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Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

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Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#11

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

unstuck3958 wrote: post #7

Seeing so many submissions related to Linux on Android makes me surprised that it wasn't common knowledge on HN. Another such gem: userland.tech (let's you run full distros or apps on linux, including Debain and Arch). I use it to run LibreOffice on my Android Tablet.

>Seeing so many submissions related to Linux on Android makes me surprised that it wasn't common knowledge on HN.

HN seems to be mostly Apple & iOS users which are probably not very up to date on what's going on in the Android ecosystem, so HN is a good agregator to learn about these things.

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#12

Post by skhm »

i bought a shitty android phone with a physical blackberry like keyboard exclusively to use this and it is admittedly very sweet, but i can’t mainline android and ios at the same time so it mostly sits in the cupboard :( but every time (every few months) a quick git pull and nixos rebuild gets me back my desktop setup.

it’s quite a marvel, way beyond termux. performance is good even on poorish hardware.

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#13

Post by hyperthesis »

How does this compare with termux? What are the advantages? (termux is still available on fdroid https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/)

I am guessing it is avoiding all the android-lockdown problems besetting termux... though termux still works for me on android 11...

It uses proot - doesn't that come with a substantial performance hit?

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#14

Post by pluijzer »

skhm wrote: post #12

i bought a shitty android phone with a physical blackberry like keyboard exclusively to use this and it is admittedly very sweet, but i can’t mainline android and ios at the same time so it mostly sits in the cupboard :( but every time (every few months) a quick git pull and nixos rebuild gets me back my desktop setup. it’s quite a marvel, way beyond termux. performance is good even on poorish hardware.

Could you tell me which phone this is? I am very curious to try it out myself. Thanks

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#16

Post by jeroenhd »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #11
unstuck3958 wrote: post #7

Seeing so many submissions related to Linux on Android makes me surprised that it wasn't common knowledge on HN. Another such gem: userland.tech (let's you run full distros or apps on linux, including Debain and Arch). I use it to run LibreOffice on my Android Tablet.

>Seeing so many submissions related to Linux on Android makes me surprised that it wasn't common knowledge on HN. HN seems to be mostly Apple & iOS users which are probably not very up to date on what's going on in the Android ecosystem, so HN is a good agregator to learn about these things.

>not very up to date on what's going on in the Android ecosystem

I've run various terminals and even cut down distros on Android since all the way back in the Android 2.1 era. Maybe people have simply forgotten, maybe they don't care because they're stuck inside Apple's ecosystem, but there's nothing new here.

The biggest news is that Google is actually trying to cut down on running downloadable executables for security reasons, which is one of the reasons why the Termux release on Google Play can't be updated anymore. The devs would be required to target modern Android, which would drop all compatibility workarounds, which would break running most executables these tools provide. Luckily, the F-Droid version still remains usable.

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#17

Post by MacsHeadroom »

hyperthesis wrote: post #13

How does this compare with termux? What are the advantages? (termux is still available on fdroid https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/ ) I am guessing it is avoiding all the android-lockdown problems besetting termux... though termux still works for me on android 11... It uses proot - doesn't that come with a substantial performance hit?

It's a fork of Termux with all the same restrictions as far as I can tell. The difference is that it uses Nix OS instead of the Termux repos, which has more software available.

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#18

Post by user_7832 »

unstuck3958 wrote: post #7

Seeing so many submissions related to Linux on Android makes me surprised that it wasn't common knowledge on HN. Another such gem: userland.tech (let's you run full distros or apps on linux, including Debain and Arch). I use it to run LibreOffice on my Android Tablet.

Do you know if there is a performance penalty compared to native? Does the cpu/GPU hardware acceleration work properly or does it emulate things?

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#19

Post by unstuck3958 »

user_7832 wrote: post #18
unstuck3958 wrote: post #7

Seeing so many submissions related to Linux on Android makes me surprised that it wasn't common knowledge on HN. Another such gem: userland.tech (let's you run full distros or apps on linux, including Debain and Arch). I use it to run LibreOffice on my Android Tablet.

Do you know if there is a performance penalty compared to native? Does the cpu/GPU hardware acceleration work properly or does it emulate things?

It runs using a compaitibility layer (rather than emulation) so I don't imagine the performance to take a huge hit.

Re: Nix-on-droid: Nix-enabled environment for your Android device (termux-based)

#20

Post by skhm »

pluijzer wrote: post #14
skhm wrote: post #12

i bought a shitty android phone with a physical blackberry like keyboard exclusively to use this and it is admittedly very sweet, but i can’t mainline android and ios at the same time so it mostly sits in the cupboard :( but every time (every few months) a quick git pull and nixos rebuild gets me back my desktop setup. it’s quite a marvel, way beyond termux. performance is good even on poorish hardware.

Could you tell me which phone this is? I am very curious to try it out myself. Thanks

the unihertz titan pocket. I can’t recommend it in good faith, it mostly gathers dust. I was trying to be a bit more considered about my phone use and thought a downgrade daily carry would help but it pissed me off and now I use my iPhone even more than before. A very “me” problem though, you might love it!
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