Ubuntu Ported To the Galaxy S II

Posted May 26 2011 by Thijs Koot in  with 8 Comments



The Galaxy S II isn’t even officially available yet in the U.S., but it’s already been rooted, overclocked, and the first few custom ROMs are coming up as well. I used to run Ubuntu on my original Galaxy S (Just for fun of course, you can’t effectively use Ubuntu on a 4″ screen), so I decided to port Ubuntu to the Galaxy S II.

As you can see in the photo above, I succeeded. Ubuntu on the Galaxy S II works as a proof-of-concept, but it has a few major bugs:

  • It’s not running natively, only through VNC
  • Resolution is to high
  • The performance isn’t particularly good
  • Stability issues
  • LXDE (Unity or Gnome3 preferred)
  • No browser (yet, Firefox doesn’t run)

Those can be overcome, but it will definitely take some time. I’ll release a  beta version soon, but for now you can check out the screenshots after the break.

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About the Author

Thijs KootIf you see a scratched phone running an unfamiliar looking Android version, you know it's Thijs. Apart from breaking and fixing phones, he loves to play the guitar as well.View all posts by Thijs Koot →

  • showkat ali

    great stuff

  • Anonymous

    “It’s not running natively, only through VNC”

    So what’s the host OS then?  To claim ‘Ported’ and then state the above is a bit misleading don’t you think?

    • Thijs Koot

      It’s running in a terminal, trough chroot, but that only gives you a shell. If you want a GUI, you’ll have to use a VNC client.

  • http://dailybarid.com dailybarid

    good job 

  • Steven Barker

    this is not a port, it is a chroot trick fail

  • Ranbit

    Can you post a guide soon?  I really want to get it running on my sgs2 and there is nothing out there that is a good workaround or even working properly for the sgs2

  • Meehee

    You wrote its ported but you use VNC?? It’s not ported at all then..

  • http://www.intellectsoft.net/android_application_development.html Android software development

    Officially and mobile world can rearly meet… The black market of phones was, is and will be.