|
| ykonstant wrote:
| I have been using termux on my tablet for work and it runs very
| well; I had taken a screenshot some time ago for reddit:
|
| https://i.redd.it/p5h7ongm51541.jpg
| nologic01 wrote:
| Termux integrating the Python ecosystem [1] offers a glimpse of
| an alternative universe, where mobile devices are far more
| empowered.
|
| [1] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Python
| pjmlp wrote:
| Pydroid exists and is a much better experience.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Termux on Android 5 or 6_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33691293 - Nov 2022 (119
| comments)
|
| _Termux - An Android terminal emulator and Linux environment on
| your phone_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32648424 - Aug
| 2022 (2 comments)
|
| _Why is the Play Store blocking updates for Termux but not
| UserLAnd?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28815910 - Oct
| 2021 (2 comments)
|
| _Termux no longer updated on Google Play_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25644964 - Jan 2021 (340
| comments)
|
| _Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment
| app with no rooting_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24979258 - Nov 2020 (208
| comments)
|
| _Termux and Android 10_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224669 - May 2020 (314
| comments)
|
| _Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an
| Android app_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15529426 -
| Oct 2017 (139 comments)
|
| _Termux: terminal emulator and Linux environment for Android_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11570596 - April 2016 (5
| comments)
|
| _Show HN: Termux - Terminal emulator and Unix environment for
| Android_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9905391 - July
| 2015 (28 comments)
| cft wrote:
| I have been struggling with termux on Android 13 pixel 6 pro.
| Whenever I edit a picture with ffmpeg, it's invisible to the
| normal Photos app.
| cfiggers wrote:
| Termux uses a sandboxed file system by default, but you can
| give it access to the rest of the phone's shared files by
| running `termux-setup-storage` from within Termux (more details
| at: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux-setup-storage).
|
| That'll mount a new folder called "storage" in your home
| directory where you can place files in locations where other
| apps can see them.
| cft wrote:
| I have done that, the files are created in their normal
| locations where the rest of the photos are. But the files
| created by ffmpeg don't have the execute x permission bit set
| and I think because of that they're invisible in the photos
| app.
| freedomben wrote:
| Forgive the possibly obvious question, but have you tried
| `chmod +x` ing the ffmpeg output files with termux?
| cft wrote:
| Yes, it returns successfully but the x bit is not set
| pjmlp wrote:
| That doesn't work any more in modern Android, unless SAF is
| used for communication between applications to access private
| data.
| ekvintroj wrote:
| it's pretty sad to have such a powerful computers in our pockets
| and not being able to use as we want, even to be forced to
| discard them just because it wont get any updates.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| I _sometimes_ run org mode in emacs under termux on my phone.
| After getting fed up with crap in simple list apps, my grocery
| list is a file in termux.
| JamesonNetworks wrote:
| The Home Assistant built in grocery store list maker is amazing
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Emacs on Termux is great. I have used org mode, shell mode,
| magit (for git), and even eww (the Emacs Web Wowser) to great
| effect in it.
| arendtio wrote:
| I like Termux, but most of the time I use a real PC, because of
| the better UX. However, together with Samsung Dex most of the
| usability problems disappear and you can use your phone as a work
| station.
|
| Sometimes when I don't want to start a PC I just connect my phone
| to my USB-C docking station and Termux has most of the tools that
| I need to get something done.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Termux sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out the
| cheapest computer that I could legitimately recommend to someone
| as a learning computer.
|
| I found $18 Android phones on clearance at Walmart, like the
| TracFone - Alcatel One Touch Pixi Unite with 8GB Memory Prepaid
| Cell Phone - Black. I mean, look at the specs:
|
| * 1500 mAh Battery, 800x480 screen
|
| * Quad-core 1.3GHz processor with 1GB of RAM
|
| * Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS
|
| * 3G data speed for fast Web browsing and multimedia downloads
|
| * 3.97" TFT color display
|
| * 2.0MP camera
|
| * 8GB internal memory plus microSD slot
|
| * Expand storage up to 32GB by adding a microSD card (sold
| separately).
|
| I mean, compare it to a Mac Classic - with this little
| infographic I made: https://i.imgur.com/7UJjRuc.png
|
| You just would never use the data plan. On wifi, it worked great.
| So, go to a Starbucks, McDonalds, or Library... And you're coding
| in basically a real Linux for $18. (!)
|
| This thing was particularly impressive, at $56.20, the RCA
| Voyager Pro 7 16GB Tablet with Keyboard Case Android 6.0
| (Marshmallow) in Charcoal (RCT6873W42KC M).
