I've decided to turn my old Acer A500 tablet into an anonymity tool. I'm going to install Qubes as the main operating system and have a variety of live-boot USBs to use as needed. Primarily Tails, but also Arch and Kali. This.... is going to be fun...
I've been looking at all the various options for turning an Android tablet into a Linux machine, and to be honest, I'm not sure Qubes will run. If you look at the specifications and compare them to what's available in the A500, there are clear gaps, and of course, the Acer Iconia A500 tablet isn't listed in the "Hardware Compatability List."
There are some tutorials online from people who have successfully setup the Acer Iconia A500 tablet to run some sort of Linux, but I'm going to be brave (haha) and strike out on my own. Lets see if I can make my crazy idea work.
But first, step one. According to every tutorial I can find, I need to root the Android operating system before I can do anything else.
Most of the instructions out there were created in 2011 or 2012 for rooting this device. People seem to fall into two camps. Either roll the Android OS back to 3.0 (from 3.2.1) or... update to 4.0.3
Now this is always a bit of a quandary. When there is a fork in the documentation for something I always make my decision in a few careful steps:
- Which method still has working links and live (not missing/buggy/corrupted) downloads?
- Which method has the least amount of comments freaking out about "bricking" their device?
- Which method has the least number of steps?
In this case, the method to root my device after upgrading to 4.0.3 wins in every category. The roll-back method seems to involve flashing the device, and as I've learned from many years of unstable Acer laptops and netbooks, "here be brick-making" if you don't know exactly and precisely what you're doing.
I don't know what I'm doing, clearly, so I'm going to avoid that route for now. FYI I'm writing this live as I simultaneously figure everything out, so if it turns out I've made the wrong decision, you'll get to watch as I crash and burn and scramble back to try the other method. I figure rolling back from 4.0.3 to 3.0 won't be any harder than rolling back from 3.2.1 to 3.0, in case I do screw this up and have to try the other method.
Here are the instructions I've decided to follow: https://theunlockr.com/2012/09/17/how-to-root-the-acer-iconia-a500-tablet/
STEP 1: Upgrade 3.2.1 to Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich
- On the home screen, tap on "Apps" in the upper right corner
- Under "All" look at the end of the list to find "Settings"
- Under "About tablet" tap on "System update"
- Tap "Check now"
- Waiting... Shoot. Error messages says "Network coverage is currently poor. Please move to a location with better coverage to continue." Bullshit. My wireless connection strength is at 100%
After trying again in several locations around the house, including standing right next to my router and always getting the same error message, I check to see if I can Google "puppies" (my default network connection test) and discover... I can't. Well shit.
Several internet connectivity troubleshooting steps later, the issue is mysteriously fixed (turn WiFi off... turn WiFi on... restart the tablet... turn Wifi off... turn Wifi on...) and I can try again. Back to steps 1-5 (see above).... AAAAAAND I still get the same error message.
When you hit a brick wall, think like water. And Google the shit out of that brick wall.
Voila! I can try downloading an "Update Enhancement" from the Google app store. Found it, installed it, and tried again. Same error. Restarted the tablet and tried again, same bloody error. Okay time to rethink this. Maybe I can update either manually directly on the tablet or update via the USB cable to my computer (Ubuntu... so we'll see how this goes)
STEP 1: Upgrade 3.2.1 to Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich... TO BE CONTINUED...