Ubuntu Phone First Configuration

Previously, I’ve written down my first thoughts about the new Ubuntu Phone. In this post I want to explain some first configuration steps:

WIFI configuration

I had the problem that I couldn’t paste my complicated password into the UI. A work around is the following:

• Install the Terminal application from the Ubuntu store via the 3G connection. By the way: when the Terminal is started a password is asked. That is your phones lock screen PIN, which is also your root (sudo) password. Nobody tells you this, …
• Try to connect to your WIFI. The latter creates in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/NAME an entry with the NAME of your WIFI. Copy that file to your Mini SD-Card (/media/phablet/SOME_ID/NAME) using the terminal app.
• Edit the configuration file on your computer and insert the WIFI password after “psk=”.
• Copy that file back to /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
• Enable/Disable WIFI
• The phone should connect.

SSH access

Surprisingly the phone comes with an openssh-server pre-installed. It just does not run. So what you do is the following:

• Copy the authorized_keys file from another Linux machine to /home/phablet/.ssh
• Type “service ssh start”

Now you should be able to ssh to the phone for the moment. To enable the service after each reboot automatically do the following:

• Remove the keyword “manual” from /etc/init/ssh.override - now the server should start after reboot but doesn’t for some reason…
• Additionally fire “setprop persist.service.ssh true”
• Now reboot

SSH should be started automatically.

Source

apt-get

Of cause you want apt. Surprisingly this does not work from the beginning as / seems to be mounted read only. Type “mount -o remount,rw /”

Now apt-get update / upgrade / install work.