GNURooting Android on a ZaTab ZT2

Little by little, I am learning how to use my ZaTab ZT2 the way I want.
I think I managed to handle Android, but I want to push my limits and learn to do what most people won't do with their Android device.  Why following everyone's path if one can make one's own path?  True, this path may lead me to my doom, but walking it will be more interesting than staying in the comfort zone without learning anything new.

Thus, I am set to booting Linux (another distro, that is, if you count Android as a penguin) on my ZT2.  I have absolutely no idea how to do it, but I'm determined to figure it out.

Thus, in the meantime, and as a learning exercise, I used GNURoot to expand my Android horizons.

GNURoot is not a rooting tool, to begin with.  But it does give you some interesting ideas on how to proceed if you want to boot several GNU/Linux distros: Aborigin, Debian Wheezy, or Fedora.

Well, although I took a Fedora-based course online, I chose Wheezy because the download was smaller.  I didn't want to wait for a long download just for the sake of experimenting.

What did I get?

Yay!  A Linux console, alright.  That's Wheezy without a GUI.  Cute, isn't it?  The best part is the # telling you something that means the Promised Land, right?  I felt encouraged by that and tried an apt-get update.  Could I access Wheezy's repositories?  YES!  I could!  Apt-get works, as advertised.

What should my next move be?
I thought about installing something light, like Abiword.  But that wasn't light at all.  All dependencies included, my download soared the 200 MB.  Too much for this first test.

 I thus knew what to try.  Quickly, I typed "apt-get install sl."  That's a very small, must-have application, after all.  Surely enough, Apt did its thing and installed sl.

It was time for the last stage of my experiment: testing sl.  If sl worked, it would mean I was indeed using Linux.  I then typed "sl" and...

THERE YOU GO!  THE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE OF SUCCESS IS ALIVE!!!!

For my next experiment, I'll try downloading and running something more complex, maybe a GUI.  But that will have to wait until I recover from this X-mas flu.

Getting to Know Android through ZaReason's ZaTab ZT2

I am a proud owner of a ZaReason Alto 4330 laptop.  I really like it and it has worked great during its first year.  I bought it by this time last year.

I learned this year that ZaReason is making a tablet, the ZaTab ZT2.  What caught my attention was that this tablet is easily hackable, unlike others.

I thought this device could teach me about an OS that I've barely touched: Android...and if in the process I learned how to load ROMs or making my own to load them to this tablet, that would be great.

Thus, I bought it.

So far, my experience has been fine.  As I'm not into tablets, I don't know exactly how good or bad this one may be. I think it does not have anything different from other tablets besides its root access (which I haven't been able to figure out.)

Today, after an app installing/uninstalling frenzy, I got the infamous Android bug "the process 'android.process.acore' stopped." I thought I had managed to brick the device and thus set a new computer-breaking record, but (after trying other solutions without success) I found my way to restoring its factory settings. It is working fine now.

That's as far as I have gone with this tablet.  Now I'm getting to learn about Android.

ZaTab ZT2 (photo from zareason.com)

Another December as a Full-time Linux User

2013 is almost gone.  I've been away from my blog because my job and family issues have kept me busier than ever.  Little by little, things seem to be settling down.

Now that it's a little less than a month to start a new year, I always remember that December always meant a ritual never to be missed:

a- Backing up all my information
b- Formatting my HD
c- Reinstalling Windows
d- Installing drivers
e- Installing A/V, firewalls, etc.
f-  Installing my everyday software
g- Loading the information back to my HD.
h- Realizing that I forgot to back up something

Since I became a full-time Linux user, December means just making my monthly backup.  If I weren't so busy, I could die of boredom nowadays!

I guess that's why I ordered a hackable tablet from ZaReason.  When I finally have some free time, I'll have something to break!

Taking Linux for Children to a Higher Level: PicarOS 2013 Diego

If you are into education or simply want to give to your kids the chance to have a computer with an OS designed with their learning and fun in mind, you must give PicarOS 2013 "Diego" a try.

I had already described PicarOS here.  I remember how impressed I was with this little project based on GalPon MiniNO.  I was so impressed that I ended up installing that system on my laptop and have used it regularly ever since.  Any time someone sees it, they ask me what that beautiful "program" is.  I have installed it on 3 different computers, too.

But some days ago, my brother let me know that PicarOS had undergone a major overhaul.  PicarOS 2013, codenamed "Diego", took the tradition of beauty and functionality of PicarOS to a whole new level.

Yes, visually speaking, PicarOS is a winner!  Just show it to a child and you'll see the favorable reaction this system causes in the little ones. 
If that is not enough, Diego comes with Compiz preinstalled.  Thus, if your video card is 3d-capable and you choose to activate desktop effects, you will have even more eye candy to dazzle your kids: wobbly windows, desktop grids, fire writing on the desktop--you name it!

Please, pay attention to the window buttons: a spider for closing windows, a worm to minimize, and a butterfly to maximize.  Yes, and they are animated!

