Well it's called a chroot by the app author but it apparently doesn't actually use the chroot() system call. There's an app in the Play Store called GNURoot. It gives you a loopback of Debian, Fedora, Arch, Octave, or I think some others that run alongside your Android. It then gives you a shell within that loopback. You can't run setuid-root programs from within it unless you've actually rooted your Android system outside of it, though. It's still pretty handy, but isn't quite a fully functional system without rooting.
I'm not sure I'm ready to root this particular phone just yet. If there's a hypervisor that lets me run an actual full OS with root inside that without rooting the main OS I'd probably use that. This meets my needs for having a pocketable GNU/Linux userland for the most part, though.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Friday August 07 2015, @04:16AM
Doesn't chroot require root privileges to execute? How'd you pull that one off?
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Friday August 07 2015, @04:49PM
Well it's called a chroot by the app author but it apparently doesn't actually use the chroot() system call. There's an app in the Play Store called GNURoot. It gives you a loopback of Debian, Fedora, Arch, Octave, or I think some others that run alongside your Android. It then gives you a shell within that loopback. You can't run setuid-root programs from within it unless you've actually rooted your Android system outside of it, though. It's still pretty handy, but isn't quite a fully functional system without rooting.
I'm not sure I'm ready to root this particular phone just yet. If there's a hypervisor that lets me run an actual full OS with root inside that without rooting the main OS I'd probably use that. This meets my needs for having a pocketable GNU/Linux userland for the most part, though.