DebianRunner: Running Desktop Applications on Android Smartphones

摘要

The Android operating system runs atop the Linuxkernel, yet lacks the ability to natively execute standard Linux desktop applications. Though efforts havebeen made to enable this functionality, all approachesto date require a user to switch to a separate desktopenvironment, resulting in a substantial loss of interfaceconsistency and usability.This paper describes DebianRunner, an Androidapplication designed to execute in a custom, root-enabled Android build. It unlocks desktop Linux capabilities by mounting the full Debian Linux distribution into the file system, and provides a tool to simplify the installation and execution of Linux programsfrom within Android.Though functional, DebianRunner suffered frompoor performance as a result of limited RAM in theHTC Dream used for testing. However, more powerful phones should be better able to exploit DebianRunner???s functionality, and the most of techniquesexplored in this paper would be applicable to otherrooted Android phones.