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M7TSY16
|
| This $90 one seems like a reasonable alternative: RCA Atlas 10
| Pro (RCT6B06P23H) 10 Inch Android 9 Tablet with Keyboard Black
| (Renewed). https://www.amazon.com/RCA-RCT6B06P23H-Android-
| Keyboard-Rene...
|
| And then Chromebooks, of course. At the time I was loving my $169
| Samsung Chromebook 3 with 4 GB of RAM from Best Buy. Termux runs
| great. Loved this machine - I used it all the time. I also played
| with GalliumOS, which requires "rooting" to Developer Mode. I
| have a Samsung 128GB USB Drive, and a 16 GB microSD card, and
| both seem to work. I use a mouse, sometimes. Android Apps were a
| little dodgy - the mouse turned into a black square, sometimes,
| for instance. And this was even before they offered a full Linux
| shell on Chrome! Now it's far easier, of course.
| netfortius wrote:
| This is on the top 5 list of my favorite android apps, every time
| such question comes up in a forum. I complement such with what I
| install under it (e.g. nmap, wget, curl, dns tools, various
| network utilities, whois, openssh, etc.)
| newswasboring wrote:
| Would love to know what your other 4 are.
| [deleted]
| squarefoot wrote:
| I've given up on Android and smartphones ages ago. Today am a
| happy dumb phone user and intrigued only by the Pinetab 2,
| however I played with Termux on old devices and loved it; that
| was really close to having the real thing under the hood.
| Unfortunately my best tablet, a supposedly crappy no-name wifi-
| only one which was like a gift for buying something else but it's
| incredibly fast and much snappier than bigger ones, runs only
| Android 4.x (yeah, I know, that's pretty much retrocomputing:^)
| so it's not supported.
| aidog wrote:
| I update my website by writing it in the Squircle CE editor and
| then run my static sitegenerator, commit and push to the server
| by pressing a termux homescreen shortcut. Works great. Images are
| a bit of an issue, but I have another termux script that's run
| when use the android "open with" menu and select termux on an
| image.
|
| If anyone has a better idea how I can get images into the
| filesystem from an editor in android, let me know.
|
| PS: Some light ChatGPT copy paste coding also works great. My
| foldable keyboard mouse setup means I could code everywhere.
| Ugohcet wrote:
| You can use any file browser that supports android's document
| api to browse termux's filesystem. If you are using something
| like samsung oneui it can't do that, but you can install Anemo
| and use its shortcut to open android's default "Files" instead
| of samsung's
| Ugohcet wrote:
| (Termux will appear on the left side bar beside "Internal
| memory", sd cards and google drive)
| yokem55 wrote:
| Folks who want a more traditional linux environment and libraries
| then what termux comes with might find proot-distro[1] to meet
| their needs. Basically it allows running an actual arm linux
| distro in a pseudo container created by (ab)using the ptrace
| syscall to emulate root privileges. This has a fairly big
| performance impact, but it works if you want to run arbitrary arm
| linux binaries.
|
| [1] https://github.com/termux/proot-distro
| silleknarf wrote:
| I can highly recommend it. Also, it's worth using f-droid to
| install because otherwise you can't get the latest version.
|
| Until I discovered termux, I would have always be on the lookout
| for new git client / ssh client apps. Now I have a fairly good
| dev env on my phone. Git and vim get me pretty far in that
| regard. Python and node were easy enough to set up. Recently, I
| set up nvim so I can use GitHub Copilot and I think it's
| particularly helpful on mobile.
|
| Most of my personal projects run in containers. I know it is
| possible to get docker set up on Android. However, it is
| apparently pretty slow and it doesn't look totally
| straightforward to get working so I haven't tried that yet.
|
| A few years time and hopefully I'll be running docker containers
| and maybe VS code will become a solid option on mobile too.
| freedomben wrote:
| As an aside, vim on Termux is not nearly as difficult/awkward
| as one might think. Of course you can plug in a keyboard to the
| USB port wired/wireless with dongle or via bluetooth, but even
| without it I find vim's modal editing with a focus on keystroke
| golf (e.g. fewest keystrokes possible) to be a boon for finger-
| pecking out on a soft keyboard. For doubters, don't knock it
| til you try it!
| mastax wrote:
| Because it wasn't obvious to me for a while: the Play store
| version is old, basically broken, and vulnerable [0]. Don't
| install it. The description does mention this relatively high up,
| but do you really read through the description for something
| before installing and playing around with it, especially if you
| already know what it is?
|
| I don't usually like having old versions of software removed from
| distribution, but maybe in this case it should be removed from
| the play store since it's basically useless and also vulnerable.
|
| [0]: https://termux.dev/en/posts/general/2022/02/15/termux-
| apps-v...
| [deleted]
| cloudripper wrote:
| Thanks for posting this. I don't know how difficult it is to
| get an app removed from the Play Store - but hope it can be
| done soon.
|
| From README - "There are plans for unpublishing the Termux app
| and all its plugins on Play Store soon so that new users cannot
| install it and for disabling the Termux apps with updates so
| that existing users cannot continue using outdated versions.
| You are encouraged to move to F-Droid or GitHub builds as soon
| as possible."
|
| Vulnerability Disclosure was made on 2/15/2022 [0]. Above text
| was added to README.md in 9/8/2021 commit [1]. The issue was
| first acknowledged in README in 4/26/2021 commit [2].
|
| [0]: https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/2595
|
| [1]: https://github.com/termux/termux-
| app/commit/94e01d68d6c91574...
|
| [2]: https://github.com/termux/termux-
| app/commit/93e1b132786d5cc7...
