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Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

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Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#21

Post by II2II »

frostwhale wrote: post #9
rossy wrote: post #6

I tried this out a little while ago and I was really impressed. It's worth mentioning that this isn't just a Debian chroot/container, the software is actually compiled to run natively on the Android NDK. It seems like they work around any limitations of Bionic compared to glibc by patching NDK headers and using support libraries. Check out their "ports tree" to see what packages are available: https://github.com/term…

What exactly would you use it for? Not trying to be negative, I'm just not sure what would be worth typing out on a phone keyboard on the go, instead of waiting until I have access to an actual keyboard. I guess if you have a keyboard for your phone that's also different. (so for android tablets etc this is great)

I use it as a replacement for Android apps in several cases.

- Need to jot a note: vim is far better than most native apps

- Need to access a remote system: use ssh or mosh

- Need a calculator: Python is there, with a lot of useful libraries

It even emulates a mouse, so elinks is quite usable on text heavy websites. For some mobile hostile websites it is more usable since the text is large enough to be legible.

A similar user friendly tool are the widgets, which makes it easy to launch a command from the launcher with a tap.

Given the number of development tools available, it is quite easy to write a program on the computer and run it on a mobile device.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#22

Post by danjoc »

haberman wrote: post #17

Wow. Given that this works with ChromeOS, this appears to give me what I've been looking for for a long time: something that makes a Chromebook a usable developer laptop. Now time to buy a Chromebook and try it out.

Having tried it, it's an "almost there" solution. Termux is a proot, not a chroot. This means you can't do certain things. You end up in a state where you can run nodejs and react, but you can't run create-react-app successfully. Rustup doesn't work in Termux, when it does booted into Linux on the same chromebook. You can git clone, but you can't clone a repo from a USB stick. Every single time I tried to do any development on it, the attempt ended in "nearly works" frustrations.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#24

Post by haberman »

mattnewton wrote: post #20
haberman wrote: post #17

Wow. Given that this works with ChromeOS, this appears to give me what I've been looking for for a long time: something that makes a Chromebook a usable developer laptop. Now time to buy a Chromebook and try it out.

Maybe a stupid question but why not just run Debian on a chrome book, or any cheap laptop? Or spend a bit more for a thinkpad or dell XPS

Because I don't want to be a sysadmin. I want to take advantage of all the work Google has done to make ChromeOS a slick user experience, including good drivers, seamless and invisible auto-update, fast boot, integration with Google services, etc.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#25

Post by haberman »

danjoc wrote: post #22
haberman wrote: post #17

Wow. Given that this works with ChromeOS, this appears to give me what I've been looking for for a long time: something that makes a Chromebook a usable developer laptop. Now time to buy a Chromebook and try it out.

Having tried it, it's an "almost there" solution. Termux is a proot, not a chroot. This means you can't do certain things. You end up in a state where you can run nodejs and react, but you can't run create-react-app successfully. Rustup doesn't work in Termux, when it does booted into Linux on the same chromebook. You can git clone, but you can't clone a repo from a USB stick. Every single time I tried to do any deve…

That's a bummer to hear.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#26

Post by nwrk »

frostwhale wrote: post #9
rossy wrote: post #6

I tried this out a little while ago and I was really impressed. It's worth mentioning that this isn't just a Debian chroot/container, the software is actually compiled to run natively on the Android NDK. It seems like they work around any limitations of Bionic compared to glibc by patching NDK headers and using support libraries. Check out their "ports tree" to see what packages are available: https://github.com/term…

What exactly would you use it for? Not trying to be negative, I'm just not sure what would be worth typing out on a phone keyboard on the go, instead of waiting until I have access to an actual keyboard. I guess if you have a keyboard for your phone that's also different. (so for android tablets etc this is great)

It works also on tablet.

Android, Termux and Dev Environment https://rsdoiel.github.io/blog/2016/09/20/Android-Termux-Dev...

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#27

Post by tambourine_man »

iamcwu wrote: post #14
frostwhale wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly would you use it for? Not trying to be negative, I'm just not sure what would be worth typing out on a phone keyboard on the go, instead of waiting until I have access to an actual keyboard. I guess if you have a keyboard for your phone that's also different. (so for android tablets etc this is great)

Chromebook I'm still waiting for Amazon to restock after I saw this post go up: https://blog.lessonslearned.org/building-a-more-secure-devel...

Great link. It's got Apache! Always wanted to run a web server on my phone.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#28

Post by eltoozero »

I was recently surprised to discover folks are using this on old phones or tablets as a "server" in various capacities.

You have storage, camera, at least dual network access (wifi + otg usb ethernet + cellular), a battery (ups), autostart capability via a purchase, basic package support.

Smaller than a laptop, way more self contained than a Pi, enough for some basic tinkering for sure.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#30

Post by lhuser123 »

wybiral wrote: post #10

Neat! As a test I installed nano and python, then used pip to install flask, wrote a web application from nano and ran it from my phone... Opened it from my laptop and everything works like you'd expect. Sometimes I forget that these devices are just little computers! EDIT: I tried to get pyserial working (so my phone could talk to an arduino mini over USB) but hit the issue of not being able to access /dev for lack…

Cool!. Was that a non rooted phone?
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