[SD][WIP][DEV]*NookBuntu Beta 0.3* 5/18 - Nook Color Android Development

####NO LONGER SUPPORTED####
Links have been updated to the last release and are working
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The NookBuntu Dev Team
devastatorx | penkia | lincore | munday | luciferii
CREDITS: munday for his initial work on this project, penkia for the wifi and touchscreen fixes. The guys who pulled off the vnc trick to get us thinking about how to make this a full fledged linux tablet. All the great developers for the nook and every other device.
*DISCLAIMER*
I'm not responsible, blah blah blah...if you are trying this...your warranty cherry was popped long ago
Q & A - This area will be updated as questions arise
Q: Why the skip from alpha 0.1 to beta 0.3?
A: Alot of testing and fixes were implemented behind the scenes. These images were not released due to usability issues. We wanted this release to be one that could serve as a daily build. And this comes relatively close.
Q: Will this mess up my current configuration?
A: If your current configuration runs from the eMMC, then no. It runs solely from the uSD card. As long as you don't mount your eMMC inside NookBuntu and start messing around with it, it should be fine.
Q: Is this awesome?
A: Yes, it is so awesome that if I were to speak anymore than a few lines about it's awesomeness, computers would become self aware, sheep would begin counting people, and pong would turn into tetris...
Q: Will this run from the internal memory?
A: This is being planned for a future release and currently only runs from the SD card. DO NOT FLASH IT TO THE eMMC!!!
A NOTE ABOUT DONATIONS - Please read
No we do not ask for donations or accept them. We do this because we are as passionate as anyone in this communtiy about the tech we use.
If you would like to donate, please instead consider donating to the following charity
The National Breast Cancer Foundation - https://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/donate/
My sister was recently diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. I ask that if you do wish to donate, please do so in her honor. If you wish to make a donation in her honor please pm me for details (name and whatnot). Thank you!
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NookBuntu Beta 0.3
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Screens
Working
Boot into NookBuntu when the device is powered on (no adb necessary!)
Network manager - this is still being worked on, use the method listed in the instructions below
Touch screen
On screen keyboard auto slide out on text input area focus
Audio
Not Working
Home button
Volume buttons
Multi-touch
Bluetooth
Hardware acceleration
Accelerometer
Charging
Installation instructions
DOWNLOADS
NookBuntu Beta 0.3 - Download
md5: bfe2206fbfd7f402cd1c95c61b13dc83
NookBuntu Boot Partition - Download
md5: 316f8d6d44cb3d2c4a13f01da63c302e
We will need to make a bootable SD card for this. As of right now I have an 8gb card and will be uploading a burnable image soon...but for now this method will work.
Download this script and save it somewhere you have easy access to.
Download: SDMAKER
Ok so you have all the files right? Right?? ...right
Let's get that SD card prep'd for our NookBuntu installation.
1) Open up a terminal and cd to where you saved the file sdmaker.sh
2) Insert your soon to be nookbuntu sd card into your pc and find out where your sd card is mounted i.e. /dev/mmcblk0 or wherever. REMEMBER what it was (for me it is /dev/mmcblk0)
3) Type the following command hitting enter after each line
Code:
sudo chmod +x sdmaker.sh
sudo ./sdmaker.sh /dev/yoursdcard
4) Let this command run and finish out, it is formatting your sd card to correctly have a boot and filesystem partitions
5) Once this has finished you should have two new partitions show up, either mounted already at /media/boot and /media/Angstrom or should be able to mount the new partitions in your file manager. If they aren't mounted go ahead and mount them.
Let's regather. You have two folders open on your desktop, one titled "boot" and the other titled "Angstrom". Are you with me? Good.
6) Untar/7zip/Unzip whatever...decompress the file nookbuntu-0.3beta.tgz anywhere you would like.
7) cd to the directory where you extracted the files. There should be a folder titled "system" Go ahead and cd into that directory.
8) Now we need to copy all of the contents to the Angstrom partition on your SD card
Code:
sudo cp -r * /media/Angstrom
This will take awhile, get something to drink.
9) After that has finished lets copy over the boot partition. Go to where you downloaded the file "nookbuntu-boot.7z" and extract it. Now CD to nookbuntu-boot. Are you with me? Let's copy those files over!
Code:
sudo cp -r * /media/boot
10) After that has finished we need to setup your wifi so it will work. So let's edit the one of the files we just put on your sdcard (use whatever text editor you would like:
Code:
sudo gedit /media/Angstrom/etc/wifi/w2.conf
In your text editor you will have something like this:
Code:
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
ssid="WiFiNetworkName"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="yourWPAkey"
}
We need to change a few things to be able to connect to your home wifi.
Change the following:
Code:
ssid="WifiNetworkName"
to
ssid="YourSSID"
Obviously replace "YourSSID" with whatever your actual SSID is.
Chances are you are using WPA encryption...well if you aren't...you should be. Assuming you are we need to set up so we can send the key to the router when we connect.
See this line?
Code:
psk="yourWPAkey"
Change "yourWPAkey" to...you guessed it....your WPA password
Save the changes and exit.
11) Unmount the sdcard from your computer
Code:
sudo umount /media/boot
sudo umount /media/Angstrom
12) Take the Sd card and put it in your nook while it is powered off.
13) Power on your nook and give it a few mins...voila! NookBuntu should have loaded!
These next steps are for getting wifi up and running you can do this from an ADB shell or from the terminal inside NookBuntu or make it into a script for future use.
Enter these commands (hitting enter after each line unless otherwise noted)
Code:
killall wpasupplicant
ifconfig tiwlan0 up
killall connmand
wpa_supplicant -Dwext -i tiwlan0 -c /etc/wifi/w2.conf & dhclient
You should shortly be associated to your home network!
Enjoy NookBuntu! Make sure to thank all the great devs who have a hand in this project!
-devastatorx

