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Termux and Android 10

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Re: Termux and Android 10

#11

Post by ufmace »

I installed Termux on my Chromebook a few years ago to try and create a local development environment per this article[0]. It seemed to work okay, but I never liked how janky and unsupported the whole thing felt. I couldn't bring myself to try and build a workflow around it long-term.

And here I guess that's vindicated. Whether now or in a few years, the whole concept of Termux is not long for this world. I guess these types of restrictions are essentially required to keep insecure and abusive apps off of the majority of users' devices.

https://blog.lessonslearned.org/building-a-more-secure-devel...

Re: Termux and Android 10

#12

Post by leetcrew »

jdmg94 wrote: post #8
pathartl wrote: post #4

I'm really starting to despise most OS's for having such an overbearing security policy. I think it's really why I've stuck with Windows for so long. For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I'm not even considering *nix distros here because honestly the market for every day users for something like Ubu…

> For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I guess it depends on what kind of "power user" you are because windows is pretty limited (why else would they frankestein an Ubuntu terminal into the latest Windows versions?).

kind of a weird quip. the point of WSL is to allow you to use existing linux tools and write code targeting linux from within windows. it's not intended to make administration of the windows installation easier.

maybe I'm not what you would call a "power user", but I do write code for a living. I'm sure you would have a bad time if you expect windows to work like your favorite linux distro, but I find it perfectly serviceable for my work. it gets in my way far less than macOS.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#13

Post by sxp »

I really hope they figure out a good solution for this problem. One way I distinguish between a "real" computer and a toy or appliance is whether you can use the device to write software for it. With Termux, you can write Linux-style programs on the Android device itself or even build full Android apks.

One of the other awesome things about Termux is that you can use it to setup a pretty complete ARM Linux environment on an Android device in a few steps: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot

You can even get a GUI running if you have an XServer: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Graphical_Environment & https://github.com/adi1090x/termux-desktop

I've used this in the past to get a pseudo-Linux dev environment running on an Oculus Quest: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/fc5sfr/oculus_qu...

Re: Termux and Android 10

#14

Post by forgotpwd16 »

pathartl wrote: post #4

I'm really starting to despise most OS's for having such an overbearing security policy. I think it's really why I've stuck with Windows for so long. For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I'm not even considering *nix distros here because honestly the market for every day users for something like Ubu…

For every day users, that is those wanting access to email, social media, an office suite, etc I will argue that Ubuntu or Mint is fine. Even for other users, the most frequent issue that I've seen being mentioned is Windows-only software. If there is no such thing then the aforementioned distros should be fine.

Also, there was never unlimited access in Android unless you had a rooted device. Probably there will be a way around no-exec for rooted users, probably setting up an app as trusted. Nevertheless, this change is really cumbersome and it seems Android is slowly turning to iOS lockdown-wise.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#15

Post by cft »

ufmace wrote: post #11

I installed Termux on my Chromebook a few years ago to try and create a local development environment per this article[0]. It seemed to work okay, but I never liked how janky and unsupported the whole thing felt. I couldn't bring myself to try and build a workflow around it long-term. And here I guess that's vindicated. Whether now or in a few years, the whole concept of Termux is not long for this world. I guess the…

When we need to quickly diagnose and fix some sudden server issue from anywhere, Termux is indispensable. I even bought a tiny Bluetooth USB keyboard because of it.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#16

Post by mey »

jdmg94 wrote: post #8
pathartl wrote: post #4

I'm really starting to despise most OS's for having such an overbearing security policy. I think it's really why I've stuck with Windows for so long. For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I'm not even considering *nix distros here because honestly the market for every day users for something like Ubu…

> For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I guess it depends on what kind of "power user" you are because windows is pretty limited (why else would they frankestein an Ubuntu terminal into the latest Windows versions?).

Not sure what you mean by limited here? You have quite a few options are your disposal these days. (Depending on how you scope "power user")

  Cygwin (OSS compiled to Win APIs)
  Powershell (Native Windows fun)
  WSL 1 (Linux ABI Bindings to Win Kernel)
  WSL 2 (Thin Hyper-V running a full Linux Kernel, with Plan9 FS mappings to Windows filesystem) (Insider Preview, should be releasing this quarter)
  Hyper-V
  DOSBox
  Docker (Hyper-V, soon to take advantage of WSL-2)
Most of the above also benefit from the work being done over at the new Terminal https://github.com/Microsoft/Terminal

Re: Termux and Android 10

#17

Post by tmpz22 »

sxp wrote: post #13

I really hope they figure out a good solution for this problem. One way I distinguish between a "real" computer and a toy or appliance is whether you can use the device to write software for it. With Termux, you can write Linux-style programs on the Android device itself or even build full Android apks. One of the other awesome things about Termux is that you can use it to setup a pretty complete ARM Linux environmen…

Tablet companies really need to realize that a decent tablet with a decent dev experience is going to lead to an explosion of developers on their platform and result directly in way higher quality apps and therefore way better sales and brand.

Imagine if websites couldn’t be developed on normal desktop computers and you had to run an extremely inefficient emulator every time you wanted to make a small notification.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#18

Post by dueF7un3 »

asveikau wrote: post #5
bla3 wrote: post #2

Please refrain from using titles that are more alarmist than the original title. If linking to something with an alarmist title (not the case here!), use a more neutral headline for your submission.

I don't think it's very alarmist or an overstatement though. An android 10 app is no longer allowed to do what termux does. I guess with more reading they are saying they need to declare themselves as targeting android 9 or lower until they find a solution. At some point, I imagine, that will not be an option. To some degree it should also be on Google to ensure that tightening security (or perceived tightening of se…

I'm confused, because I use termux on android-10 (on a pixel2) without any problem.

I have a cron running on it that mails my notifications to me, a ssh server which my laptop use to send my backups on my phone, a go http server running a local app that I use in the mobile's browser, I'll often take screenshots on the phone, then scp them on the laptop, etc.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: I won't reply to each of you to not be floody, thanks everyone for the clarifications :)

Re: Termux and Android 10

#19

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

ufmace wrote: post #11

I installed Termux on my Chromebook a few years ago to try and create a local development environment per this article[0]. It seemed to work okay, but I never liked how janky and unsupported the whole thing felt. I couldn't bring myself to try and build a workflow around it long-term. And here I guess that's vindicated. Whether now or in a few years, the whole concept of Termux is not long for this world. I guess the…

> ...insecure and abusive apps...

I.e., anything more useful than a cat picture gallery from a pre-approved list of cat picture providers?

Glad I'm a luddite stuck in the 'insecure and abusive' computing ghetto!

Re: Termux and Android 10

#20

Post by FpUser »

jdmg94 wrote: post #8
pathartl wrote: post #4

I'm really starting to despise most OS's for having such an overbearing security policy. I think it's really why I've stuck with Windows for so long. For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I'm not even considering *nix distros here because honestly the market for every day users for something like Ubu…

> For sure Windows is not as user-stupid as something like macOS, iOS, Android, etc... but for me as a power user it's just about as powerful as I need to be. I guess it depends on what kind of "power user" you are because windows is pretty limited (why else would they frankestein an Ubuntu terminal into the latest Windows versions?).

Linux is major platform for deployment of backend servers and Microsoft wants Windows to be viable development platform for Linux. Hence "frankesteining". Has nothing to do with the Windows being "limited" because it is not.

I use Windows to develop Linux applications and am happy like a clam with this approach.

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