Let's also remember that this OS does not patronize kids: it is a fully featured productivity system.  Diego may be cute, but more than that, it is complete with software that adults may also use daily.  As I said before, I carry out my work regularly with the help of this OS.

If you are still not convinced, please take a look at this video and see it for yourself:

What's next?  Downloading it and testing it, of course! Since MiniNO PicarOS 2013 works also as a live DVD, you can use it without installing it or changing anything to your regular OS!  You can find it here.  I already installed it and noticed several improvements in comparison to its previous version.

Can you imagine how much children could benefit if all schools had this incredible OS installed in their computer labs?

Promising Newcomers: Three not-yet-finished Linux Distros that Are Aiming High!

If you are starting your Linux adventure, you may have already learned that there is not a single Linux.  Surely, some names are more well-known than others.  Mint, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Debian, and Mageia (a newcomer that proved its value) are probably among the most visible distributions.  You might have also learned about Slackware, the oldest Linux distribution alive, and about Linux distros especially designed to breathe new life to computer dinosaurs that otherwise would be littering up our planet (Like Puppy, antiX, GalPon MiniNO, and SliTaz)

But Linux is constantly evolving.  Some distros sadly reach the end of their life while new ones see the light for the first time.

Among these new distros, three are trying to join the varied ecosystem of Tux and they look very promising.  They haven't released a finished version yet, but these newcomers are aiming high indeed, pretty much as Mageia did when it entered the scene.


Which are these three new distros?

(my customized Pisi install)

1.  Pisi Linux:  Pisi Linux?  What's that? Wasn't it Pardus Anka?  Wasn't it PiSi LinuX?  While the distro started as Pardus Anka and later changed its name to PiSi LinuX, its name has become Pisi Linux.  Although still young (is not officially born yet), its history has been quite complex.  If anything, it is a story of how community members loved their distribution so much that, instead of letting it die, decided to pursue a dream.  You can read about it here.  This distro may have a small team behind it, but I can tell you that Pisi is outstanding.  I've been running a beta release and it feels as a finished product.  It is stable, powerful, visually appealing, and its members are very helpful. 

(credits: Mandrivachronicles.blogspot.com)

2.  OpenMandriva:  This is another example of community power.  After Mandriva (the company responsible of the original Mandriva distribution) had several problems (some of them becoming the cause of Mageia's birth), the future of Mandriva (the distro) was pretty uncertain.  Then, OpenMandriva Association was created to work on a new distro that would take Mandriva's legacy to higher grounds.  The development process has reached the Release Candidate level.  Is it any good?  You can read about OpenMandriva RC1 here.

(credits: Distrowatch.com)

3.  Elive:  Although Elive is not precisely new (it was dormant for quite a long time, after its release 1.0 in 2007), its comeback in 2010 is worth following.  This distro is one of the few ones that use Enlightenment as their default desktop environment, by the way, and offers a lot of eye candy with little use of computer resources.  Visit Elive's house and see for yourself why I say it is promising!

Tuxmachines.org Changes Owner...

Susan Linton has finally sold her site Tuxmachines.org.

It has been a nice ride.  I thank her for picking some of my entries here.  I must confess I felt quite uneasy about Tuxmachines changing its owner.  What if Steve Ballmer offered a billion dollars for the site to later shut it down?  :P

Now, joking aside, I am pretty sure several frequent visitors of the site felt like I did.

Today, Susan Linton has anounced here that the new owner of Tuxmachines is Roy Schestowitz, the guy from Techrights.org.  

What a relief! If you have visited his site, you'll see why I felt relieved.  He's an advocate of fair competition, and that makes a lot of sense to me.

Well, let's just thank Susan Linton for all her work and let's welcome Roy Schestowitz!

May Tuxmachines and Techrights continue helping all of us!

Mounting VirtualBox VDI Images without VirtualBox

This is the latest trick I learned: How to mount a VDI image so that my system can use it without firing VirtualBox.

Important: VIRTUALBOX MUST NOT BE ACTIVE

Basically, you use Qemu for the trick.  Try to get a Qemu version beyond 1.

Once you have Qemu, do this:

1. Check once more that VirtualBox is not running.
2. Open a terminal and go to the folder where you have your .vdi file.
3. su [your superuser password]
4. modprobe nbd max_part=16
5. qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 [name of your vdi image].vdi
6. mkdir /mnt/[name of your vdi image]
7. mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt/[name of your vdi image]

(The blue parts correspond to the actual name of your .vdi file)

Right now, Dolphin should see the files in your virtual drive.  You can do whatever you want with them, but when you're done, make sure you unmount the virtual system before using VirtualBox again:

1. Close Dolphin
2. umount /mnt/[name of your vdi image]
3. qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0

Done!  Now everything should be as it was.  Thanks to timkb4cq on the MEPIS forums for the explanation and to Jeff Waugh from Be the Signal for the original walkthrough.