google logo boot screen after rebooting.

                    At no step during all of this did I knowingly do anything like extracting device specific drivers.

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                    • Z Offline
                      zubozrout
                      last edited by

                      "At no step during all of this did I knowingly do anything like extracting device specific drivers." that was it for me ... I did that https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/devices/porting-new-device#anchor3 before I built the revocery.img and boot.img.

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                      • Z Offline
                        zubozrout
                        last edited by zubozrout

                        Or to be more specific, this is the exact thing I did (first step only): https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Doc:_porting_intro#Add_the_blobs_to_the_vendor.2F_directory (that Ubuntu site is not much explanatory there, sorry)

                        And then ideally you should end up with something like this in the device tree: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/23097537/

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                        • M Offline
                          marxjohnson @zubozrout
                          last edited by

                          I attempted to follow these instructions, but after I see the message "Rebooting into recovery to flash" in the terminal, the tablet gets stuck on the "This phone needs restoring from a PC..." screen.

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                          • D Offline
                            doniks @marxjohnson
                            last edited by

                            @marxjohnson said in Installing Ubuntu on Nexus 7 2013 deb (LTE):

                            I attempted to follow these instructions, but after I see the message "Rebooting into recovery to flash" in the terminal, the tablet gets stuck on the "This phone needs restoring from a PC..." screen.

                            I had that originally as well, but now I did use the boot.img and recovery.img zubozrout provided in the google drive link and then it worked. Did you use those?

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                            • D Offline
                              doniks @zubozrout
                              last edited by

                              @zubozrout said in Installing Ubuntu on Nexus 7 2013 deb (LTE):

                              I did that https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/devices/porting-new-device#anchor3 before I built the revocery.img and boot.img.

                              Ah yes, I followed the link in "Retrieving the proprietary blobs from Android" and extracted the three archives and now my boot.img seems to work.

                              .... now, how do we get this into the ubports repository?!

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                              • M Offline
                                marxjohnson @doniks
                                last edited by

                                @doniks Yes, I followed the instructions just as shown; ran the --bootstrap command, flashed the boot.img and recovery.img, booted into recovery and ran the second flash command.

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                                • D Offline
                                  doniks
                                  last edited by

                                  Mhm, strange. Not sure what that could be. You are sure you have a deb and not a flo?

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                                  • M Offline
                                    marxjohnson @doniks
                                    last edited by

                                    @doniks Definitely:

                                    mark@coachz:~/Downloads/deb_images$ ubuntu-device-flash ubuntu-device-flash --server
                                    http://system-image.ubports.com touch --channel ubuntu-touch/rc-proposed --bootstrap
                                    2016/09/10 13:33:52 Expecting the device to be in the bootloader... waiting
                                    2016/09/10 13:33:52 Device is |deb|
                                    
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                                    • D Offline
                                      doniks
                                      last edited by

                                      lets take a step back, maybe we can figure it out.

                                      can you install the recovery and then boot into it? what do you see?

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                                      • D Offline
                                        doniks
                                        last edited by

                                        @zubozrout said in Installing Ubuntu on Nexus 7 2013 deb (LTE):

                                        What doesn't work:

                                        • bluetooth
                                        • for some reason camera, but this one should work - may be fixed with server update

                                        It sounds like you are less optimistic about bluetooth than about the camera. Do you know why bluetooth is not working or can you share anything that might help getting it to work?

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                                        • Z Offline
                                          zubozrout @doniks
                                          last edited by zubozrout

                                          @doniks unfortunately I don't know much on this subject. The reason why I made this statement was the fact I was using Ubuntu on my Nexus 7 deb for a long time, originally with Vojtěch Boček's http://system-image.tasemnice.eu/ server that had unfortunately started to be problematic by the end of 2015 and completely stopped working in February this year. Bluetooth never worked with his builds on Nexus 7 deb while camera did work quite well. However, if you flash flo's image on deb I think that Bluetooth works so perhaps this info may be usable.

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                                          • D Offline
                                            doniks @zubozrout
                                            last edited by

                                            @zubozrout I just tried booting the boot.img for flo from the ubuntu server, but that doesnt make a difference. Maybe installing the complete flo image would make a difference, but I dont feel like setting everything up again. One of these days Ill try.

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                                            • Z Offline
                                              zubozrout @doniks
                                              last edited by

                                              @doniks Yup, that is what I meant ... the complete official flo image. You can try installing it without the --bootstrap option and if you are lucky you won't lose any data. But I am not sure if that will suffice. It is possible that if and when mariogrip compiles the whole system with the drivers we compiled our recovery and boot images the camera and Bluetooth will miraculously start working - though I know nothing about that process so take it just as a very wild guess.

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