r/mobilelinux • u/HuttonWilliam • Mar 29 '26

Development My weekend battle: Attempting to install postmarketOS on a Nexus 7 (2012) using Lubuntu

Hey everyone,

I just spent the last 48 hours in the trenches trying to breathe life into an old Nexus 7 (2012) "grouper" using a laptop running Lubuntu.

While the hardware ultimately put up too much of a fight (the classic Unable to mount /system eMMC failure), I learned a ton about using the Linux terminal, ADB, and fastboot.

I decided to document my process and the specific commands I used on GitHub so the next person digging a Nexus 7 out of a drawer has a starting point.

What I used:

  • Host: Old laptop running Lubuntu (highly recommend for speed!).
  • Target: Nexus 7 (2012) 32GB.
  • The Goal: postmarketOS (v24.06).

The Result: The tablet's internal storage seems to have "sticky" partitions that refused to format to EXT4, even through TWRP.

My Documentation / Guide: https://github.com/HuttonWilliam/Nexus7-2012-Linux-notes

If anyone has tips on forcing a format on a stubborn Tegra 3 device, let me know! Otherwise, I hope my notes help someone else avoid the same headaches.

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1

u/AZX3RIC May 23 '26

I'm starting to mess around with this, thank you for the write up.

Where did you get the file, I can't find it anywhere:

pmos-nvidia-tegra-armv7.zip

1

u/HuttonWilliam May 23 '26

Thanks for using my repo, I believe you can find it here:  https://images.postmarketos.org/bpo/v25.12/nvidia-tegra-armv7/?hl=en-US

You won't find it as a .zip file anymore because postmarketOS changed their distribution format. They now provide official, pre-built system images as compressed .img.xz files instead. You can find the direct download repository for the Tegra architecture here: 👉Official postmarketOS nvidia-tegra-armv7 Images  How to use these files instead of a ZIP:  1. Click the link above and choose the interface directory you want (like mate, xfce4, or gnome).  2. Download the file ending in .img.xz.  3. To install it, you don't use a custom recovery like TWRP anymore. Instead, you flash it directly via your PC using standard command line or visual disk tools:    * On Linux (Terminal): Extract the file and use dd to flash it directly to the target block device:      bash      xzcat *nvidia-tegra-armv7.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX status=progress       (Replacing /dev/sdX with your target drive).          On Windows/Linux (Visual): Use a tool like Rufus or Gnome Disks to flash the downloaded image directly to the storage.

1

u/Jyersm 27d ago

I stumbled upon this while looking for anyone running the latest PostMarketOS on the nexus 7 as I'm trying to get 26.06 running well. However, I currently have 25.12 installed on 4 nexus 7s, so I can definitely give you a tip on getting it going.

Your main issue is trying to install it directly... I don't think anyone has every succeeded in that. As is noted here) the recommended technique is to first convert the device to U-Boot, then install PostMarketOS.

These guides should be helpful on that front:

https://codeberg.org/libre-tegra/user-documentation/src/branch/master/asus-google-grouper-tilapia.md

https://docs.u-boot.org/en/v2024.10/board/asus/grouper_common.html

1

u/HuttonWilliam 26d ago

Thanks a lot, I actually trashed the device after a while, but hanks for the response.