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Change log
Beta 0.3
Network Manager (semi working at the moment, should be fixed in next release) - penkia
Audio Working - devastatorx
On screen keyboard when focusing on a text input area - penkia
Boot into X when the device is powered on - Lincore
New base image - devastatorx & penkia

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**reserved too

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Wow, going to bed tonight, but I am definitely trying this tomorrow, I hope this is inevitably usable on the nook color, that steps up it's usability as a tablet.
Just a suggestion for the Mods, we should have a second forum for ubuntu on the Nook, that way it doesn't clutter up the android development and then it can expand and be organized for developers of linux vs android, might draw some more interest into this!
Honestly can't wait to try this though, good work

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Holy ****, it finally happened. Downloading now!

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It's gonna be a loooong day at work today of not doing any work and messin' with my nook!
Thanks for this!
Racks

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I'm going to wait a bit before giving this a shot, but seriously, thanks! I'm excited about the possibilities. Do you think our hardware will be prohibitive to using this in the long-run? I know it's really early, so if that's a silly question, feel free to disregard it.

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junkrobot said:
I'm going to wait a bit before giving this a shot, but seriously, thanks! I'm excited about the possibilities. Do you think our hardware will be prohibitive to using this in the long-run? I know it's really early, so if that's a silly question, feel free to disregard it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At this stage it is difficult to say as not everything is working (no hardware acceleration, sound, etc)
As of right now the device runs pretty smoothly for what it is and is more responsive than it was when using the vnc method. I will be working more on the build this weekend and hope to establish a development team to keep things moving forward with consistant fixes and updates.
With a good, dedicated development team we should make some exciting progress in the near future.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

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I think it'll be good to note what's not working on the initial post, that way if a dev wants to help, at least they know what to look for and try to solve

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racks11479 said:
It's gonna be a loooong day at work today of not doing any work and messin' with my nook!
Thanks for this!
Racks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought I was the only playing with my nook at work, now I don't feel so bad. haha.
@devastatorx, you are the man!!! Thanks so much, I can't wait to try this out.

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So this is actually an Angstrom distro?

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bassrebel said:
I think it'll be good to note what's not working on the initial post, that way if a dev wants to help, at least they know what to look for and try to solve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will update the OP. I just wrote it last night at about. 12:30am and then let the file upload over night and hit post on my way out the door this morning. So it was a little rushed.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

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starkruzr said:
So this is actually an Angstrom distro?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Negative. This is a ububtu installation. The script just names that partition "Angstrom".
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

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Ubuntu 10 or 11? Unity would be most worthwhile for our devices . And bugger all, I guess I'm going to have to pick a new microSD.

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Ubuntu 10. As of right now there are some path issues so I am unable to get the unity-2d gui to load. Will have this fixed in the next release.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

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Ophbalance said:
Ubuntu 10 or 11? Unity would be most worthwhile for our devices . And bugger all, I guess I'm going to have to pick a new microSD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unity would be rather nice. Especially if we can get GPU acceleration working.

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Perhaps this is a silly question, but... have you given any thought to packaging updates in some form that doesn't require downloading the entire distribution again? Yes, I can see there being issues if you don't apply them sequentially if it comes out in a zip of some kind... but it'd save you/us a ton of bandwidth. Maybe if it's all in SVN or GIT?

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I'm stuck here:
Code:
sudo cp -r * /media/boot
It says "/media/boot" is no directory

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MAD PROPS keep up the good work this is what android is all about might have to buy another nook color one to install in the car and one to use every where else .

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Arbelzapf said:
I'm stuck here:
Code:
sudo cp -r * /media/boot
It says "/media/boot" is no directory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What OS are you using? The drive may be mounted elsewhere and my instructions are based off of the drives first partition being mounted at "/media/boot" and the second partition mounted at "/media/Angstrom". If this is not where the partitions are mounted then adjust the instructions for where you have them mounted or remount the device's partitions to these folders.
This should help...but I'm not saying this to be a jerk or anything...this is an Alpha and is in no way intended for daily use. Only those comfortable in Linux, and feeling adventurous should give this a go. Future releases (beta and onward) should be stable enough and easy enough to install for daily use.
To address the updates question:
I may implement a kind of crude package system after I get to a stable enough release to call it a beta. Such packages will include the modified system files and an install script to set the new update up. But like I said, that probably won't be until beta.