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Termux and Android 10

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Re: Termux and Android 10

#101

Post by Sebb767 »

na85 wrote: post #90
Sebb767 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you pay 750$ for a 3GB quad core phone; I've got these specs on a 300€ OnePlus One five (six?) years ago. Sure, replaceable battery and open hardware are a _very_ good thing, but the value/$ of these phones are horrendous. That's not to defend OnePlus or any other manufacturer, but when I can get a high end Samsung or Xiaomi device with 4 times the specs at every corner for the same price or less and simply insta…

>value/$ of these phones are horrendous Sounds like you value the open/libre aspect at $0. Not everyone feels the same way: Those phones are for people who value the replaceable battery and libre stack at $x where x > 0.

Sure, there's a market for these phones and I absolutely do not speak for everyone :)

Still, I can get a Samsung Galaxy A20e for 150€ right now, which has about the same specs (actually slightly better) and spend two hours to get Lineage on it.

My point is, I do value my privacy a lot, even to the point of running my phone without GApps (which drops a lot of features), and I think these projects are absolutely awesome, but with their current offering those phones are simply not a general solution to someone with a budget.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#102

Post by kevingadd »

romwell wrote: post #55
larrik wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been on Linux a long time, but still has to support family members using Windows, here's my perspective: 1) Linux is usually easier in the "happy case", where everything works as it should, and it supports everything that the user needs. 2) Linux is way way way less likely to just change something and break the whole system while the user is sleeping. (This was REAL fun with my grandparents-in-law…

>) Fixing a Windows problem can involve having to go into the registry, which can't be copy/pasted and is extremely difficult AND dangerous. (There probably IS a way to copy/paste it, but I don't know it). You absolutely can copy/paste registry edits. You paste the edit in a plain text .reg file and let the system patch it in for you. [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/382727/what-is-a-reg-file-and-how-...

I'd much rather run a narrowly scoped (diff-style) .reg file than unpack an entire configuration file from a .tar.gz and potentially blow away existing settings (which has happened to me more than once when installing system updates...)

Re: Termux and Android 10

#103

Post by lonelappde »

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?).

"power user" == someone who uses power tools like Tim the Tool Man Taylor

Re: Termux and Android 10

#104

Post by lonelappde »

mixedCase wrote: post #85
mjg59 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are the developers at Google acting in such boneheaded ways? (I'm a developer at Google, but I'm not on the Android team and am definitely not providing any sort of official response here - this is personal opinion and may be inaccurate) If apps can download arbitrary code and then execute it, they can bypass the validation that's done as part of the Play Protect program. My understanding is that there's plenty…

Okay, can I just get a big popup on the Play Store saying "this app requires the following functionality that could harm your device: - Run and use other applications without your consent Unless you know precisely that this behavior is necessary for this application's main functionality, we recommend you do not proceed". And use some design pattern to make "Cancel" the "go-to" action for the user. Or even more palata…

It's also important to protect non Grandma from malware.

Rugged Individualists can run TempleOS

Re: Termux and Android 10

#105

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

zozbot234 wrote: post #69
Dylan16807 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty high standard. You don't need to open it up for developer mode, which lets you mess around as root, chroot into a Linux distro, give the chroot control of the screen...

"Developer mode" is incredibly brittle. If you don't press the right key combination at boot, your user partitions get formatted without warning and you lose all data. That makes it essentially a toy, not a real "developer" device.

Has anyone stuck a Teensy or arduino or something inside of a Chromebook to automatically send the right key combo? Seems fairly simple to me to do, but I don't have a Chrome device to test that on.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#106

Post by rkeene2 »

liveoneggs wrote: post #47
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…

where do chrome books fall on this spectrum?

Chromebooks can run Termux, so at least as good as Android devices :-D

Re: Termux and Android 10

#107

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

mmsimanga wrote: post #95
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have installed Ubuntu to my mom and my wife's parents PCs and I never ever spent time having to worry about those computers again. They instantly learn where the browser, skype and printer menu is, and NEVER have a problem with a computer again. I also never worried about antiviruses and malware since. They are all in their 70s. No regular user has a problem with Ubuntu these days, but they regularly did have all k…

My intention was not to create impression that Linux is the problem. I myself have had similar experiences as you have had and use Ubuntu on all my PCs. However the reality is schools teach on Windows and just about all PCs and laptops sold in my home country have Windows installed. Apple products very rare and for the very rich. What this means is the average "computer guy" available to help my dad is typically a Wi…

These days the only application that is important for a non-computer folks is the browser, and Ubuntu can run Firefox just fine, it's easy to launch and turn off. In my experience, the perception that Linux is somehow 'hard' is just not true, deeply rooted in 2002 or something. Things have changed so much, and whatever kids are taught in school is not that big of a problem anymore.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#108

Post by lonelappde »

djsumdog wrote: post #96
esotericn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've missed my point here, this goes _way_ further than this specific individual issue. The entire ecosystem is built on a model that turns it into a disposable toy and there's no sign that this is going away any time soon. Why do we need hobbyist movements to produce devices that we can actually run real software on and that won't be completely useless as soon as Google decide to update the API?

Yea, phones should not be designed to be replaced after 2 years. Phones from 6 years ago would still be plenty powerful if they weren't crippled by Google Services eating more and more resources. Google could use mainline kernels and force manufactures in the OHA to open source all their drivers, maybe even back PostmarketOS to prevent e-waste. You can take an old Pentium 4 laptop and still put modern Linux on it and…

Why does Google owe you this? Write any OS you want. You can use a open source base.

That Pentium will cost more in electricity than just buying a new cheap phone.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#109

Post by zozbot234 »

djsumdog wrote: post #94
zozbot234 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux phones are nice since they provide things like mainline kernel support which is important for the long term, but many cheap Android devices can be modded to run custom firmware. (The PostmarketOS is working on providing "baseline" Linux installs for those devices.)

I am a big fan of PostmarketOS, but that being said, you still need to patch the Mesa libraries to get hardware acceleration working on an old Nexus 7. They want to do a lot more work, but it's difficult with all these garbage/trash ARM devices out there. If Google gave a shit about e-waste, they'd mandate UEFI+ARM like Microsoft did with their phones (except without the locked bootloader). Trying to get drivers to l…

> but that being said, you still need to patch the Mesa libraries to get hardware acceleration working on an old Nexus 7.

Why are these patches needed? If the issue is that graphics has to rely on a proprietary binary, then that's sad but not something that Mesa can do much about. If no non-free code is required, it should be possible to push these patches upstream and make the support official.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#110

Post by AsyncAwait »

Sebb767 wrote: post #101
na85 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>value/$ of these phones are horrendous Sounds like you value the open/libre aspect at $0. Not everyone feels the same way: Those phones are for people who value the replaceable battery and libre stack at $x where x > 0.

Sure, there's a market for these phones and I absolutely do not speak for everyone :) Still, I can get a Samsung Galaxy A20e for 150€ right now, which has about the same specs (actually slightly better) and spend two hours to get Lineage on it. My point is, I do value my privacy a lot, even to the point of running my phone without GApps (which drops a lot of features), and I think these projects are absolutely awesom…

Your cheap Samsung phones are not running open firmware with mainline Linux, nor have hardware kill switches.

A PinePhone/Librem 5 will also always be capable of running emacs/golang etc. which is not easily doable on Android if termux isn't possible anymore.

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