Yes, you can boot from a USB drive on an Android box.
Yes, you can boot from a USB drive on an Android box.
I possess a television unit, specifically a "Jadoo 4", running on Android 4.2 with a launcher installed. I'm curious about connecting a USB drive to switch to a more TV-optimized operating system. The issue is this device operates on Android and often the apps behave poorly with the IR remote—like scrolling through YouTube requires using a mouse pointer, which feels very unappealing, and the overall interface is quite lacking. I don't want to replace it with the standard Android version because it includes a Live TV feature from my home that’s really convenient. Instead, I’m thinking about installing an Android variant specifically designed for TVs, giving it a more smart-TV feel. By the way, it seems to have around 1GB of RAM, but after accounting for used and free space, it’s about 814MB. It appears to have four gigabytes of storage and a quad-core processor. I’m not certain about those specs. The device supports USB, Wi-Fi, and SD card connections, and uses HDMI output. Mostly I use it for Netflix and YouTube. I’ve also experimented with Linux and virtual machines before if that might help.
You could try rooting it. Don't think of it as a TV box. Think of it as an android. After rooting it you could download custom ROMs via the fastboot/recovery menus. Android doesn't have a traditional BIOS. It isn't a bunch of tabs with a bunch of settings. If I boot up my Nexus with Power + Volume down I get 4 options (IIRC). Turn off. Restart. Continue. Recovery. After rooting it, I was able to install to install TWRP and install Paranoid Android. You would not like Paranoid Android for this but you may look for an arm XBMC (now Kodi) build. My Android boot options may be specific to the Nexus, but fastboot is available on all Androids (with the exception of whoever goes insane and removes OS features for no benefit "YES! I REMOVED 2MB OF SPACE AFTER 20 HOURS!") P.S.1. You won't have an obvious volume down I assume, yet there is a keyboard shortcut. I forget what. You may want to ask on the Cyanogenmod forums. P.S.2. My Nexus had to be re-setup after installing TWRP which reset all files on the Nexus. It may not have been TWRP itself but it was some step in allowing custom ROMs. TWRP kept saying the tablet was locked. Booted it to stock, redid the Google linkage process, went back to TWRP, it worked!