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The Only App Which Does Not Specifically and Precisely Suck[tm].
|
| I don't know whether I should be grateful to Termux for making
| Android remotely bearable, or vexed that it's enabling a platform
| I despise.
|
| But on its own merits, Termux is amazing, profoundly useful,
| powerful, and a breath of fresh air.
|
| _Do install from F-Droid_ , not Google Play Store, as others
| note.
|
| And yes, _of course_ it 's _more_ useful with an actual hardware
| keyboard (Bluetooth), as is Android generally. But it 's _usable_
| and _useful_ even when using the onscreen soft keyboard. (Hacker
| 's Keyboard FTFW.)
|
| You can also run the available sshd service and access your
| mobile device remotely.
|
| And yes, I mention and advocate Termux frequently on HN:
|
| freedomben wrote:
| > _vexed that it 's enabling a platform I despise._
|
| Do you despise Android? How come? What's your preferred
| alternative?
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| Story Time
|
| I was an IT person for the math building while I was in college
| and I was mining a newish crypto called doggo on a computer lab
| while everyone was out for the summer. I had approval to do it
| and it was going to turn off as soon as the semester started back
| but they all had workstation cards and I couldn't resist. A man
| had offered to sell me a 99 civic if I got 200k and I needed a
| car.
|
| Cut to weeks later and I'm hundreds of miles away for the day
| eating and drinking at a vitnamese restaurant with some friends
| and I get some notifications that the mining stopped.
|
| I wasn't worried or afraid though because I knew in my pocket I
| could just pull out my android and click the magic button,
| Termux, to get a friendly and sensible shell with which to fix
| whatever mess had been thrown my way.
|
| It was over in 5 minutes, I just rebooted them, process continued
| and I kept eating my noodles. Couldn't recommend it enough.
|
| I had 300k by winter break and I had been set to meet the person
| for the civic after Christmas but that holiday a bunch of
| people's wallet got hacked and mine was no exception.
|
| I ended up getting a card eventually but it wasn't the 99 civic
| -_-.
|
| Termux on the other hand has been on every phone ive owned since
| schemescape wrote:
| Is there any sort of reputable, non-subscription (and open
| source, while I'm listing wishes) SSH client for iOS/iPhone?
|
| I ran across Blink (which is subscription-only) and Prompt ($15
| ---not unreasonable if you're sure you'll use it often), but I'm
| curious to hear recommendations from here.
| knaik94 wrote:
| Termux singlehandedly makes me feel like I'm living my childhood
| dream of having a full computer in my pocket. I use git to blog
| from my phone, I have ffmpeg and yt-dlp installed to download
| videos for when I am going to be away from internet access for a
| while, and I even have some home automation scripts setup that
| control the lights over the local network. But I am concerned
| about the direction Android is headed, Google policies have been
| aligning closer to Apple's. I don't like having to stay on a
| previous generation OS just to make sure I don't lose "power
| user" fuctionality. Just recently I had to install a root mod to
| allow apps complete access to SD cards, a recent update caused me
| to get the dreaded "To protect your privacy, choose another
| folder" while trying to give a gallery app permissions. I am
| grateful for Termux devs for working hard to maintain
| functionality via workarounds.
|
| https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/2366
| orbisvicis wrote:
| Why would I want to install termux? You basically need a
| keyboard to use it; at which point you might as well grab a
| laptop.
| derekzhouzhen wrote:
| Because I don't want or can't use my shitty corporate issued
| laptop to access my personal projects from work.
| colordrops wrote:
| It has additional keys above the standard keyboard for tabs,
| Ctrl, arrow keys etc. It also has good scroll support, even
| in vim. Definitely fine for quick jobs.
| freedomben wrote:
| I mainly use termux for the script API (which is incredible
| btw). I usually write the scripts in bash or ruby on my
| computer and scp them over, but I also have a small keyboard
| that I can plug in to type directly on the phone.
|
| Even if you don't use the CLI part of Termux often, it's
| still an incredibly neat piece of hackery goodness. I once
| needed to text about 50 people and have it be from my real
| phone number. Rather than hack around with Twilio or AWS, I
| spent 5 minutes writing a ruby script to send the texts from
| Termux. If you aren't familiar yet with the API, it will take
| a little longer than 5 mins the first time. Once I had that
| script, I kept finding neat usecases for it. I sometimes
| still just text from the CLI because it's easier than using
| the built-in messages app depending on what I'm doing.
|
| You can definitely get an amazing experience on Android
| without Termux, but Termux is like if Android were a really
| nice bicycle, Termux is a small powered motor you can bolt on
| somewhere to automate parts of your life.
