You launch the "Terminal" app on your Passport. You type debian . Suddenly, your keyboard controls bash . You can apt install neofetch , ssh into your server, or run irssi for IRC. It sips battery. The LED light blinks green to indicate the chroot is active.
Boot your Passport into Fastboot mode (hold Vol Up+Down on startup). linux on blackberry passport
The first obstacle is the boot process. The BlackBerry Passport, like all modern Qualcomm-based smartphones, uses a bootloader—the first piece of code that runs when the device powers on. On the Passport, this bootloader is locked and signed with BlackBerry’s cryptographic keys. This is a security feature designed to prevent malware but also to lock the device to BB10. While some early Passport units had an “engineering” bootloader that could be unlocked, the vast majority of consumer devices are permanently locked. Booting a Linux kernel would require either finding a critical exploit to bypass signature checks (a rare and valuable security vulnerability) or persuading Qualcomm/BlackBerry to sign a custom bootloader—an impossibility. You launch the "Terminal" app on your Passport