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Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

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Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#221

Post by danparsonson »

godelski wrote: post #216
lhamil64 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like we have a similar situation. I've been wondering if these kinds of glasses would work for me but it just seems like such a hassle to order a pair to try just to end up returning them if they don't work. I wish they were sold in a store that I could just walk into and try them for a minute. FWIW, I use a monitor arm that's mounted on the front left side of my desk (my dad also modified my desk so this w…

> I wish they were sold in a store that I could just walk into and try them for a minute. I've constantly wondered why this doesn't really exist. Not even just with AR or VR but with lots of products. I thought that early on in the transition to more online purchasing that it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase. There always seemed to be a weird pe…

> ...it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase.

You have all the pieces but you're not putting them together.

Bricks and mortar stores cost money just to exist - rent, rates, staffing, etc. - and that's why they can't compete on price with online stores, which can just be giant warehouses with shipping. The online arms of some physical stores can benefit from the same economies as totally online businesses, leading to cheaper prices online even for companies with a physical presence.

How can a physical shop make any money if they are just treated as a gallery for browsing before the buyer heads to Amazon to get the item 10% cheaper? It's not bean counting, it's basic economics.

How the fuck are you supposed to know what you're buying, indeed - patronise physical businesses because you recognise the value in their existence, and understand that that's worth paying an additional premium for.

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#222

Post by throwaway290 »

There is a review of Xreal glasses in russian internet, auto-translate is interested. Guy started losing vision pretty quick after using them as monitor replacement. Take care

https://www.iphones.ru/iNotes/otkazalsya-ot-ochkov-rasshiren...

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#223

Post by notpushkin »

This is neat. I’ve been thinking about doing something like this on my Quest 3, but it’s a fair bit bulkier than this setup. One upside is, you already get an Android and can setup pretty much anything you might want! (I’ve sideloaded F-Droid on mine, going to see if Termux works.)

Re: Bluetooth keyboard – you can get a Thinkpad keyboard as a Bluetooth one. It’s slimmer that the usual bottom half, so it’s much more portable. But it’s not folding, of course.

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#224

Post by godelski »

danparsonson wrote: post #221
godelski wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish they were sold in a store that I could just walk into and try them for a minute. I've constantly wondered why this doesn't really exist. Not even just with AR or VR but with lots of products. I thought that early on in the transition to more online purchasing that it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase. There always seemed to be a weird pe…

> ...it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase. You have all the pieces but you're not putting them together. Bricks and mortar stores cost money just to exist - rent, rates, staffing, etc. - and that's why they can't compete on price with online stores, which can just be giant warehouses with shipping. The online arms of some physical stores can bene…

  > Bricks and mortar stores cost money just to exist
I understand this. I'm not sure why you think I don't. I thought it was a pretty obvious thing...

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#225

Post by transpute » 

  There's roughly 4 different approaches to Linux on Android:
    • virtual machine emulating x86_64
    • Termux
    • arm64 binaries running in chroot
    • proot..  Same idea as chroot, but doesn't use forbidden system calls
Fifth option: arm64 pKVM VM from Android 15 on Pixel 7+ phone/tablet hardware using nested h/w virtualization. Shipped in 2025 under the uninformative name of "Linux Terminal" via Development options, Android now has full Debian Linux with VM root, no emulation, compatible with USB-c desktop display.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43973395 & https://www.androidauthority.com/android-linux-terminal-purp...

> The main purpose of this Linux terminal feature is to bring more apps (Linux apps/tools/games) into Android, but NOT to bring yet another desktop environment.. Ideally, when in the desktop window mode, Linux apps shall be rendered on windows just like with other native Android apps.. GPU acceleration is something we are preparing for the next release.

Hopefully Android 2025 Linux VMs will lead to iOS 19 VMs at WWDC, since Apple wants to sell smart glasses to compete with Meta glasses.

