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I have installed GNURoot (Fedora flavour) on my Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 10.1 (2014 edition). I am trying to get GUI applications to work (gvim, for starters), but I've been unsuccessful so far.

I've tried several X Window apps, but I don't undersand how to connect to their display (all I found were instructions for the applications started on a Linux PC, not locally under GNURoot) and I tried installing XOrg under GNURoot.

I'm an Android beginner (this is my first "smart" device ever), so I might be missing something obvious or I might be searching in the wrong places. Also, because I am a beginner, I prefer to avoid rooting and installing Linux properly (for now).

Vedran Šego
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3 Answers3

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If you install Pelya’s XSDL Server from Google Play, you can use X11 aplications. In GNURoot type:

apt-get install xfce4

It will install the XFCE4 Desktop Environment and Xorg with some utilities.

And after several minutes of packages downloading and making configurations, start XSDL and set your favorite display resolution and zoom, and then type in GNUroot:

DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0 startxfce4

Switching to XSDL app, the XFCE4 starts and you can now use the graphical interface.

I found this solution at: http://www.r-ohjelmointi.org/?p=1434

Some other things: * Change font size as in ordinary Gnome. * Moving a flat finger is same as click and drag, for resizing etc. * I have to press the back button on the pad to get the screen keyboard displayed. This overlays lower part of X Window though. * No terminal emulators seem to work properly. However, GNURoot can be used for that. * Applications like Gnu Planner, gretl and Gnu Cash work without problems.

Birger
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  • This is a great link, thank you. It doesn't work as smoothly as it may sound, but it does work. Xfce nags about server already running, but I just switched back to XSDL and it seems to be working. – Vedran Šego Jun 29 '14 at 16:40
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I do almost the same as @Birger, but I use openbox, which is lighter to both download and run.

apt-get install openbox

All the same, you also need to use loopback connection to run graphic applications.

env DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0 openbox &

For instance, I'm used to run R over Android, so, after loading openbox, I run

DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0 R --gui=Tk &

Marcelo Ventura
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Thanks for the tip Vedran! To run GUI program you don't need the full xfce4 desktop install. To save memory and space just use the window manager, xfwm4, it works great on its own.

apt-get install xfwm4

Then run your GUI program as above, e.g. running leafpad text editor:

DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0 leafpad &

Of course you need to first install whichever GUI program you wish to run.

Dan Hulme
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tomjuggler
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