As many of you have already seen, there has been lots of videos on the Internet (specially on TikTok) talking about this… terrifying Linux error on Android devices that is supposedly VERY HARMFUL for your Android device. So today I wanna talk about this. Is it real? Is it dangerous?

Let’s start off by answering the following question: “Can Tux actually appear on my device like shown?”. Short answer: Yes, it is possible, but it’s not like they’ve told you.

If you truly wanna know why this happens and how it could potentially affect your device, please keep reading, as I’ve seen multiple explanations online talking about this, but they’re most likely false information or they either don’t know and they’re just, not well informed about this.

To start off, we need to know how our Android devices work on our devices. First of all, an Android device is formed of LOTS of partitions, this being, “system”, “userdata”, “boot”, there are LOTS of partitions, and each one of them are used for a certain case. For example:

• “system” has the required files to have an actual, well, as the name says, a system on our device.
• “boot” is supposed to boot our devices, it contains the required files to just, well, boot.
• “userdata” is basically our data, names are pretty much self explanatory

To understand this better, we need to know what does our bootloaders do when booting the device.

As I already mentioned, there are lots of partitions, but there’s this one partition in conclusion that’s called “splash”, or just “logo”. This partition contains a bitmap of our manufacturer logo when booting up the device. For example, on OnePlus devices, it would just show the OnePlus logo as expected, saying “Powered by Android” at the bottom of the device. That’s how it works. Now, why does Tux appear, and how can it appear?

If your eMMC appears to be bricked, or your partition tables are just fucked, on some devices Tux has been placed as a placeholder for the logo, this means, that if the logo partition does NOT exist, or it cannot be found, Tux will be there as a replacement. I wanna mention that this DOES NOT HAPPEN on every device. I own myself a device that does have Tux as a placeholder and this is how I can prove by myself that this, is indeed real. The Redmi 4x or older Xiaomi devices contains this. I’ve made some testing on some devices I owned and these are the results.

To make Tux appear on your device, the “splash” or “logo” partition must be erased. I wanna say that this MIGHT BE DANGEROUS, why? Because some bootloaders are stupid, and when booting the device, it’ll try to just load whatever’s in the partition. If there’s nothing, some bootloaders have been programmed to just panic and reboot, causing an infinite reboot, this is not the first time I’ve seen this. But it is possible, some other bootloaders have Tux as a placeholder for the logo, some other bootloaders might have the Qualcomm logo as a placeholder, it really depends, but Tux is most likely seen on either older Xiaomi devices or these cheap $30 dollar Android devices you might seen online.

I’ve tried to delete the aforementioned partitions and these are the results I’ve got:

This being said, Tux will appear as a placeholder for your missing manufacturer logo

I’ve seen HILARIOUS comments about kids claiming the following:

• “if linux skinny then he not eat file. if linux fat he eat file. your phone is damaged forever.”
• “The black background of linux means its bricked forvever if its white and skinny it means there’s chance to fix it i would recommend you try to get the old sim card out”
• “That is called a kernel panic, Basically Android uses linux as its kernel and that kernel panic happens when the system errors out CRITICALLY wich causes a linux screen (Basically your phone is F-SAD) because its a critical system error”
• “this guys android phone is bricked and linux made android”

These allegations about Tux appearing on Android devices are just really crazy. First of all Tux cannot physically eat your files, and there’s no such thing as a “skinny Tux”. Tux appearing on Android devices isn’t caused by some sort of virus or malware.

There is no such variant of a “skinny Tux” with a white screen, and taking the SIM card out will not do anything.

Kernel panics CAN occur on Android, but it doesn’t look like this, it’s not even close. Some phones might let you know that something panicked, with a callstack, not just Tux on your screen.

Linux has NOT made Android, Android is based on the Linux kernel, but it isn’t made by Linux, “Linux” isn’t even a company or anything that is supposed to create stuff.

This being said, it’s time that I show the real proof. I’ve executed the following on my machine, while having my Redmi 4x connected to my computer, in fastboot mode:

[furretpaws@fluffythinkpad ~]$ fastboot erase logo
erasing 'logo'...
OKAY [  0.101s]
finished. total time: 0.101s

[furretpaws@fluffythinkpad ~]$

Pretty cool isn’t it? There it is, Tux on a Redmi 4x

• “Is your phone dead?”: No it isn’t. Deleting the “logo” partition implies that ONLY the logo partition is gone, leaving Tux as a placeholder. Android does boot, it’s just that instead of seeing the Xiaomi logo, we now see Tux. My phone is NOT dead.

TL;DR

It is true that Tux can appear on Android devices, but not as you’ve seen online. Tux only appears as a placeholder on SOME devices, this means that if your phone’s hard drive got possible bricked, if your phone is new enough, you’ll probably not see Tux. This only happens (most of the times) on old devices. Re-flashing your device fixes this issue, or just reflashing the “logo” partition.