🗂 Archived project — original page from September 2015 · ← back to main page

🧩 KanoUbuntu

KanoOS software on official Ubuntu Mate 15.04 for the Raspberry PI 2 — Pong and Minecraft included

GitHub source →Ubuntu Mate →

What it was

An experiment with a simple question: can the Kano educational experience run on top of a standard Ubuntu? The build relied on xsysroot to expand the official Ubuntu Mate ARM image size, install KanoOS software inside it via QEMU emulation, and generate a bootable 1.4GB image.

What worked (the honest status table)

PackageStatusDetails
Kano screenshotworking
KdeskworkingNeeds customization (kano-desktop); blur and 3D screensaver working ok
Make Pongworking
Kano Desktopcannot installSystem file clash, provided by another Ubuntu package
Make MinecraftworksScreen-coordinate quirk; workspace slightly displaced
Terminal Questnot workingPrivileged TCP/IP port binding — permission denied

"It should not work" is just a scoped task. Most of the core experience ran; the rest is documented for whoever picks up the torch. Download: UbuntuKanux-0.7 (md5 checksums preserved in the original archive). Era-typical nudges: sudo usermod -aG video YOU for Videocore access, and pip install slugify.

Build environment (if you dare)

$ sudo curl -L https://github.com/skarbat/xsysroot/raw/master/xsysroot > /usr/bin/xsysroot
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/xsysroot
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/xsysroot /usr/bin/xsysroot.py

$ python -u build-image.py --build-all > build.log 2>&1
$ tail -f build.log

Why it mattered

A pure laboratory project — mashing two OS philosophies onto one $35 board and documenting exactly where the seams showed. Much of the packaging machinery fed back into the main KanoOS production pipeline. All KanoOS public software is available on the KanoComputing GitHub.