GNURoot is amazing --- it&#x27;s a non-root chroot which uses ptrace to fake being in a multiuser root environment while being in a single, normal user --- but it doesn&#x27;t <i>always</i> work. Something about the security systems of modern Androids can cause it to fail in a variety of ways.<p>Weirdly, the exact failure mode seems to vary from device to device, so one person&#x27;s tablet will work fine, while another&#x27;s will report incorrect errnos on any system call which refers to a nonexistent file, while another will fail to load binaries, etc.<p>I used GNURoot heavily on a Nexus 7 for a while. Worked beautifully. I used it to write on, with a USB keyboard and a word processor what I wrote myself (&lt;plug&gt; <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cowlark.com&#x2F;wordgrinder" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cowlark.com&#x2F;wordgrinder</a> &lt;&#x2F;plug&gt;). But then I unwisely upgraded it to Android 5.1 and everything stopped working. These days I use a Chromebook with Crouton.