I am experimenting on building a custom arm linux cluster from my old android phones (running little apps on each and sharing their storages across cluster) and I had a google home hub demo unit, bought online without knowing it was a demo unit, so it was sitting in a drawer for almost a year.

After checking it's specs, it looked like a good potential node candidate to the cluster. I don't have deep knowledge about custom kernels, os porting, just installed LineageOS, TWRP few years ago to my phones and some understanding how operating systems are running and booting on these devices.

So I gave the task to gpt-6-astra / gpt-5.6-sol with Codex, after 1.5 days of loop and some good amount of tokens it achieved:

* Got a native Linux desktop, touchscreen, and custom live statistics UI working.
* No teardown, soldering, or hardware modifications. Initial setup through the hidden micro-USB port.
* Made the existing boot chain load Linux from internal storage.
* Now boots independently, connects over Wi-Fi, and survives restarts. 

How achieved in summary:

* Entered Amlogic recovery mode through the hidden micro usb port.
* Bootstrapped a device specific Linux kernel and postmarketOS.
* Fixed display rendering, colors, touchscreen, backlight, and Wi-Fi support.
* Installed the kernel and root filesystem on internal storage.
* Used a software only stock bootloader workaround to launch Linux automatically.
* Verified independent startup, reboots, and power cycles without USB or a computer.



I turned a Google Home Hub H1A demo unit into a postmarketOS Linux server—no hardware modifications