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Termux and Android 10

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Re: Termux and Android 10

#191

Post by ksk »

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…

Well, causes need sacrifices to succeed :)

Re: Termux and Android 10

#192

Post by rurp »

zozbot234 wrote: post #115
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 9) The few times I've gotten family members to try Linux, they called me LESS often for support. Even on laptops! This is so true. All my family members are on Ubuntu, and it just works without any support. For many many years. Sometimes when I visit them I click on update to the next LTS. By the time I have to leave it is updated and runs again for 2 more years.

Debian Stable is king when it comes to the "just works" POV. They only release a new stable version after every known update bug has been ironed out, so the process is consistently flawless. Recent versions will even install security updates for you, with no user interaction required.

I really wish I had known about Debian Stable when I made the switch to Linux. My first Linux comp was a nightmare because the specific combo of Ubuntu (early 18) and hardware had a myriad of issues. I ended up switching to Ubuntu 16 which worked much better and from what I now know Debian probably would have been even less trouble.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#193

Post by Koshkin »

fwip wrote: post #132
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…

If you had a non-terminal-based app that included a code editor and could compile code, does that still count as a "real" computer? Or do you want access to the whole terminal experience?

> terminal experience

Sounds like a horror title.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#194

Post by haecceity »

freedomben wrote: post #152
freedomben wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for asking. My use case is programmatic. I wrote a couple of ruby and bash scripts that automate a few different things. One is a poor-mans SMS scheduler that allows me to have it fire off at a set time. Another parses incoming messages and alert me differently based on content (matches against a set of regexes), and in some cases will auto-reply. Another, I had a case where I need to individually send out the…

It looks like the comment requesting a link to the fork was deleted. I haven't kept the fork up to date with the latest patches as I haven't need anything yet, but it's here: https://github.com/FreedomBen/termux-api You have to both `termux` the app and `termux-api` to get SMS functionality. I build both at the same version so there aren't any compatibility issues. Then make sure you don't have automatic updates turn…

I was going to say there must be apps that do this but it looks like Play store would ban those as well because they don't want apps doing that?

I think Google should subject power user apps to more scrutiny than banning them outright. If Android doesn't support things like these then it's no better than iphones.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#195

Post by sub7 »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #42
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…

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

Unfortunately these tiny side projects are not the answer. They'll never get traction because they're not better devices.

The answer is to either hack Android/iOS so you can patch out all the bundled bs or to regulate them and force them to offer a "clean" OS version.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#196

Post by ddevault »

mjg59 wrote: post #77
esotericn wrote: post #67

I ordered a PinePhone the other day and I'm going to do as much as I can to try and make it my daily driver. I really can't be arsed with this stuff any more. Why are the developers at Google acting in such boneheaded ways? Is it literally just "I get paid loads of money, lol"? Do people not grow out of that eventually when they have enough? Like, you're literally a developer. Why would you make something you wouldn'…

> 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…

This excuse might hold even a little bit of water if the "validation" actually did anything. Google Play is a malware distributor, plain and simple. Go search the Play store for "flashlight" and read up on the permissions of any of the first 10 results.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=flashlight

GPS location, full network access, prevent device from sleeping, run at startup, microtransactions, read contacts and accounts, read your filesystem... for a flashlight app. These are malware. The Play store is 95% malware, or worse.

Moves like the one that locks out Termux aren't protecting the user at all; Google has never been interested in that. They centralize power. That's what it's all about.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#197

Post by zozbot234 »

pmontra wrote: post #184
AsyncAwait wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These phones are primarily about user-freedom, privacy and my ability to do whatever I want with a device that I've purchased, without restrictions imposed by the OEM. Also, honest question; What do you actually 'use' the latest specs for? These Android/iOS phones are basically all about media consumption, something that has been sufficiently performant for years. You have great hardware, but no software to take real…

Basically I'm using Firefox, K9 for email, WhatsApp and Telegram to chat with friends, OSMAnd to plan and record bicycle tracks. Phone and camera. Plus mandatory banking apps or I won't be able to do home banking. If I buy a Linux phone I'd have to keep using my Android phone probably as my primary device. And I've been using Ubuntu laptops as my only working devices since 2009 so I'd love to use an Ubuntu phone. Unf…

The one app among those you list that will always need a stock Android install is your home banking app. Everything else is either open (including Telegram) or will most likely be runnable in Anbox, which is a high priority for all Linux-on-mobile projects.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#198

Post by Koshkin »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #113
HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're opening up and messing with the hardware, why not remove the write protect and flash the firmware instead?

...Or completely replace the innards with a Raspberry Pi Zero W. (Not sure if it’s actually possible.)

Re: Termux and Android 10

#199

Post by ddevault »

haecceity wrote: post #124
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).

Why would you want to send sms from cli? Using the on screen keyboard with quotes and escaping special characters and all?

I'm not OP, but for my part, I hardly ever use Termux with the on-screen keyboard. I hate typing on that junk. I carry around a small bluetooth keyboard, and I generally pull it out whenever I'm going to do anything with the terminal, or spend more than about 10 minutes using my phone in general.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#200

Post by burfog »

There are a couple solutions, with tradeoffs of course. It's important to remember that this isn't merely a technical problem. Some choices can be judged by human reviewers to be violating policy.

The obvious solution is to use isolatedProcess, the isolated_app SELinux domain, just as web browsers do. The restriction on executable code "does not apply to code that runs in a virtual machine and has limited access to Android APIs". Of course everything depends on what "limited access" means. Filtering out paths that start with "/../this-is-a-limitation/../" probably isn't enough.

Another solution is to ship all of the executable bytes. Turn an entire Linux distribution into something like busybox. It would be possible to exclude the non-executable pages of memory, shipping those separately as code-free ELF files. Installing programs would work the normal way, except that the .text sections would be empty holes in the files. As long as the mremap system call works, a loader should be easy to implement.

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