|
| Aside: I find Termux easier to use than Tasker. I'm a CLI
| native old man though, so don't take this as a knock against
| Tasker.
| jchw wrote:
| You do not! You can use volume down as a Ctrl key, and volume
| up also unlocks other keys (volume up + wasd for example
| gives you arrows.) It also gives you an extra row above the
| touch keyboard with escape, tab, and some other keys, and a
| text input for pasting/IME/swiping/etc.
|
| And even if that sounds uncomfortable there's still plenty of
| useful things you can do with minimal typing! For example...
| You could run Tailscale as a normal Android app, then use SSH
| forwarding in Termux to get a local port that goes to a web
| server on another computer in your tailnet, and browse to
| that locally on the phone using Fennec F-Droid (Firefox). All
| of that works just fine. If I leave one of my computers on
| and I'm in bed or away from home I can ssh in and run
| systemctl suspend. Wayland/X server locked up? You can use
| your magic sysrq keys of course, OR you can ssh in with
| termux and kill it, which doesn't depend on magic sysrq being
| enabled (or remembering how to get it on your keyboard.) You
| could also run yt-dlp to download some video or audio content
| from the internet; everyone hates the Reddit video player, so
| why not just get the MP4 out of it? Admittedly, there's a
| better solution here: you can get an app called Seal on
| F-Droid which is a pretty good yt-dlp frontend. But, the fact
| that you can easily do it in Termux using their package
| manager is testament to just how useful Termux is.
|
| I honestly only want one thing; an SSH Agent implementation
| built into the app, so I can import SSH keys and not have to
| enter the passphrase constantly. Not a huge deal really, but
| having a built-in agent would be super convenient.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| There is quite a difference in size there! Find me a 7 inch
| laptop with phone battery life and pocket availabilty.
| jchw wrote:
| The closest option is probably the GPD MicroPC. It's 6",
| but pretty damn close to the ideal of a truly tiny PC. I
| think they're making a successor to this finally, dunno
| what the status is.
|
| https://www.gpd.hk/gpdmicropc
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Thanks for the link. It looks pretty cool. Form fact wise
| it looks to be competitive with an Android phone and a
| portable keyboard. So it's not clear immediately which is
| better.
|
| I use termux daily, and you can stand up pretty much
| anything including a production grade PostgresDB. It's
| not a toy.
| Chris660 wrote:
| As an ex Psion 5 user, I've often been tempted by the
| devices from Planet Computers:
| https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-pda-1
| pxc wrote:
| The keyboards on them are excellent, but the
| software/firmware stories for their devices are awful.
| Frozen kernels due to proprietary blobs, and support for
| running full Linux distros is limited and lags by months
| to years. And they're expensive as hell.
|
| But they keyboards are good enough that I'd still kinda
| like to try the Astro Slide 5G. I just don't want to
| order one only to wait years for it to arrive.
| knaik94 wrote:
| Termux allows the same kind of scripting ability you would
| expect from a desktop. Termux-api almost rivals tasker in
| what you can automate with it. I use the "share with termux"
| function and git pull/push shortcuts more than anything else,
| and they are both effectively 1 touch functions. The share
| with termux function allows you to script how termux will
| respond to shared urls, I have it set up to auto-start yt-dlp
| and fill in certain formats and details and starts
| downloading. It was a little bit inconvenient to set up, but
| I managed without a fullsized keyboard. There's an app called
| hacker keyboard that makes it easy.
|
| The original script I wrote was initially set up with
| youtube-dl, the most recent change was to yt-dlp. For a lot
| of little things, like to SSH/reboot my rpi, wget a link I
| want to archive/send, small python programs (and yt-dlp), the
| keyboard is perfectly adequate. I've even converted a couple
| of audio files to send to a friend on iOS, from opus to mp3
| on the phone. Bash alias are really useful, and because the
| phone isn't also general use, they can be very specific.
|
| Termux also makes the phone into a very powerful network
| diagnostics and pen testing tool. But even something as basic
| as ifconfig makes my phone feel as powerful as a computer.
| https://github.com/may215/awesome-termux-hacking
|
| Chromebooks have the ability to install and run android apps.
| The lightweight environment afforded by Termux is perfect for
| them. I do use VIM with my chromebook. I know I can use
| crostini, and in the past I was running crouton, but I
| realized I can handle 99% of those things in termux, and I
| can use VSCODE dev for the remaining 1%. I appreciate how
| much more flexibility termux gives me.
|
| https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API
|
| https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard
| Ugohcet wrote:
| You don't. I almost always use termux with virtual keyboard
| and it feels fine for doing something quick and on the go.
| Modal UIs (like vim) work better than modifier- and
| functional keys-heavy though.
| anthk wrote:
| You can SSH to your phone and rnu tmux and ffmpeg on it,
| which is more powerful than my netbook.
