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Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

termux.dev

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Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#81
post #9

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,…

FWIW I ran into the "To protect your privacy..." thing when using Syncthing. I was able to manually specify the path to one of those "protected" folders in the text input. It worked. Might be just the native file picker that's protecting users from granting access to folders albeit in a very shallow manner.

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#82
post #9

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.

Termux allows the same kind of scripting ability you would expect from a desktop. Termux-api almost rivals tasker in what you can automate with it. I use the "share with termux" function and git pull/push shortcuts more than anything else, and they are both effectively 1 touch functions. The share with termux function allows you to script how termux will respond to shared urls, I have it set up to auto-start yt-dlp and fill in certain formats and details and starts downloading. It was a little bit inconvenient to set up, but I managed without a fullsized keyboard. There's an app called hacker keyboard that makes it easy.

The original script I wrote was initially set up with youtube-dl, the most recent change was to yt-dlp. For a lot of little things, like to SSH/reboot my rpi, wget a link I want to archive/send, small python programs (and yt-dlp), the keyboard is perfectly adequate. I've even converted a couple of audio files to send to a friend on iOS, from opus to mp3 on the phone. Bash alias are really useful, and because the phone isn't also general use, they can be very specific.

Termux also makes the phone into a very powerful network diagnostics and pen testing tool. But even something as basic as ifconfig makes my phone feel as powerful as a computer. https://github.com/may215/awesome-termux-hacking

Chromebooks have the ability to install and run android apps. The lightweight environment afforded by Termux is perfect for them. I do use VIM with my chromebook. I know I can use crostini, and in the past I was running crouton, but I realized I can handle 99% of those things in termux, and I can use VSCODE dev for the remaining 1%. I appreciate how much more flexibility termux gives me.

https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API

https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kdeconnect is great for this too!

Do you or anyone else know what the state of kdeconnect is on gnome? Last I tried it out it didn't work super well and the functionality was spread out among a handful of different apps. If you didn't already know what you were looking for, it was very difficult to discover what you can do.

KDE Connect is a standalone multi platform application, you don't have to run KDE to use it (I don't).

Installing the gnome alternative was one package and I killed X and started gnome-shell to test gsconnect it appears to pair and allow remote input from my phone to my PC and well enough, what doesn't work for you?

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is quite a difference in size there! Find me a 7 inch laptop with phone battery life and pocket availabilty.

As an ex Psion 5 user, I've often been tempted by the devices from Planet Computers: https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-pda-1

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#85
I like Termux, but most of the time I use a real PC, because of the better UX. However, together with Samsung Dex most of the usability problems disappear and you can use your phone as a work station.

Sometimes when I don't want to start a PC I just connect my phone to my USB-C docking station and Termux has most of the tools that I need to get something done.

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#86
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does, in fact publish apps that require root access in the play store. Titanium Backup is a popular example (though I'd recommend the open source Neo Backup instead). They presumably don't publish apps that use exploits to help the user gain root without unlocking the bootloader and wiping the data partition.

Now thats an app I miss using, but unfortunately its much harder to get root on phones now, or if you do a lot of functions like banking apps will not work. Androids built in app backup functions are woefully incomplete, and switching to a new phone recently I had to relogin to most apps and re-set up nearly everything, except for stuff like contacts and anything from google. At least some apps supported exporting se…

It's rare I run into an app I want to use that has more than trivial root detection, including my two banks. I would probably change banks before giving up root or mobile banking.

When I do run into apps that are difficult to run, I make sure to give them 1-star reviews. I consider attempts to block rooted devices from running an app to be malware.

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#87
post #15
post #9

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.

is anybody outside of google able to maintain aosp though

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#88
post #9

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,…

FWIW I ran into the "To protect your privacy..." thing when using Syncthing. I was able to manually specify the path to one of those "protected" folders in the text input. It worked. Might be just the native file picker that's protecting users from granting access to folders albeit in a very shallow manner.

The restrictions are regarding specifying the root folders, /emulated/0 and /sdcard as well as android/data and /obb folders. You are able to pick folders, other than data and obb, manually one by one but that would be over a hundred folders on my sdcard to use a gallery app. The /data and /obb folders are inaccessible to users even though it's in user space. As of android 13, third party apps can't open /data or /obb, you have to install an app that creates a shortcut to the hidden AOSP files app and drag/drop manually. Rooting/usb gives you access, but play store guidelines about android app api targets make things difficult for third party apps.

By "protecting" users from security threats, they are pushing power users to daily drive a rooted device, which is a bigger security risk. I expect incomplete/broken file storage access from Apple devices, not Androids.

The thing I hate the most is that certain apps only store files in their respective android/data/ folder and delete that data on uninstall. These workarounds are the only way to backup that data.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/j3zgmm/managing_fi...

Re: Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app

#89
I don't use android, but why not just install a custom android ROM (with root privileges)? Is it a hardware driver issue? Is it too much work to keep an android distribution up to date? ...like, does Samsung do any work to make sure it's difficult to use anything other than their pre-installed android?
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