MaruOS turns your Android phone into Debian desktop when docked
Maru OS is a new ROM developed by Pritham for the Nexus 5 smartphone. Maru OS comes with Android Lollipop OS but when you connect the phone to an external display (via either SlimPort or MHL), instead of seeing a mirror of you Android screen, you get a Debian desktop. At the same time, the phone will be running Android OS. Both the operating systems will access data on internal storage and SD card.
You can connect the phone with Maru OS to any HDMI screen using a HDMI dock and you have to pair a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (cannot use a USB k/b and mouse) and you are good to go. It takes just 5 seconds for the Debian OS to boot up. The Android OS does not come with any bloatware and is pure android build. Debian part is version 8 Jessie with XFCE environment.
When you disconnect the screen, Maru will preserve the desktop state and when you re-connect, you get to continue from same state (like Hibernation in Windows).
You can download Maru OS ROM from this GitHub page. The ROM is just 662MB in size and if you know how to install a custom ROM on Android phone, installing Maru OS is very simple. Hit the GitHub link at the bottom of the page if you are interested in contributing to the development of this unique concept.
As of now, only Google LG Nexus 5 phone is supported but Pritham is working on adding more Nexus devices and at a later point of time, the ROM will be made available for non-nexus devices (will be community driver ports off of the project).
We strongly recommend you to go through the FAQs added in this page. The FAQs explain lot of queries like h/w support, root password, space related questions etc.