| skrowl wrote:
| [dead]
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| You really don't need a keyboard, I use it just fine with
| onscreen and even wrote some simple scripts in vim with it.
| Tab completion in the shell helps a lot too and termux's
| keyboard has a button for it right there.
|
| But if you _do_ need a keyboard... it's android and it
| perfectly supports USB or Bluetooth input devices including
| mice, keyboards, etc. If you have a Samsung or some other
| devices you can even get a nice HDMI output to a monitor and
| desktop experience out of the box. It's really like a little
| laptop in your pocket at all times.
|
| And if you need a GUI Termux runs X11, vnc, etc and GUI apps
| just fine. Just download a X11 server or vnc app from the
| play store (there are tons) and you're good to go.
| rektide wrote:
| > _But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed,_
|
| Over securing systems seems to be the modern trend, and mercy,
| it's such suffocating paternalism.
|
| We have incredible phones and Android/Google just keeps making
| them less and less capable.
| fsflover wrote:
| > feel like I'm living my childhood dream of having a full
| computer in my pocket
|
| While Android can provide such feel, GNU/Linux smartphones
| (Librem 5 and Pinephone) _are_ such computers. And they do not
| depend on Google in any way. (I 'm a happy owner of both.)
| knaik94 wrote:
| I understand the sentiment, but I disagree. From the last
| time I checked, the big compromise with GNU/Linux phones is
| still the lack of social media and messaging apps and
| appstore ecosystem. Android, with root, is every bit as much
| a computer as a Pinephone and Librem 5, but the opposite
| isn't true. Termux has PRoot, a user-space implementation of
| chroot allowing a full distro install. I personally don't
| have any problem depending on Google, I have a problem with
| things being locked away with no alternative. Given the
| option, I will happily accept the risks and void my warray to
| root.
|
| https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot
| fsflover wrote:
| > Android, with root, is every bit as much a computer
|
| Can you install a _completely_ different OS on your Android
| phone? AFAIK no, whereas on Pinephone you can choose among
| 15+ systems and on Librem 5 currently among 4 or more. What
| about installing a mainline kernel?
|
| > lack of social media and messaging apps
|
| You can use Waydroid for Android apps, or install one of a
| few Matrix and Mastodon clients. Telegram works, too. Also,
| Flatpak apps work natively.
|
| > I personally don't have any problem depending on Google,
| I have a problem with things being locked away with no
| alternative
|
| To me these sound like the same problem. Google is
| restricting your freedom, not someone else.
| pjmlp wrote:
| They can switch to provide an UNIX like experience rewritten in
| Java/Kotlin instead, CLI and stuff, their option.
|
| Google has been quite clear since NDK was introduced in Android
| 2.0, that is only for games and native methods implementations.
| jgtrosh wrote:
| > I have ffmpeg and yt-dlp installed to download videos for
| when I am going to be away from internet access for a while
|
| Have you tried NewPipe for that use case?
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Termux singlehandedly makes me feel like I'm living my
| childhood dream of having a full computer in my pocket
|
| I still remember the first time I successfully SSHed to
| something from my Handspring Treo 180 over GPRS data, and felt
| like I was living in some kind of cyberpunk future.
| noman-land wrote:
| You should check out GrapheneOS as an alternative to regular
| Android.
| peterhadlaw wrote:
| FWIW I ran into the "To protect your privacy..." thing when
| using Syncthing. I was able to manually specify the path to one
| of those "protected" folders in the text input. It worked.
| Might be just the native file picker that's protecting users
| from granting access to folders albeit in a very shallow
| manner.
| knaik94 wrote:
| The restrictions are regarding specifying the root folders,
| /emulated/0 and /sdcard as well as android/data and /obb
| folders. You are able to pick folders, other than data and
| obb, manually one by one but that would be over a hundred
| folders on my sdcard to use a gallery app. The /data and /obb
| folders are inaccessible to users even though it's in user
| space. As of android 13, third party apps can't open /data or
| /obb, you have to install an app that creates a shortcut to
| the hidden AOSP files app and drag/drop manually. Rooting/usb
| gives you access, but play store guidelines about android app
| api targets make things difficult for third party apps.
|
| By "protecting" users from security threats, they are pushing
| power users to daily drive a rooted device, which is a bigger
| security risk. I expect incomplete/broken file storage access
| from Apple devices, not Androids.
|
| The thing I hate the most is that certain apps only store
| files in their respective android/data/ folder and delete
| that data on uninstall. These workarounds are the only way to
| backup that data.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/j3zgmm/managing_fi.
| ..
| routerl wrote:
| > But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed
|
| I'm with you, but we'll always have AOSP. And the cellphone
| market is now segmented enough that we'll probably also always
| have rootable phones.
