Installing Manjaro ARM on generic ARM devices

ARM
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Hi everybody! I hope I’m not making too much of a stupid question here :sweat_smile:

I see that Manjaro ARM supports an interesting list of devices, but I would like to try it also on other pieces of hardware. Let’s take for example my smartphone (Xiaomi Mi A3), which has an ARMv8-A Kryo 260 CPU, with 4 Cortex-A73 cores and 4 Cortex-A53 cores. Xiaomi has released their modified Linux 4.14 kernel source (GitHub - MiCode/Xiaomi_Kernel_OpenSource at laurel-q-oss).

The question is: if I compiled this kernel and somehow managed to include it in a Manjaro ARMv8 release, would it run on my device? Please, tell me if I’m missing something. Thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

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You need to find a bootloader for this device to make it boot into the linux kernel.

Theoretically it is possible but not an easy task.

Good luck.

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Alternatively, if you don’t want to mess up with the bootloader, you can install Termux, and use a Manjaro or Arch image in it.

Apps like Andronix or AnLinux help to automatize the installation process.

Here is another GitHub project which helps to set up Arch Linux in Termux.

The performance is not as fast as a native build, but it works.
You can also use GUI with a VNC server, and use popular apps.

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Foliate ebook reader running on my Android phone

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First of all, thank you both for your input :slightly_smiling_face:

I forgot to say that I’m assuming to have a device with a bootloader that can be unlocked. Is this not enough? If you have some reference about this, please point me to it, I’ll be glad to learn new stuff.

To Archisman: I already have Termux, but I didn’t suspect I could use it to run Arch :smiley:
That’s wonderful and I’ll try it out. But I’m also so tempted to run native linux on my devices, that’s why I want to know where to start in case I decide to experiment with it.

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You can always check at projects with the goal to support old devices after the manufacturers stopped supporting it. However it depends on the community and how much effort they put into it. One example: our friends from PostmarketOS: Devices - postmarketOS

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Is it manjaro/linux you want or just s new/different os? There’s plenty of custom roms for your device

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