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.

Your keyboard is waiting. Have you successfully run Debian on your Passport? Share your .bashrc configurations in the comments below.

If you long for a pocket computer that removes the web, removes the ads, and returns you to the command line, fire up the bbdb tools and wipe the dust off that Passport.

As of late 2026, The security chain is too strong. But the chroot method is stable, usable, and deeply satisfying. Conclusion The BlackBerry Passport died as a commercial product because it was too weird. But weirdness is the currency of the open-source community. By forcing Linux onto this square brick, you aren't recovering a dead platform—you are building a monument to what could have been.

So, how do we get Linux? We use .

The BlackBerry Passport runs the QNX Neutrino RTOS (Real-Time Operating System) under the hood of BB10. QNX is POSIX-compliant. That means, with the right tools, we can create a "jail" (chroot) inside QNX that runs a full ARMHF (ARM Hard Float) Linux distribution, such as or Alpine .