Because my institution has elected to (mostly) go "paperless", I have a
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7 (USA version) under some recent Android
environment, ARM CPU platform. After several days of using the unit as
an end-user portable computer (e.g., for PDF editing, office suite,
email, web browser, video conference as needed, and 802.11 connectivity,
etc., but not for coding or typical scientific applications), I am
considering attempting to switch it it to Linux. Evidently, there is
both an Ubuntu and Arch distribution for some versions of the ARM
platform -- any versions of EL for this platform? Anyone using Linux on
this platform?
I do have the USB adapter for Samsung and can mount, read, write, and
unmount a typical USB flash drive that has a MS Windows format file
system, and thus am able to transfer files from a linux environment. I
have not yet tested this adapter with an external USB CD/DVD unit and
standard ISO 9660 media.
If not, and there are any members of this list who also use this sort of
platform under Android, off list correspondence and recommendations
would be appreciated (e.g., how to get bash working, how to get non-GUI
file and directory manipulation commands, etc.). Typical amateur
end-user material that I have seen on some of the Android lists (e.g.,
the use as an entertainment device) is of less use to me. Several of my
students have discussed "rooting" Android to get around the limitations
imposed by the environment and getting closer to the underlying linux
core (that is missing most of the support programs and APIs that make
functional a regular linux distribution), but I need to more fully
understand the consequences for this approach before proceeding (as well
as getting detailed how-to instructions).
Thanks for any information.
Yasha Karant
