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Termux

github.com

131–140 of 186 posts

Re: Termux

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it sucks. There's a button in its settings to install a Debian chroot environment; gave it a go and it bricked itself, had to clear the app's storage and factory reset it.

Add to this list that it tends to not work while connected via a VPN. Not sure why but this makes me very skeptical of it.

Probably because their handling of VM networking isn't very robust.

Re: Termux

#132
post #71
post #43

My usecase for Termux: most pictures get backed up properly into the home NAS, but the sync process sometimes skips a few [1] (which is exasperating, but here we are still not migrated to Immich). So I have a python script in the NAS that calculates the MD5 checksum of every photo and video, and generates a shell script that, when executed on the phone, will calculate the MD5 on the local device, and delete if it is…

With Termux I have rsync at hand, which can compute checksums, delete files after the transfer, etc. That's why I do my complete backup with Termux. And I sort the images on the phone into dated subfolders before syncing them. And having tools like exiftool, ffmpeg, and ImageMagick among others available in Termux is wonderful.

Yeah same in fact that's how I discovered Termux. I had an rsync.net account and thought that since rsync and ssh are so ubiquitous it should be simple to set up back-ups from my android phone. Boy was I wrong. The android apps that support rsync were all janky or suspiciously closed. Termux + rsync + Termux API's job scheduler does the trick. I think it's a bit of a drain on my phone battery but I won't complain given I own my photo back-ups from top to bottom (though I rent from rsync.net)

Re: Termux

#133

Adding to the many other great uses of termux already here, the most useful lately for me is running Syncthing. After the "drama" with the Syncthing android client (my understanding: official development stopped due to onerous requirements from the Google, then the most popular fork was transferred to a new owner in a less-than-fully-trustworthy manner), being able to just run syncthing from the command line is a bre…

I remember hearing something about the circumstances of that transfer, do you have a link/reference. Also, when you run Syncthing (the normal build I assume, without the Android wrapper), are you able to reliably prevent Android from killing it?

Re: Termux

#134
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the OEM must support it (the AVF virtualization).

The phone's hardware must also support it. It needs non-protected VM support which is available in Exynos SoCs but not Qualcomm which is why some Samsung phones have it but other arguably better phones don't (e.g, S25 Ultra VS. Flip 7).

Anyone know if the Samsung Z Trifold has VM support that works for the Android Terminal?

Re: Termux

#135

Termux is the first app I install on every Android device I get my hands on. It's astonishingly capable. I have a Bluetooth keyboard case for my Android tablet. All the time, I use Termux to ssh into my Linux machine over my home network and code on it in Neovim from my couch. I don't bother with the default notes app on my phone. Termux + Neovim running vimwiki and syncing to a private GitHub repo is way better. Mos…

What keyboard case do you use? My android phone is a Pixel 8 and that sounds cool :-)

I actually have like, four different ones... :^))) I'm a bit of a keyboard fiend.

The main one I use with my Android tablet specifically is a no-name brand, knock-off "magic keyboard"-style folio case that I got on AliExpress for like, 45 USD. I ordered the English layout, I received the Spanish one (which is mostly the same but had additional legends for Spanish characters). Le sigh. It's AliExpress, I didn't bother contacting support.

For my phone, I have a really old Zagg one that was originally for an iPad. The iPad has long since died but the keyboard lives on. Woo!

The main keyboard I type on all day at my desk is a Logitech Pebble K380s. It can store three different connection profiles, which can be either Bluetooth or Logi unified receiver. So I have one of those profiles set to connect to my Pixel 8 via Bluetooth (typing from that now). Makes toggling back and forth between that and my desktop very smooth.

On a "real keyboard" (like this K380s) there's a dedicated Esc key. Most tablet folio cases don't have Esc. I found an app called "External Keyboard Helper Pro" that lets me rebind Caps Lock to Esc. That makes Neovim much more pleasant.

Re: Termux

#136
Does anyone know of an X server or Wayland compositor app for Android that gives each window its own Android window (or whatever they're called on Android)? IMO that'd mix perfectly with Termux for GUI apps.

Yes, I know Termux-X11 exists but that app is a single Android window (again, I'm not sure if that's the right term) for all X windows. I'm wondering if there's an app that creates an Android window for each X window.

Re: Termux

#137
post #50

Termux is the first app I install on every Android device I get my hands on. It's astonishingly capable. I have a Bluetooth keyboard case for my Android tablet. All the time, I use Termux to ssh into my Linux machine over my home network and code on it in Neovim from my couch. I don't bother with the default notes app on my phone. Termux + Neovim running vimwiki and syncing to a private GitHub repo is way better. Mos…

I beleive Android 16 now comes with termux-like Linux environment that can be enabled via developer settings menu.

I'm really looking forward to that being more usable, but it isn't quite there yet. The GUI especially.

Re: Termux

#138

I love termux. I can run my normal terminal environment - tmux, fish, just, git, zoxide, yazi etc. and build rust apps. With decent auto-complete/fuzzy-search, it's very ergonomic for only needing a couple of key presses to get things done. I'm impressed that TUI apps like yazi/nnn respond to touch. It's a very viable app platform for those inclined. Out of curiosity, is there an equivalent on ios with that level of…

In iOS we can only use something like ish.app which emulates x86 and runs full Linux distro instead, with predictably much lower performance than Termux (due to JIT being banned in iOS apps), but without any restrictions Android has on the executables

Why does Apple ban JIT? It clearly doesn't ban emulation inherently, so why is emulation OK but not JIT?

Re: Termux

#139
Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. Android has since implemented restrictions on which binaries may be run from an installed app; any spawned processes must also come from binaries installed from Google Play.

Termux is currently grandfathered in because it's still built against the last API version not to have these restrictions (28?). But it's only a matter of time before that version starts throwing "This app was built for an old version of Android and may not work properly on new devices" errors and then, stop working altogether...

Re: Termux

#140

Termux is also an excellent solution for downloading videos from YouTube and similar sites, due to the fact that yt-dlp works really well (and using mobile data makes it easier to avoid IP bans, most of the time anyway).

If you disable SELinux, I believe you can also set up the MPV app to use Termux's yt-dlp executable.
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