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Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

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Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#51

Post by 482794793792894 »

haberman wrote: post #24
mattnewton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a stupid question but why not just run Debian on a chrome book, or any cheap laptop? Or spend a bit more for a thinkpad or dell XPS

Because I don't want to be a sysadmin. I want to take advantage of all the work Google has done to make ChromeOS a slick user experience, including good drivers, seamless and invisible auto-update, fast boot, integration with Google services, etc.

I don't think this sort of bottom-up approach will make you happy, though. You never know what kind of technology you need tomorrow and whether your Chromebook allows you then to handle that. And fixing that then is not possible, not with a bit of sysadmin work.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#52

Post by keganunderwood »

eltoozero wrote: post #38
haberman wrote: post #17

Wow. Given that this works with ChromeOS, this appears to give me what I've been looking for for a long time: something that makes a Chromebook a usable developer laptop. Now time to buy a Chromebook and try it out.

Just a warning, unless you get a "free" Chromebook from a hacker friend you're looking at probably $100 for a new one. In the end you're way better off with a beater $50 eBay thinkpad like my favorite x201. Which supports LibreBoot, is a repairable real computer. Thick is the new thin.

$50? Nice find. I have come in possession of a t42 with a cracked display. I've set it up so I can ssh into it but it seems not worth the hassle because 1GB RAM and core2duo (afaik) processor. What is your setup and use case if you don't mind sharing.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#53

Post by keganunderwood »

haberman wrote: post #25
danjoc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having tried it, it's an "almost there" solution. Termux is a proot, not a chroot. This means you can't do certain things. You end up in a state where you can run nodejs and react, but you can't run create-react-app successfully. Rustup doesn't work in Termux, when it does booted into Linux on the same chromebook. You can git clone, but you can't clone a repo from a USB stick. Every single time I tried to do any deve…

That's a bummer to hear.

I couldn't do bumpy and jupyter notebook Even though there are tutorials online.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#54

Post by xorcist »

haberman wrote: post #24
mattnewton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a stupid question but why not just run Debian on a chrome book, or any cheap laptop? Or spend a bit more for a thinkpad or dell XPS

Because I don't want to be a sysadmin. I want to take advantage of all the work Google has done to make ChromeOS a slick user experience, including good drivers, seamless and invisible auto-update, fast boot, integration with Google services, etc.

> I don't want to be a sysadmin

Hence "run Debian on it". The whole reason to run a Linux distribution is that the maintainers do most the sysadmin work for you, and Debian maintainers are among the most skilled sysadmins you can find.

You have to keep your filesystems from being full, but apart from that things will Just Work as long as you stay within the Debian tooling.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#55

Post by keganunderwood »

andrepd wrote: post #50
haberman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I don't want to be a sysadmin. I want to take advantage of all the work Google has done to make ChromeOS a slick user experience, including good drivers, seamless and invisible auto-update, fast boot, integration with Google services, etc.

It's false that you have to be a sysadmin to run Linux, and the users here know it perfectly well. There hasn't been a laptop (or desktop for that matter) I owned in the past ~8 years that hasn't worked flawlessly out of the box on the latest Ubuntu/Linux Mint (granted, with the exception of dedicated GPU drivers). And I got everything you mentioned: slick UX, good drivers, auto updates, fast boot on SSD. Granted, no…

With fedora and gnome, I don't even dnf upgrade anymore. When I turn of the computer, I just check "install updates" which is unchecked by default. This is how updates should work.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#56

Post by tjoff »

I love termux. The only negative I can say is that I think touch keyboards are a bit awkward doing terminal work. (note that termux has a few hidden shortcuts such as when holding volume up wasd becomes arrow keys etc.)

I use the termux widget to give me one-click access to a bunch of rsync over ssh commands. It is the best backup solution for android I've ever come across (this can also be automated with apps such as tasker or automate). Using rsync I also have two-way syncing for some folders so that I can easily put a file I want on my phone on my nas and then just sync it.

I always felt the rsync apps on the play store to be extremely clunky and when not wanting to go through a cloud the alternatives are limited. But this works perfectly.

edit: Also, being able to SSH into my phone and manipulate using a real keyboard and bigger screen is quite pleasant.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#57

Post by jingsam »

tjoff wrote: post #56

I love termux. The only negative I can say is that I think touch keyboards are a bit awkward doing terminal work. (note that termux has a few hidden shortcuts such as when holding volume up wasd becomes arrow keys etc.) I use the termux widget to give me one-click access to a bunch of rsync over ssh commands. It is the best backup solution for android I've ever come across (this can also be automated with apps such a…

You need to use Hacker's Keyboard https://f-droid.org/packages/org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboar...

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#58

Post by npolet »

hyperpallium wrote: post #47
pryelluw wrote: post #8

I installed this months ago and cant figure out how to access localhost through my browser. I wrote a sample flask app and ran it but cant access it outside of termux. Is there a way to do so?

python3 -m http.server http://localhost:8000/ # on phone However, I haven't been able to access a server running on termux on my phone from anywhere else. I suspect servers are blocked by my mobile ISP (makes sense!), but I never got to the bottom of it. Should work over wifi though.

I tend to run:

    python -m http.server 0.0.0.0:8000
That should allow you to access it externally.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#59

Post by badsectoracula »

frostwhale wrote: post #9
rossy wrote: post #6

I tried this out a little while ago and I was really impressed. It's worth mentioning that this isn't just a Debian chroot/container, the software is actually compiled to run natively on the Android NDK. It seems like they work around any limitations of Bionic compared to glibc by patching NDK headers and using support libraries. Check out their "ports tree" to see what packages are available: https://github.com/term…

What exactly would you use it for? Not trying to be negative, I'm just not sure what would be worth typing out on a phone keyboard on the go, instead of waiting until I have access to an actual keyboard. I guess if you have a keyboard for your phone that's also different. (so for android tablets etc this is great)

I mainly use it to run vi for small notes (i don't think it has full vim by default). I'm not really a vi fan (i used vim at the past, but today vi in termux is the only vi i use) but i just couldn't find any note taking application that i liked.

I also run mc sometimes.

Btw i use it with "Hacker's Keyboard", although the only reason i use that is because it has an esc key :-P.

Re: Termux: terminal emulator and Debian-style userland as an Android app

#60

Post by tjoff »

jingsam wrote: post #57
tjoff wrote: post #56

I love termux. The only negative I can say is that I think touch keyboards are a bit awkward doing terminal work. (note that termux has a few hidden shortcuts such as when holding volume up wasd becomes arrow keys etc.) I use the termux widget to give me one-click access to a bunch of rsync over ssh commands. It is the best backup solution for android I've ever come across (this can also be automated with apps such a…

You need to use Hacker's Keyboard https://f-droid.org/packages/org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboar...

Thanks, but I'm not a fan of hackers keyboard, maybe it is worse because I use a nordic layout but I barely find it usable in portrait mode (which is what I almost exclusively use).
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