Linux – Installing a Full-Blown Desktop Linux Distro on an Android Smartphone

There is an example to install debian from a Linux-mint live USB (or any debian based distro). If you have a debian based distribution already installed on your hdd , you can install other debian based distro using chroot and debootstrap from the existing OS.

Boot from the live USB .Use gparted to create your root , swap ,/home... partitions.

If you prefer the command line ( fdisk , parted ..) , there is how to activate the swap partition :

mkswap /dev/sdaY
sync
swapon /dev/sdaY

Let's say you need to install debian stretch .

Install the debootstrap package :

sudo apt-get install debootstrap

Create the /mnt/stable then mount your root partition (sdaX)

sudo mkdir /mnt/stable
sudo  mount /dev/sdaX /mnt/stable

Install the base system:

sudo debootstrap --arch amd64 stretch /mnt/stable http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian
sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/stable/proc
sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/stable/dev
sudo chroot /mnt/stable /bin/bash

Set up your root password:

passwd

Add a new user:

adduser your-username

Set up the hostname :

echo your_hostname > /etc/hostname

Configure the /etc/fstab:

add the following lines:

/dev/sdaX        /             ext4    defaults                 0    1
/dev/sdaY         none          swap    sw                      0    0
proc             /proc         proc    defaults                 0    0

use the debian documentation to edit your sources.list (replace jessie by stretch)

Configure locale :

apt-get install locales
dpkg-reconfigure locales

Configure you keyboard:

apt-get install console-data
dpkg-reconfigure console-data

Install the kernel:

apt-cache search linux-image

Then:

apt-get install linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64

Configure the network:

editor /etc/network/interfaces

and past the following:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

allow-hotplug eth0 # replace eth0 with your interface
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0 # replace wlan0 with your interface
iface wlan0 inet dhcp

To manage the wifi network install the following packages:

apt-get install net-tools network-manager wireless-tools

Install grub :

apt-get install grub2
grub-install /dev/sda
update-grub

You can install a desktop environment through the command tasksel :

apt-get install aptitude tasksel

Run the following command and install your favorite GUI:

tasksel

Finally exit the chroot and reboot your system

Documentation: D.3. Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System

Debian wiki:

• chroot
• debootstrap

...so my question is more "what moves have been made so far towards this vision?"

That "vision" was alive and well about seven or eight years ago, and things were looking good. Back then I was able to install Debian on my old Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Unfortunately, ever since then things have been doing in a terribly wrong direction: manufacturers started making more and more phones that are locked in ways that can't even be unlocked. Nowadays you can't even buy (at least here in the US) a phone that can be rooted, and believe me, I've tried. Honestly, I have no idea how they get away with that -- you pay good money to own that little machine, and yet, you can't have full control of it? I am hoping that at some point this will all boil over into lawsuites, like we had in the past, when some manufacturers tried to lock down personal computers. (Not much hope though, as the years go by, and people seem to care less and less.)