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Termux and Android 10

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Re: Termux and Android 10

#241

Post by rjeli »

zozbot234 wrote: post #98
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…

They're serving a niche market, which will always come at a cost. Your Samsung, Xiaomi, ASUS, OnePlus or even Google device will not be running a mainline Linux kernel with wholly open drivers (ala x86) unless you get very, very lucky with your hardware choice (even the pmOS folks admit as much). You don't want to be stuck running a downstream LineageOS kernel with random patches and userspace binary blobs; it's a re…

> Your Samsung, Xiaomi, ASUS, OnePlus or even Google device will not be running a mainline Linux kernel with wholly open drivers (ala x86) unless you get very, very lucky with your hardware choice.

Only half true. There is a lot of activity on linux-arm-msm, and mainlining is much easier than it would have been a few years ago. Snapdragon 845 has great support (3d accel, modem, all that) and if your specific phone isn’t ported yet, you just need a hundred lines or so of board-specific config.

Personally I’ve been mainlining my Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T, with an SDM665, a phone released Nov ‘19. It’s only taken a work week or so to boot pmos and get a shell over usb, the drivers are already all there. It would be a lot faster if this weren’t my first time ever doing kernel dev.

Yeah, it’s a lot of engineering effort, but it’s well within the scope of an evening-hacker community project.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#242

Post by p1necone »

rurp wrote: post #192
zozbot234 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The big problem with Debian stable as an end user OS though is that all the software on it is really outdated, and as soon as you go trying to run more recent versions of applications on it you run into the same issues you were trying to avoid with stable.

Imo it makes a lot of sense as a server OS, but not so much for end user application software.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#243

Post by dueF7un3 »

ShamelessC wrote: post #187
dueF7un3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I have a cron running on it that mails my notifications to me. Off-topic, but that's awesome! How do you get access to your notifications from Termux?

Termux exposes an api as binaries, putting them in `$PATH`, so you can then call them in a any script/program: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API

It basically give access to most permissions an app can get. The cool thing is that you allow the permission for termux, and then all you scripts can use them.

But yeah indeed, the notif2mail was quite a game changer, for me :) I had a big problem of spam calls/sms at some point, and this allowed me to get my notifications through my spam filter and remove the spam. I also use it to trigger desktop notification when my phone battery is low or full.

EDIT: oh, actually, it's not termux itself, but the addon Termux:API (which is a second app, from Play Store point of view). Also, the command to list notifications is `termux-notification-list`, but it doesn't appear in this documentation page, for some reason. All api executable start with `termux-`, so it's quite easy to list them from the shell.

To start cron when booting the phone, I had also to use an other addon, Termux:Boot : https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:Boot

Re: Termux and Android 10

#244

Post by zozbot234 »

rjeli wrote: post #241
zozbot234 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're serving a niche market, which will always come at a cost. Your Samsung, Xiaomi, ASUS, OnePlus or even Google device will not be running a mainline Linux kernel with wholly open drivers (ala x86) unless you get very, very lucky with your hardware choice (even the pmOS folks admit as much). You don't want to be stuck running a downstream LineageOS kernel with random patches and userspace binary blobs; it's a re…

> Your Samsung, Xiaomi, ASUS, OnePlus or even Google device will not be running a mainline Linux kernel with wholly open drivers (ala x86) unless you get very, very lucky with your hardware choice. Only half true. There is a lot of activity on linux-arm-msm, and mainlining is much easier than it would have been a few years ago. Snapdragon 845 has great support (3d accel, modem, all that) and if your specific phone is…

Yes, of course you can have a "lucky" platform that ends up getting more support from hobbyists and OEM's alike. The SD845 gets used (in an overclocked version) for ARM laptops, that's why there's a lot of interest in having it work "properly" and even be usable as a comparatively "free" platform. Most Snapdragon chips do not get the same level of support.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#245

Post by zozbot234 »

p1necone wrote: post #242
rurp wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The big problem with Debian stable as an end user OS though is that all the software on it is really outdated, and as soon as you go trying to run more recent versions of applications on it you run into the same issues you were trying to avoid with stable. Imo it makes a lot of sense as a server OS, but not so much for end user application software.

