31–40 of 174 posts
Using scripts to edit and maintain your android internal file system is another plus. Unfortunately can't write to SD card if you're not rooted.
Termux singlehandedly makes me feel like I'm living my childhood dream of having a full computer in my pocket. I use git to blog from my phone, I have ffmpeg and yt-dlp installed to download videos for when I am going to be away from internet access for a while, and I even have some home automation scripts setup that control the lights over the local network. But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed,…
Why would I want to install termux? You basically need a keyboard to use it; at which point you might as well grab a laptop.
But if you _do_ need a keyboard... it's android and it perfectly supports USB or Bluetooth input devices including mice, keyboards, etc. If you have a Samsung or some other devices you can even get a nice HDMI output to a monitor and desktop experience out of the box. It's really like a little laptop in your pocket at all times.
And if you need a GUI Termux runs X11, vnc, etc and GUI apps just fine. Just download a X11 server or vnc app from the play store (there are tons) and you're good to go.
Termux singlehandedly makes me feel like I'm living my childhood dream of having a full computer in my pocket. I use git to blog from my phone, I have ffmpeg and yt-dlp installed to download videos for when I am going to be away from internet access for a while, and I even have some home automation scripts setup that control the lights over the local network. But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed,…
Why would I want to install termux? You basically need a keyboard to use it; at which point you might as well grab a laptop.
Until I discovered termux, I would have always be on the lookout for new git client / ssh client apps. Now I have a fairly good dev env on my phone. Git and vim get me pretty far in that regard. Python and node were easy enough to set up. Recently, I set up nvim so I can use GitHub Copilot and I think it's particularly helpful on mobile.
Most of my personal projects run in containers. I know it is possible to get docker set up on Android. However, it is apparently pretty slow and it doesn't look totally straightforward to get working so I haven't tried that yet.
A few years time and hopefully I'll be running docker containers and maybe VS code will become a solid option on mobile too.
I don't know whether I should be grateful to Termux for making Android remotely bearable, or vexed that it's enabling a platform I despise.
But on its own merits, Termux is amazing, profoundly useful, powerful, and a breath of fresh air.
Do install from F-Droid, not Google Play Store, as others note.
And yes, of course it's more useful with an actual hardware keyboard (Bluetooth), as is Android generally. But it's usable and useful even when using the onscreen soft keyboard. (Hacker's Keyboard FTFW.)
You can also run the available sshd service and access your mobile device remotely.
And yes, I mention and advocate Termux frequently on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>
Termux singlehandedly makes me feel like I'm living my childhood dream of having a full computer in my pocket. I use git to blog from my phone, I have ffmpeg and yt-dlp installed to download videos for when I am going to be away from internet access for a while, and I even have some home automation scripts setup that control the lights over the local network. But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed,…
> But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed I'm with you, but we'll always have AOSP. And the cellphone market is now segmented enough that we'll probably also always have rootable phones.
I sometimes run org mode in emacs under termux on my phone. After getting fed up with crap in simple list apps, my grocery list is a file in termux.
Termux singlehandedly makes me feel like I'm living my childhood dream of having a full computer in my pocket. I use git to blog from my phone, I have ffmpeg and yt-dlp installed to download videos for when I am going to be away from internet access for a while, and I even have some home automation scripts setup that control the lights over the local network. But I am concerned about the direction Android is headed,…
I really wish Android would properly enable containers like they've done for Chrome OS. It's silly we run little Linux machines and can't pop a fully isolated container shell on them!
That just means no container-based virtualization, though. There's nothing stopping a sufficiently-powerful Android device from running a Linux virtual machine, presuming that the hypervisor is implemented as a regular Android application using regular Android-runtime APIs.
I have been struggling with termux on Android 13 pixel 6 pro. Whenever I edit a picture with ffmpeg, it's invisible to the normal Photos app.
Termux uses a sandboxed file system by default, but you can give it access to the rest of the phone's shared files by running `termux-setup-storage` from within Termux (more details at: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux-setup-storage ). That'll mount a new folder called "storage" in your home directory where you can place files in locations where other apps can see them.