| knaik94 wrote:
| One of the most unfortunate things in the US is locked
| bootloaders. AT&T has even started whitelisting phones for
| Wifi Calling and VoLTE. And with 3g shutting down, it means
| international phone variants won't work at all on the
| network, regardless of the underlying band support. Many
| companies, including Samsung don't allow you to unlock your
| bootloader to root your phone even if you bought it outright.
| I found that midrange phones are now the best option if you
| want things like AOSP. The only true flagship left, that I
| know of, with a headphone jack and sd card and good rooting
| support is the Sony Xperia phones.
| solarkraft wrote:
| We'll always have the versions of AOSP Google has released,
| but they're not forced to do so in the future. And I'm not
| sure anyone else is interested in maintaining it.
| ta8903 wrote:
| Google only releases AOSP for Pixel devices, for most
| devices you need to rely on (and trust) some dude on a
| forum and it might not have 100% compatibility.
| Ruq wrote:
| Ironically, I specifically have a Google Pixel so that I can
| mod it and gain more control over my phone.
| anony23 wrote:
| What are some examples of these types of mods?
| alewi481 wrote:
| Custom ROMs? GrapheneOS or LineageOS come to mind.
| kragen wrote:
| is anybody outside of google able to maintain aosp though
| rootw0rm wrote:
| I felt the same way when I got my Nokia N900 back in the day
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I really wish Android would properly enable containers like
| they've done for Chrome OS. It's silly we run little Linux
| machines and can't pop a fully isolated container shell on
| them!
| derefr wrote:
| I _think_ it hasn 't happened because much of the sandboxing
| of Android is part of the Android runtime, thereby only
| sandboxing code compiled _for_ the Android runtime. If you
| could spawn a native Linux executable (that hasn 't been
| compiled for Android the way the Termux executables have)
| from an Android application, then that process can escape the
| application's sandbox and do stuff it shouldn't be able to do
| given the permissions granted to the Android application.
|
| That just means no container-based virtualization, though.
| There's nothing stopping a sufficiently-powerful Android
| device from running a Linux _virtual machine_ , presuming
| that the hypervisor is implemented as a regular Android
| application using regular Android-runtime APIs.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Android 13+ includes a _crosvm_ based virtulization setup:
| https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization
|
| > _...then that process can escape the application 's
| sandbox and do stuff it shouldn't be able to do given the
| permissions granted to the Android application._
|
| Android's sandboxing is _not_ limited to ART and has
| multiple layers [0]. Native apps cannot bypass sandboxing,
| I don 't think.
|
| [0] https://hernan.de/blog/tailoring-cve-2019-2215-to-
| achieve-ro...
| derefr wrote:
| > Android 13+ includes a crosvm based virtulization setup
|
| Interesting; but I feel that their choice of a
| hypervisor-based design here supports my point of plain
| container-based isolation (or even containers + gVisor)
| being insufficient to achieve true sandboxing on Android.
|
| > Android's sandboxing is not limited to ART and has
| multiple layers [0]. Native apps cannot bypass
| sandboxing, I don't think.
|
| Yes, but when I say "sandboxing", I _mean_ just the ART
| sandbox, not the other layers. I don 't care whether you
| can get root / jailbreak the device. I (and presumably
| Google, in not publishing apps that do this in the Play
| Store) care about whether an application that, upon
| installation, _doesn 't_ request permission to e.g. read
| your contacts, can actually read your contacts. There are
| certain capabilities like that (not sure if "reading your
| contacts" is one of them, but you get the idea), that are
| only prevented from being accessed by ART, not by Linux
| ACLs. This is especially true when there's one level of
| permission that gets you access to a certain database
| file through an API, but then another level of permission
| that gets you access to certain special _records_ in that
| database file through the same API. The lower level of
| permission is already granting you Linux filesystem ACLs
| to the database file; the only difference between the two
| permissions comes down to what ART will allow you to
| request through the higher-level API.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is prevented by killing any process that makes API
| calls not part of the official set of public NDK APIs and
| file locations.
|
| Which is one of the reasons why Termux has issues on
| modern Android versions.
|
| https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-
| and-An...
| Zak wrote:
| Google does, in fact publish apps that require root
| access in the play store. Titanium Backup is a popular
| example (though I'd recommend the open source Neo Backup
| instead).
|
| They presumably don't publish apps that use exploits to
| help the user gain root without unlocking the bootloader
| and wiping the data partition.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Now thats an app I miss using, but unfortunately its much
| harder to get root on phones now, or if you do a lot of
| functions like banking apps will not work.
|
| Androids built in app backup functions are woefully
| incomplete, and switching to a new phone recently I had
| to relogin to most apps and re-set up nearly everything,
| except for stuff like contacts and anything from google.
| At least some apps supported exporting settings to
| external files and allowed re-importing them.
| Zak wrote:
| It's rare I run into an app I want to use that has more
| than trivial root detection, including my two banks. I
| would probably change banks before giving up root or
| mobile banking.
|
| When I do run into apps that are difficult to run, I make
| sure to give them 1-star reviews. I consider attempts to
| block rooted devices from running an app to be malware.