You can use officially-provided backports or flatpaks to run more recent versions, if you really need to. I don't think it's more out-of-date post-release than Ubuntu LTS, which is what the other poster was referencing.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#246

Post by rjeli »

zozbot234 wrote: post #244
rjeli wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your Samsung, Xiaomi, ASUS, OnePlus or even Google device will not be running a mainline Linux kernel with wholly open drivers (ala x86) unless you get very, very lucky with your hardware choice. Only half true. There is a lot of activity on linux-arm-msm, and mainlining is much easier than it would have been a few years ago. Snapdragon 845 has great support (3d accel, modem, all that) and if your specific phone is…

Yes, of course you can have a "lucky" platform that ends up getting more support from hobbyists and OEM's alike. The SD845 gets used (in an overclocked version) for ARM laptops, that's why there's a lot of interest in having it work "properly" and even be usable as a comparatively "free" platform. Most Snapdragon chips do not get the same level of support.

As I said in my reply, I have been porting my phone which has a 665, an SoC released 2 years after the 845, and it's a pretty smooth process. Each SoC has a different topology and vendor quirks, but they use the same few drivers and interconnects (glink, rpm, smd, etc). Many of the drivers I am using are for components more recent than the 845, upstreamed by Linaro and Qcom folks.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#247

Post by dirtydroog »

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

Nokia had the N900 tooo

Re: Termux and Android 10

#248

Post by hsitz »

michaelmrose wrote: post #235
hsitz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Crouton is different from Crostini, and it's Crostini that is the default/built-in Linux container on Chromeos (on a Pixelbook). I've been using Crostini on Chromeos since November 2018 and I've never had "the hard drive wiped" or had to rebuild the environment. I'm trying hard to recall anything that's actually been a bug. I'm sure there've been some. Mostly they've been rolli…

Chrome OS historically has been the most thoroughly mediocre desktop experience available on any device. Inferior to windows, traditional Linux, or Mac worthy of note only in that one could find one at Walmart for $200. Between launch in 2009 and 2018 the necessary escape hatch to run real Linux was a flaky tool called crouton. 9 years later a better but more complicated tool exists with caviates like > Can I run X p…

Well, I bought my first computer (TRS-80) in 1979, first laptop in 1990, and I've had lots of different computers. MS-DOS, nearly every version of Windows, Linux versions since 1995, never a Mac OS but I got an iPad last year. Right now I have one Windows laptop, one dual boot Windows/Linux laptop (mostly Linux), a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian Linux, the iPad, and the Pixelbook.

I got the Pixelbook on sort of a lark, on sale for $699 back in November 2018. The hardware is 8GB, Core i5 processor, 128GB ssd, 2.4 pounds, beautiful 2400x1600 (that's 3 by 2) touch-screen display, high quality construction, excellent keyboard and trackpad. 10 hours battery life. And fanless. (Also 2-in-1 form factor, flips around for use as tablet.) I didn't expect it to become my main computer, but it has.

Complex? Well, I don't know about that, but they do say the mark of a good product is that it makes complex things seem simple. Or something like that. That's what I'd say, anyway, about the Pixelbook. Best machine I've ever owned. I'd rather be running full Linux with i3 window manager, but it's not worth switching (and giving up instant boot and higher security of Chromeos).

I don't think I'd recommend Pixelbook/Crostini if you're heavily into x-window apps on Linux. I rarely use them; I'm mostly just on the console/terminal and it works well. I've tried Firefox in Crostini, works fine, but it's not as snappy as Chrome.

RE: Google. I'm not a fan of Google, so have to get past that when liking the Pixelbook. And it seems Google is not very good at supporting their hardware. Fortunately, I haven't had anything go wrong. At some point I will want to upgrade to a more powerful machine, I expect. Light weight (the closer to 2 lbs the better), good battery life, and fanless operation are important to me, and I'm not sure there's any machine out there that I'd pick over the Pixelbook right now. At least not for a reasonable cost. Pretty amazing given that Pixelbook came out in 2017 and I paid only $699 for it.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#249

Post by noisy_boy »

I turned-off automatic downloading of upgrades on my Oneplus once I found this out. Termux is very important for me since it allows me to install the typical tools like SSH/Nginx etc that help me connect to my phone, view my wiki (synced between my PC and phone using Syncthing) among other things. It is a very useful piece of software.

Re: Termux and Android 10

#250

Post by winkeltripel »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #239
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…

The update policy is the right choice. I have come across so many people who were he always was too clever by half and disabled security updates for all kinds of incoherent reasons. To "stop spying", "keep out NSA" or because they were afraid their cracked Windows version would go poof. Keeping billions of unpatched devices is disastrous form the point of view of malware.

having updates forced ON is the right choice. The mechanism used in windows 10 is very user hostile, and needlessly so.
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