How many times have you had to quickly boot your GNU / Linux distribution but with you you have no support?
Well, if it happened to you, keep reading this guide, in fact I'll explain to you how to start a Live distribution with your Android phone.
All we need is:
- Android smartphone
- DriveDroid App (available from here)
- USB Cable
- Root user
- Computer with BIOS enabled for USB drive support
We assume that you have already fulfilled the above requirements 🙂
First, one will appear dialog * window that asks us to skip the setup or proceed, we decide to proceed, then will ask us once again for confirmation in the next one activity *. Then in the following activity we will be asked to take root permission, we wait for our root manager to ask us to grant permissions.
* Dialog : dialog, usually a warning, or an interaction request. In Android the dialog box is called from the Java class (Android specification) Dialog, but we also use dialogs when using the computer (Gtk.Dialog [GTK +], for example.)
* Activity : It is a page of an Android app, which is divided into various pages, each Activity has its own context and its own design
We connect the PC to the smartphone and confirm when we are asked, so let's go ahead, there appears a warning that specifies that not all devices work and not all modes work ... But we'll try it anyway so let's move on.
and choose Standard Android as a USB method.
Now we have to set the BIOS * (I don't have UEFI), so in my case as soon as I turn on the PC, I have to press F2, in your case the key may be different.
* BIOS: program that contains all the main computer data, takes care of loading the bootloader, which will then load all the rest
So let's move on to the item that refers to "Boot" and with F6 (in my case) we move the primary device like Samsung [...] (it varies from smartphone to smartphone).
So, if you can see Samsung [...] somewhere, then it means we managed to set up DriveDroid, so confirm with "I see an USB drive, proceed", otherwise "I don't see any drive, try another USB system ". Once the device is set as the primary device, restart and you should see a "DriveDroid" background bootloader, if this is the case choose "DriveDroid booted succesfully, proceed. Otherwise the second item which says that the PC has booted into the main OS.
Then we scroll down (in the last activity) and close the wizard.
Now it is sufficient to load the image we want from the "+" button in the * action bar at the bottom,
therefore we can see that we can create our own empty image, download one or download it from file, we choose to load it, then * we assume * to have a live GParted (a Debian distribution specific for GParted) from file (simulation).
then we press the ok button at the top on the action bar.
Let's go back and see the entry "Deb GParted".
Now, since we don't have an image, let's boot drivedroid.img, then
click on the loaded image and choose if the device will be "writable" or only "readable".
* ActionBar: action bar, starting from Android 4.x (or 3.x?) Have been introduced in the SDKs the ActionBars, bars that contain icons, or text, that execute something. In addition to this they show the icon and the name of the app.
It is possible to get ActionBar both up and down
Now we just need to connect the phone to the PC and voila. 🙂