| skrowl wrote:
| There are many file explorer apps ( MiXplorer is my
| favorite https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co
| m.mixplorer.... ) on Google Play that have optional root
| access as well. You can use it w/o root, but if you have
| root it prompts for elevation and then lets you use it.
| Zak wrote:
| I also use MiXplorer, and wouldn't be able to read my
| camera's SD cards on my phone without it because Android
| doesn't support exfat for some reason. Root is required
| for it to use its own filesystem drivers of course.
|
| I don't think I knew it was on the Play store. It's a
| free download from the website, but paid on the Play
| store. I'd like to make a donation without giving Google
| a cut - the author deserves to get paid.
| moondev wrote:
| If it works like crosvm on ChromeOS, you can launch a KVM
| virtual machine and then run containers inside that. It
| even supports nested virtualization (at least it does on my
| framework Chromebook) so you can then run vms inside the VM
| for stuff like multipass or gnome-boxes. It actually works
| really. Would be amazing if this same pattern is enabled
| for Android devices with proper vmx/vt extensions on the
| CPU.
| AviationAtom wrote:
| Not quite the same, but interesting:
|
| https://www.xda-developers.com/android-13-dp1-google-
| pixel-6...
| riogordo2go wrote:
| Big Termux fan. From using my phone as a borg backup target (with
| Wireguard) to ssh access to remote servers, it gives you a full
| blown Linux environment in your pocket.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| As passenger in a car where the driver is using Google Maps voice
| navigation: termux-tts speak wow;termux-tts-
| speak you are really lost
|
| With termux we can create voice activated shell scripts, or
| remotely cause the phone to take photos/record audio by sending
| commands over SSH. I use Termux to compile commandline "apps"
| using clang, as I do not care for "SDKs" or "IDEs".
|
| As the top comment suggests, having some ability to control the
| phone through Termux might make one skittish about installing "OS
| updates" for fear it will remove some of that control.
|
| Ever notice how all updates are now portrayed as for 100% for
| "security" or "privacy", but never for the commercial gain of
| certain companies. Another dark pattern. Termux is great but
| these mobile OS remotely administered by so-called "tech"
| companies really suck overall. We are kidding ourselves to think
| we have any real control over these pocket-sized computers when a
| third party, namely Google, can remotely install and run software
| on them whenever it suits them.
|
| Sure, we have pocket-sized computers, the hardware is impressive,
| but these computers do not really belong to us because someone
| else has control over them, after purchase.
| a_e_k wrote:
| Termux is great.
|
| One of my favorite tricks is sharing a photo to it, then running
| a quick `python -m http.server 8000` while on wifi. It makes it
| dirt simple to send a photo from my phone to any local machine on
| my network without the hassle of cloud services (including
| generation loss from recompression), incompatible apps, bluetooth
| pairing, etc.
| timetraveller26 wrote:
| kdeconnect is great for this too!
| freedomben wrote:
| Do you or anyone else know what the state of kdeconnect is on
| gnome? Last I tried it out it didn't work super well and the
| functionality was spread out among a handful of different
| apps. If you didn't already know what you were looking for,
| it was very difficult to discover what you can do.
| cyberbanjo wrote:
| KDE Connect is a standalone multi platform application, you
| don't have to run KDE to use it (I don't).
|
| Installing the gnome alternative was one package and I
| killed X and started gnome-shell to test gsconnect it
| appears to pair and allow remote input from my phone to my
| PC and well enough, what doesn't work for you?
| kqr wrote:
| I have used termux for to SSH to various boxen in a pinch, but I
| just recently realised it allows me to write and run arbitrary
| scripts on my phone!
|
| I can basically do (limited -- but sufficient for my needs)
| Android programming without knowing a lick of Android. And I can
| do it on the phone itself. Crazy that I didn't realise this
| potential sooner.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes! For me the real power of Termux emerged when I discovered
| the API. tldr: most of the android API is accessible from
| within Termux, and since you can install nearly any
| interpreter/compiler you can write programs that target android
| APIs from nearly any language! I personally love using Ruby for
| this. It's a true automaters dream.
| idatum wrote:
| The combination of termux and scrcpy is pretty cool. Scrcpy is
| currently being discussed as well:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35749366
|
| I have one of those Bluetooth keyboards and mice that allow
| multiple paired devices. There's a button on each to allow you to
| switch. That's pretty handy to have it paired with my old Android
| device and be able to pop over and use my tmux sessions.
| freedomben wrote:
| Oh dude! That's such a great idea. So great that (like most
| great ideas) it's extremely obvious in hindsight and I feel
| silly for not having considered it :-D
| lugu wrote:
| Humm, I am not getting it. Can you detail the setup you
| envision? Thanks!