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#226

Post by resonious »

mikenew wrote: post #194
resonious wrote: post #184

Man, I tried this too but eventually went back to a laptop. Though maybe that wouldn't have been the case if I was able to use chroot. Still, for me, a laptop is quite nice for being able to just whip it out and start doing stuff immediately. With phone + glasses + external keyboard, I have to pull out several things and plug in the glasses. But proot being slightly too slow is a real bummer. I was able to get a lot…

proot is just good enough to make you want to try it, but not good enough to keep using it. chroot was far better and if that's what was holding you back I'd recommending trying chroot. I can relate to the clunk of having 3 different pieces to the setup, but I found myself using just the phone + keyboard pretty often for quick things. And since the desktop environment seems to sit in the background just fine, it wasn…

I see - actually in my case I'm on Samsung, and Dex takes several seconds to boot. I like the desktop but It sounds like chroot + Termux:X11 would be way faster in every way.. I just really wish there was a Termux:Wayland - my favorite desktop doesn't seem to have an equivalent in X11 (niri, though maybe I need to look harder)

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#227

Post by godelski »

20after4 wrote: post #220
godelski wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish they were sold in a store that I could just walk into and try them for a minute. I've constantly wondered why this doesn't really exist. Not even just with AR or VR but with lots of products. I thought that early on in the transition to more online purchasing that it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase. There always seemed to be a weird pe…

Several other factors probably pushing the bean counters: * Real estate in high-traffic areas, especially in malls (do those still exist?) can be extremely expensive. * With retail stores, shoplifting is the business's problem, after the switch to ecommerce, a lot of theft is shifted to being the customer's problem (porch pirates) * Customer service staff in the store are likely more expensive than outsourcing call c…

I'm quite aware that stores cost money. I'm not sure why you'd think I didn't.

I agree that Apple is doing it right and is kinda what I'm talking about. They do focus on the experience even though I'm sure most sales translate to online sales. They do understand that the physical presence generates many of these sales. It's not trivial to measure like direct sales but it is measurable.

I'll admit Apple has an advantage that it isn't a franchise (pretty sure?). But that doesn't mean the other companies couldn't adapt to the new environment. But clearly a lot of them failed due to this. The experience still matters to customers but if they don't have many choices they still gotta do what they gotta do

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#228

Post by linkregister »

throwaway314155 wrote: post #219
TuringNYC wrote: post #170

On a somewhat related note, I feel any specialized device development should come hand-in-hand with a great developer experience with a well-designed simulator experience. I was an original Google Glass developer (2013) and not allowing development via a simulator was one of their biggest mistakes ever. You had to continuously test squinting into the actual hardware. After about 25min it would overheat and you were f…

I mean if you couldn't stand using the device long enough to test it (not that you should have to - i agree on that), maybe the problem was that the device simply wasn't in anyone kind of ready state to be shipped as a revolutionary new way of interfacing with computers. Like christ, it would overheat after 25 minutes?

Being one of the 3rd party developers to create apps for a nascent platform is a great position for your business to be in. It just so happened that Google Glass didn't work out. But imagine being an early developer for Android or iOS.

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#229

Post by OsrsNeedsf2P »

999900000999 wrote: post #22

Technically wouldn't it be much easier to just do the actual programming in a GitHub code space ? I guess you'd need a stable connection though. I might try this as soon as Android actually impliments desktop mode correctly. Surprised OP didn't use Samsung Dex.

Does GitHub code spaces allow you to compile stuff and get artifacts? I've never used it so I'm not sure what the limitations are compared to the Linux desktop (which is about as powerful as you can get)

Re: Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

#230

Post by anonzzzies »

transpute wrote: post #225

There's roughly 4 different approaches to Linux on Android: • virtual machine emulating x86_64 • Termux • arm64 binaries running in chroot • proot.. Same idea as chroot, but doesn't use forbidden system calls Fifth option: arm64 pKVM VM from Android 15 on Pixel 7+ phone/tablet hardware using nested h/w virtualization. Shipped in 2025 under the uninformative name of "Linux Terminal" via Development options, Android no…

I use NOMone; works really well. Runs everything I need including vscode/cursor, node and anything else I need without any fiddling, it just all works. Obviously the new linux vm is likely nicer, but this works really well so far.

0] https://desktop.nomone.com/

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