An interesting story happened to me not so long ago. I posted an app to Google Market and when it was time to update it, I found that I had lost the key password to sign my apps. The standard way out of this situation was to create a new key, shut down the old app, and upload the new app under a new name in the marketplace. I did not want to do this, and as a result, the application KeystoreBreaker appeared. The application allows you to select a password for keystore under certain conditions with the possibility of distributed calculation. You can specify the set of characters that make up the intended password, and then divide all possible combinations of these characters into non-overlapping groups and bust for each group separately. It can be distribution on several cores within one computer, and distribution on several computers. The essence of the algorithm is that each variant of the password is represented in N-digit number system, which is formed on the basis of the input character set. After that, the entire range from the first to the last character, for example 000000-zzzzzz, can be divided into any number of smaller ranges in which the search is carried out.

Demo of installing and running Ubuntu on an Android phone using Linux Deploy.

Installing and configuring a desktop environment that is not on the Linux Deploy settings list, using IceWM as an example.

Installing and configuring the desktop environment, which is not in the list of Linux Deploy program settings, on the example of Enlightenment.

To increase the image file size for Linux Deploy, you first need to expand the existing image, and then expand the file system to a new size. For example, to increase the image by 3000 MB, you need to do the following:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1048576 count=3000 >> /mnt/sdcard/linux.img
e2fsck -f /mnt/sdcard/linux.img
resize2fs /mnt/sdcard/linux.img

You must first make a backup copy of the image.

Linux Deploy supports the launch of the BackTrack distribution for Android. The prepared image of this distribution can be downloaded from the Linux-on-Android project website.

Playbook

• Download the image, unpack it and copy it to the SD card.

• In the properties:
  • Distribution - Ubuntu;
  • Distribution suite - lucid;
  • Installation type - File;
  • Installation path - the path to the image file (for example, /sdcard/backtrack.img);
  • User name - backtrack (or root);
  • Desktop environment - GNOME.

• Run reconfiguration (“Properties” -> “Reconfigure”).

• Start the GNU/Linux system with the “START” button from the main application window.

• Connect to the system via VNC. The password to access the system after reconfiguration will be: changeme

IntelliJ IDEA was launched using Linux Deploy.

Runs on OpenJDK 7 under Debian 7.0 on Samsung Galaxy S2. It was possible to build and run the “Hello World” project.

Tested under Debian/wheezy/armhf on a Samsung Galaxy S II.

SD card read / write speed (10 class) on Android for file systems vfat, ext2, ext4:

• vfat: read speed 14.1 MB/s; write speed 12.0 MB/s
• ext2: read speed 14.9 MB/s; write speed 3.9 MB/s
• ext4: read speed 14.9 MB/s; write speed 16.6 MB/s
• ext2 (loop): read speed 17.0 MB/s; write speed 7.4 MB/s
• ext4 (loop): read speed 17.2 MB/s; write speed 8.8 MB/s

Installation time and use space on disk (Debian wheezy/armhf on Samsung Galaxy S II):

• Without GUI ~ 0:12 / 260 MB
• XTerm ~ 0:14 / 290 MB
• LXDE ~ 0:19 / 450 MB
• XFCE ~ 0:20 / 495 MB
• GNOME ~ 0:55 / 1.3 GB
• KDE ~ 1:20 / 1.3 GB

Linux Deploy is open source software for quick and easy installation of the operating system GNU/Linux on your Android device.

The application creates a disk image or a directory on a flash card or uses a partition, mounts it and installs an OS distribution. Applications of the new system are run in a chroot environment and working together with the Android platform. All changes made on the device are reversible, i.e. the application and components can be removed completely. Installation of a distribution is done by downloading files from official mirrors online over the internet. The application can run better with superuser rights (root).