Kevin Boone's Web site. • Software • The KBOX3 project KBOX is a port of Busybox and a number of other Linux utilities, packaged up in such a way as to be useable on a stock, non-rooted Android device.
It works in conjunction with a terminal emulator, for example Jack Palevich's Android Terminal Emulator (see here; also available from the Android Market). KBOX provides a 'virtual root filesystem'; that is, under the KBOX shell the users sees what appears to be a conventional Linux filesystem, all of which is editable, despite the lack of root access. This technique is conceptually the same as that used by Cygwin to provide a Linux-like environment on Windows. KBOX consists of a base distribution, and a number of optional packages. The KBOX shell is launched from the terminal emulator like any other Linux program; most terminal emulators provide a way to set the default shell, so it's possible to make KBOX start up with the terminal emulator. KBox: Installation Instructions (Kevin Boone's Web site) • Software • The KBOX3 project Installing KBOX3 is, I hope, relatively straightforward.
However, I am no longer providing a version of KBOX that is bundled with a terminal emulator — this is just too much work, and it didn't work with Android versions after 4.1 anyway (thanks, Google). To install KBOX3 does require a willingness to work with Linux commands; but I'm assuming that anybody who wants to run a complete Linux distribution on their Android handset is happy to do that. Before you start It should be possible to install KBOX3 with any Android terminal emulator app, on any device with Android version later than 5.0. To install at all, you must first identify a filesystem location to which the terminal emulator can write files, and which supports the setting of execute attributes on files.
/data/data/jackpal.androidterm Installing the base system The base system provides Busybox (including the package manager), and the libraries that provide the virtual root filesystem. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Bc - KBOX - Linux on android w/o rooting. Ncurses.so & readline.so (KBox, linux on android w/o rooting) Rsync (client) - KBOX - Linux on android w/o rooting. Rsync (server) - KBOM - Linux on Android w/o rooting. Ssh (client) - KBOX - Linux on android w/o rooting. Scp (KBOX - linux on android w/o rooting) SSH server KBOX - LInux on Android w/o rooting. Vim - KBox - Linux on android w/o rooting. KBOX: Obsolete Overvie (Kevin Boone's Web site) • Articles• Software• The KBOX project [Now with camels!
A package is available that provides a Perl interpreter for the KBOX environment. See the Optional packages section for details.] KBOX is a project to create a miniature Linux distribution for non-rooted (i.e., unmodified) Android devices, integrated directly into Jack Palevich's Android terminal emulator (see here). Installing the Android package (see below) gives you the terminal emulator, a decent set of Linux utilities (supplied by busybox), ssh and rsync clients and servers, and a few other things.
In addition, there are a number of add-on packages for expanded functionality. I do want to stress that the credit for developing the terminal emulator and making it open source belongs to Mr Palevich — I have not changed it beyond the minimum needed to integrate my utilities. The technical background to the KBOX project is explained here and here. Limitations — please read this 1. 2. 3. 4. Overview Basic distribution Download busybox bc. KBOX: Technical Discription(Kevin Boone's Web site) • Software• The KBOX project IMPORTANT NOTE for KBOX users: This page is for background information about how the non-root Linux distribution is bootstrapped onto the Android device.
It no longer describes how to install KBOX manually, or even how KBOX2 system actually works internally. Instructions on installing KBOX2 can be found here; the technical background to KBOX2 is explained here. This article follows on from my earlier one on building and running native applications on Android, and extends the method described there to install busybox and a number of common, useful Linux utilities on a stock, non-rooted Android device. My main intention with this project, which I'm calling kbox ('Kevin's implementation of busybox'), is to be able to use a terminal emulator to do rudimentary administration tasks from the prompt, just as I can on a Linux desktop, and with no more fuss and bother. Please note I've tested the procedure I'm describing here on a small number of Android 3.0 devices. KBOX: Miniature Linux for Non-Rooted Android De...
Jul 19, 2012 GMT Dmitri Popov While it's possible to run Linux on Android, this usually means going through the rigmarole of rooting the system with the ever-present risk of bricking your precious Android device.
If this proposition is not your cup of tea, you'll appreciate KBOX, a miniature single-user Linux distribution with an integrated terminal emulator that can be installed on non-rooted Android devices. KBOX is not available in the Google Play Store, so you have to download the apk file from the project's website and install it manually. KBOX comes with an assortment of Busybox utilities (find, grep, tar, vi, etc.), an SSH server and client, and the scp tool. Dpkg -i /sdcard/Download/rsync_3.0.8_kbox.deb While KBOX has its limitations, it can come in handy in many situations. No Root (Linux on Android) Linux Distributions on Android.