Install Ubuntu on your tablet (Legacy images only)
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This document is a guide for installing Ubuntu Linux on your Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 with the latest mainline kernel.
PLEASE READ SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY!! BE SURE TO UNDERSTAND THE ENTIRE GUIDE BEFORE STARTING!!
Don’t run all commands at once and don’t rerun the commands if you interrupt the process. You need to be familiar with command line interfaces beforehand and you must not commit any typo with any commands. You may permanently break your device!
Download images
You can get a copy of Ubuntu image in the "" section for free.
Download them and continue reading...
Partition the UFS
This procedure will not erase your Android data files, since Android will automatically fixing the userdata partition.
To modify the partitions on the UFS, we'll need to download a 3rd-party recovery environment called "Orangefox Recovery" Link is here below:
Once you've downloaded, open a terminal and type the following commands:
This will start booting recovery image. Once the screen is on, use the terminal to continue processing. We well use adb shell command to finish the rest of this guide. Enter this command in your terminal, it well help you to check the userdata partition's location:
ls -l /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/ | grep userdata
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 1971-06-22 05:04 userdata -> /dev/block/sda31 #Example output will like this.
In this example, the userdata partition is located in the 31st partition of the whole disk. It has the biggest size, compared with other partitions. So this is the key for requiring new space for our Ubuntu installation.
parted /dev/block/sda
GNU Parted 3.3
Using /dev/block/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted)
Enter print command to list all partitions for /dev/block/sda :
Note the end of the last partition in the above list, 10.9GB, this number will be used as the start of the new userdata partition, followed by the end of the partition. Let say that we want to make an approx 40GB userdata partition using the following command:
(parted) mkpart userdata 10.9GB 50GB
mkpart userdata 10.9GB 50GB #If you added "ext4" behind the "userdata" text, your data will be erased when you reboot.
Between userdata and 10.9GB are 3 spaces, one of them replace the partition type flag, it is important to use 3 spaces at this step.
Now userdata resizing is done. Restart your tablet to apply changes.
Here comes a fun thing:
Android stores your data inside the userdata partition. When you reset your Android device to its factory default settings, your data will be erased. This is because factory reset is equal to format the userdata partition using ext4 filesystem. However, if you delete the userdata partition and recreate it without formatting, your data will be saved after a reboot. Probably because Android can fix this problem automatically.
If you added "ext4" behind the "userdata" text, your data will be erased when you reboot.
Install new system
We'll use the free space for our Ubuntu installation:
Now we need to check which slot Android is installed.
You can check this information via fastboot . Command is listed below:
fastboot getvar current-slot
current-slot: b
Finished. Total time: 0.004s
Force select Slot A as active slot:
fastboot set_active a
Setting current slot to 'a' OKAY [ 0.049s]
Finished. Total time: 0.064s
Now, we are ready to flash the system image. But before we start, we need to disable Android Verified Boot (AVB) feature, otherwise it will prevent booting Ubuntu system.
AVB is implementation of verified boot process, current version (since Android 8 Oreo) is called AVB 2.0. Verified boot is a process of assuring the end user of the integrity of the software running on a device. It typically starts with a read-only portion of the device firmware which loads code and executes it only after cryptographically verifying that the code is authentic. It also helps in implementing rollback protection.
Flash the vbmeta with vbmeta_disabled.img to disable this feature:
Flash rootfs image, please use the partition name you created, this process will take a while, grab another beer.
fastboot flash partition_name /path/to/rootfs.img
Finally, reboot and you are ready to rock!
To resize the userdata partition, we'll need to use the command tools to do this. Now let's open adb shell again and start typing parted in the terminal.
If you are using newer recovery like or PBRP Recovery, you need to download parted and use adb command to copy it to internal storage. Run these commands to finish this:
Enter fastboot mode and repeat the .
NOTE: The concept of "slot" probably unfamiliar for you, since it was included in Android 10 as a feature, which called "Dynamic Partitions". Dynamic partitions are a userspace partitioning system for Android. About its further information, .
