Archos may not have released Android 4.0 for its Gen8 line of tablets from 2010. But that doesn’t mean you can’t run an up-to-date operating system on the Archos 43 or Archos 101 Gen8.

Xda-developers forum member CalcProgrammer1 is porting Ubuntu 11.10 Linux to run on the Archos 43 tablet with a 4.3 inch display. It also works on the original Archos 101 tablet with a 10 inch screen.

Archos 43 Ubuntu Linux

Most basic features are working, including the touchscreen, WiFi and Bluetooth. Screen rotation is also supported.

But CalcProgrammer1 is still working on hardware graphics acceleration and some other features.

While Android is designed specifically for mobile devices including phones and tablets, Ubuntu is a full-blown desktop operating system capable of running desktop apps such as LibreOffice, Firefox, and the VLC Media Player — all of which work on the Archos tablets.

The biggest problem with running Ubuntu on the Archos 43 is that the operating system isn’t really optimized for tiny tablet displays, so you’ll probably want to connect a keyboard and mouse rather than tapping tiny icons and menus with your fingers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqj6LqnFclc

Both the 4.3 inch and 10 inch tablets feature 1 GHz TI OMAP 3 ARM Cortex-A8 single core processors with PowerVR SGX 530 graphics. They originally shipped with Android 2.2 Froyo software, and while Archos offered a few software updates with bug fixes and minor improvements, the company never released Android 2.3 or Android 4.0 for those tablets.

There are also several other members of the Archos Gen8 family including tablets with 2.8 inch, 3.2 inch, and 7 inch displays, but this particular build of Ubuntu hasn’t been configured to support those devices yet.

via xda-developers

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3 replies on “Ubuntu 11.10 ported to Archos Gen8 tablets”

  1. Brad,
    What about Archos 80 G9 tablet ?  It looks like prices are starting to get aggressive on this unit?  Is there an Ubuntu Linux for that, again with Xrandr –scaling used to get the lower hardware resolution, software scaled on the device’s screen to show a much higher resolution than was intended by the device maker (that works except for a little bug that needs a patch) feature:

    https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=118999

    And, since Android is LINUX, with a merge of the Android fork of LInux with the main tree, now announced by Linus, can folks modify the LINUX under Andriod, to turn many devices from lower hardware intended resolutions, into xrandr scaled higher appearning resolution devices (and get also better battery life as you are not using more pixels that need more power to do this).  

    Aside – Would be interesting to try with a Pixel Qi screen for 7 inch and 10.1 inch Pixel Qi screens (changing 1024×600 into 1280×800 using Pixel Qi’s basic screens)?   Might make mod of some netbook and tablet devices with this 1024×600 Pixel Qi screen, higher value mods, justifiying the Pixel Qi mod costs (vs buying 1280×800 hardware screen devices).

     

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