| guestbest wrote:
| I've put this on a 20$ android phone that I got on eBay and was
| so impressed it made me consider switching from iOS to android.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That's the neat part about this. Need a Linuxy ARM SBC to run
| python, or a tiny web server, or home automation hub or
| something like that but Raspberry PIs are unavailable or
| overpriced in your area and alternative products are too
| sketchy and unsupported? No problemo.
|
| Just get an old Android flagship off the second hand market
| that can be had dirt cheap, flash some FOSS de-Googled ROM on
| it, and use that instead. You now have the power of Linux and
| Android ecosystems for much less than a Pi and it comes with a
| display and battery! Need GPIO too? You can connect an external
| GPIO board via USB-OTG to the phone and control that via Python
| just like with a Raspberry PI.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| For extra tricks (and challenges), buy an Android phone that
| can run postmarketOS, which is basically Alpine Linux. This
| comes with more up to date kernels (something older phones
| often lack) and can run things like Docker without too much
| trouble.
|
| Most phones aren't fully supported but there are a bunch of
| phones with decent support and modern enough SoCs that can be
| had for cheap.
|
| PmOS devices don't run Android so the Android HAL that custom
| ROMs often rely on isn't in use, which can lead to broken
| hardware support. On the other hand, many of these devices
| run a recent version of Linux so you can play around with all
| kinds of modern features.
|
| https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
| freedomben wrote:
| Wow what a great idea. I currently use my Raspberry Pi to
| make OCI container build for ARM, but for some reason docker
| routinely breaks on raspbian. The most recent aggravating
| breakage is that the system clock always goes to Jan 1 1970
| inside the container, and I can't figure out why (if anyone
| knows how to fix this, I'd be eternally grateful for a hint).
| Because of this I've scripted an ARM EC2 instance that spins
| up, builds the image, pushes it, and spins down, but I'd love
| to have a local solution on hardware I own. I'm gonna give
| this a try!
| eggy wrote:
| So true. I use Termux, but I haven't used an Android phone to
| replace my embedded stuff. I have used tablets as interfaces
| to some of my projects. I have an old Keyone Blackberry I
| should try this with. The real keyboard may come in handy if
| the screen is acting up. Any recommendations for a FOSS de-
| Googled ROM? I've tried this in the past, but I have not kept
| up with them.
|
| My needs sometimes call for more realtime control, and the
| system I ran in the past (Navigator) ran on QNX (owned by
| Blackberry) a microkernel OS (like Minix was, not Linux). Is
| there a close competitor in the Android world?
| bahmboo wrote:
| Used flagships have always worked well for me. They were
| built the best at the time whereas new budget phones have to
| cut corners. Phone tech is not changing that fast anymore.
| freedomben wrote:
| How old/used is the price sweet spot? Have you gotten
| bad/broken devices? Where do you buy them to avoid people
| over-representing the status of the device?
|
| I've got kids that are starting to need phones and this
| seems like a great way to do it.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Termux is one of my favorite mobile app. Especially because I can
| run basically whatever I want to it as long as it's in text mode.
| X11 support is there but honestly that too janky for me and I'm
| more comfortable with cli any ways. There are some bonkers things
| we can do with this. Like running dwarf fortress on it[1]. My
| favorite thing is running Julia+Pluto so I can do stupid toys on
| it.
|
| I sometimes wonder what kind of stress I'm putting on my phone by
| doing this.
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/r80m7y/dwarf...
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| It is real comfy on e-ink android devices :3
| neals wrote:
| One of those things. It's on my phone for years, never used it,
| had to use it today. Now it's top on HN. Anyway. The reason I
| never use it dawned on me. I can't install an ssh client and I
| don't get their package manager for some reason.
| haunter wrote:
| >I can't install an ssh client
|
| You can instal OpenSSH
| https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Remote_Access
|
| >I don't get their package manager for some reason
|
| It's the same as Ubuntu/Debian
| devmunchies wrote:
| I don't use android, but why not just install a custom android
| ROM (with root privileges)? Is it a hardware driver issue? Is it
| too much work to keep an android distribution up to date?
| ...like, does Samsung do any work to make sure it's difficult to
| use anything other than their pre-installed android?
| knaik94 wrote:
| Not all phones allow you to root, even if you paid outright for
| the device. Termux is different from a custom ROM, Termux gives
| you things like native nodejs, python, ffmpeg, git, and nmap.
| It's independent from the underlying OS. All phone come with a
| bootloader lock and only some companies allow you to unlock it.
| You need to do a bootloader and oem unlock in order to have the
| ability to root. Certain devices have sensors/parts that aren't
| supported via AOSP, back in the day I remember reading "not
| working: wifi" in the feature list for custom roms. I think
| wifi is usually okay now, but camera and cellular modem are
| still not guaranteed.
| tester457 wrote:
| One of the reasons I like chatgpt is that it makes coding on
| phone much more accessible. Type a prompt and paste it into vim
| in termux.
|
| Using scripts to edit and maintain your android internal file
| system is another plus. Unfortunately can't write to SD card if
| you're not rooted.
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