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Termux and Android 10

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Re: Termux and Android 10

#141

Post by MereInterest »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #26
tmpz22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be ChromeOS tablets. Full linux terminal in container and all. Hasn't really made any difference.

About once every 2-3 months, something would be changed in ChromeOS that would break the crouton installation. The solution could be as simple as updating crouton, only 15-30 minutes of lost time, to switching to/from a later development version of ChromeOS, 3-4 hours of lost time as the entire hard drive is wiped and you need to rebuild the environment.

The use of a Linux environment in ChromeOS should only be viewed as a toy, because the ChromeOS developers are willing to break it at any time.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#142

Post by neilalexander »

larrik wrote: post #43
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…

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…

> Linux is way way way less likely to just change something and break the whole system while the user is sleeping

I take it you have never had to try and correct a system broken by seemingly innocent-looking aptitude or RPM package upgrades. :-)

> 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).

I’m really not sure the registry is any more “dangerous”. For many everyday users, I would guess that the perceived complexity of the registry and of configuration files scattered throughout the system are really about the same. Both can appear cryptic and fragile.

On the one hand, you might accidentally delete something important in the registry. On the other hand, you might forget a quotemark/character or get some indentation wrong in a configuration file and be surprised when the entire thing breaks.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#143

Post by MereInterest »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #79
zozbot234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I see your point, but it's not as bad as that. Pressing the right key combination is optional, and all it does is skip an annoying beep. Factory reset isn't triggered by inactivity, it's triggered by pressing space and then confirming.

It may have changed in the past two years, but there was a 30 second splash screen saying "Press space to continue". If you press space during that time, it will "continue" to safe mode, wiping your entire crouton environment. There was no indication at all as to the key combination needed to skip the 30 second wait time.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#144

Post by [deleted] »

Sebb767 wrote: post #86
AsyncAwait wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only "real" solution is to get an actual Linux phone, such as the PinePhone[1] or Librem 5[2]. 1 - https://www.pine64.org/pinephone 2 - https://puri.sm/products/librem-5

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…

[deleted]

Re: Termux and Android 10

#145

Post by zozbot234 »

on_and_off wrote: post #135

pretty annoying to read that issue thread ( https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/1072 ) and read that instead of changing their app behavior, they just want to drop out of the play store :/ They had 2 years to react to this.

Dropping out of Play is arguably the best solution because the whole point of Termux is to run code that's been obtained from outside Play, and that kind of thing has been contrary to Play policy for a long time. It's a custom repository of sorts, much like F-Droid. That goes besides this whole W^X issue, it's more general than that.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#146

Post by on_and_off »

freedomben wrote: post #119

As a heavy Termux user and one who describes Termux as "the killer app for Android" this makes me sad and angry. I was very irritated when they broke ability to send SMS from the termux CLI (in fact I forked and currently build my own version with that patch reverted). If I wanted a paternalistic platform I would be an iOS user (I don't mean that as a slam, iOS obviously has its place, but it's not for me).

This change was a long time coming and looking at that issue thread just makes me sad.

It does not look like they contacted the platform team or even tried to come up with any solution.

They had one year before the change was included in Android. And then another year before 29 became the mandatory version to support to publish on the play store.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#147

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

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…

> 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 Ubuntu or Mint is really small, and those are possibly the most end-user friendly.

Like, I sympathize, I really do, but you're complaining about OSs restricting your freedom while avoiding the OSs that don't restrict your freedom. Yes, Darwin and NT should behave better, but they don't. It absolutely sucks that the options are "supports most commercial software" XOR "lets user control their own device", with some options splitting the difference (ex. ChromeOS possibly with developer mode, Android rooted or with a custom ROM), but the option is there.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#148

Post by geofft »

This title is misleading for a few reasons:

- Android 10 is not killing anything. Targeting API level 29, the native API level of Android 10, prevents the mechanism Termux uses, but you can target a lower API level and run just fine on Android 10, and in fact Termux does run just fine on Android 10.

- API level 29 blocks a specific mechanism that Termux happens to use to run arbitrary code. There are other ways to do anywhere from most to all of what Termux wants to do, with some tradeoffs. It's not as good as the old way, but it's hardly "killing".

Re: Termux and Android 10

#149

Post by julienchastang »

I depend heavily on Termux when travelling without my laptop (i.e., vacation). With my smartphone, a bluetooth keyboard, Termux, an impressively full-fledged emacs, a well-crafted ssh config, and my 2FA card, I can solve most or all emergency work-related problems remotely. Hopefully there will be a solution here.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#150

Post by grawprog »

>Issues

>Android 10 does not allow free access to /sdcard (at least file system based).

Yeah that is kind of an issue, with plenty more apps than termux I'm guessing.

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