7 ms·

I'm mostly worried about Termux. I can't imagine a phone without a decent terminal and I feel my options are going to be severely limited.

by tjoff 6y ago

freedomben 6y ago
Likewise. Termux is the killer feature for me. This needs to wait a year or two so a FLOSS phone is ready for daily driving D-:
- josephcsible 6y ago
  Netflix, Snapchat, Pokemon Go, Super Mario Run, etc. will intentionally never work on a FLOSS phone, so I doubt it'll ever catch on outside the tiny enthusiast community.
  - throwaway9d0291 6y ago
    I'm running a FLOSS phone and Netflix works fine. Pixel 4 XL with my own build of AOSP with MicroG.
    - josephcsible 6y ago
      You still have some non-free bits necessary to do the DRM that Netflix mandates.
pjmlp 6y ago
The option is simple although tiresome, reimplement it in Android Java or Kotlin, instead of trying to pretend Android is Linux, given that POSIX or Linux specific calls aren't even part of NDK Stable APIs documentation. Any app that access the Linux features directly just works out of luck, given that there are no compatibility guarantees.
- wvenable 6y ago
  I managed to get VS Code (as code-server) running natively and dotnet running on my Android tablet. It makes it a nice little development machine. Basically anything Android native is horrible for developers; you can't even get a decent IDE or text editor. You still don't have source control, web servers, programming languages, etc. Termux with a few addons gives you all that. I wish Google would recognize the value of a real Linux/Unix environment the way that both Apple and Microsoft have in recent years.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    Google is shipping a full Linux VM integrated in the base OS on Chromebooks.
    - wvenable 6y ago
      Where's the love for Android, though?
      - mav3rick 6y ago
        You mentioned Microsoft and Apple they have shells etc..on desktop OSes not phones.
        wvenable 6y ago
        My Android device is a tablet with a keyboard and trackpad. It's not all just phones.
        mav3rick 6y ago
        Android tablets have very few users. And I doubt giving a Linux shell will change that. Chrome OS runs Android apps now. It also has tablets and convertibles.
        6y ago
darksaints 6y ago
What sorts of uses do you have on a phone where a terminal is useful?
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  Managing your servers from the bar? Half-jokes aside, keep in mind you can use small Bluetooth keyboards and get a micro-laptopish experience, or connect the phone to a monitor or TV and use a large Bluetooth keyboard to get a more desktop-like experience. I imagine a terminal could work very well in those settings, if you need one.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  * youtube-dl single-handedly would justify installing termux * rsync (backups, pulling audio files, pushing pictures) * vim * git/hg (all my notes live in a repo) * random scripts (ex. When I was losing weight, I tracked calories with some shell scripts. I also have one that uses root and /system/bin/input to automate things.)
  - ce4 6y ago
    Here: * youtube-dl * python * ssh for shell access * socat + dynamic ssh port forwards * access android APIs [1] * general scripting, also using [1]+[2] * backups (rsync, pigz) * ffmpeg to transcode .mov to mp4 from a digital camera on the go * openssl to debug stuff/inspect certs * dig for checking dns [1] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API [2] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:Widget https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:Widget
  - fomine3 6y ago
    No one made youtube-dl GUI wrapper app, is it really?
    - cercatrova 6y ago
      They did, it's called NewPipe
panpanna 6y ago
Why would termux not work in 11?
- tjoff 6y ago
  Android 10 poses significant friction with termux. So far I believe the solution has been to target android 9, but google will not allow that indenfitely and updates to play store must likely at some time target android 10. That is my very informal and perhaps very obsolete view of it. But I could be misremembering details. https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-Android-10 https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

I'm mostly worried about Termux. I can't imagine a phone without a decent terminal and I feel my options are going to be severely limited.

by tjoff 6y ago

I'm mostly worried about Termux. I can't imagine a phone without a decent terminal and I feel my options are going to be severely limited.

freedomben 6y ago

Likewise. Termux is the killer feature for me. This needs to wait a year or two so a FLOSS phone is ready for daily driving D-:

josephcsible 6y ago
Netflix, Snapchat, Pokemon Go, Super Mario Run, etc. will intentionally never work on a FLOSS phone, so I doubt it'll ever catch on outside the tiny enthusiast community.
- throwaway9d0291 6y ago
  I'm running a FLOSS phone and Netflix works fine. Pixel 4 XL with my own build of AOSP with MicroG.
  - josephcsible 6y ago
    You still have some non-free bits necessary to do the DRM that Netflix mandates.

pjmlp 6y ago

The option is simple although tiresome, reimplement it in Android Java or Kotlin, instead of trying to pretend Android is Linux, given that POSIX or Linux specific calls aren't even part of NDK Stable APIs documentation. Any app that access the Linux features directly just works out of luck, given that there are no compatibility guarantees.

wvenable 6y ago
I managed to get VS Code (as code-server) running natively and dotnet running on my Android tablet. It makes it a nice little development machine. Basically anything Android native is horrible for developers; you can't even get a decent IDE or text editor. You still don't have source control, web servers, programming languages, etc. Termux with a few addons gives you all that. I wish Google would recognize the value of a real Linux/Unix environment the way that both Apple and Microsoft have in recent years.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Google is shipping a full Linux VM integrated in the base OS on Chromebooks.
  - wvenable 6y ago
    Where's the love for Android, though?
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      You mentioned Microsoft and Apple they have shells etc..on desktop OSes not phones.
      - wvenable 6y ago
        My Android device is a tablet with a keyboard and trackpad. It's not all just phones.
        mav3rick 6y ago
        Android tablets have very few users. And I doubt giving a Linux shell will change that. Chrome OS runs Android apps now. It also has tablets and convertibles.
        6y ago

darksaints 6y ago

What sorts of uses do you have on a phone where a terminal is useful?

magicalhippo 6y ago
Managing your servers from the bar? Half-jokes aside, keep in mind you can use small Bluetooth keyboards and get a micro-laptopish experience, or connect the phone to a monitor or TV and use a large Bluetooth keyboard to get a more desktop-like experience. I imagine a terminal could work very well in those settings, if you need one.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
* youtube-dl single-handedly would justify installing termux * rsync (backups, pulling audio files, pushing pictures) * vim * git/hg (all my notes live in a repo) * random scripts (ex. When I was losing weight, I tracked calories with some shell scripts. I also have one that uses root and /system/bin/input to automate things.)
- ce4 6y ago
  Here: * youtube-dl * python * ssh for shell access * socat + dynamic ssh port forwards * access android APIs [1] * general scripting, also using [1]+[2] * backups (rsync, pigz) * ffmpeg to transcode .mov to mp4 from a digital camera on the go * openssl to debug stuff/inspect certs * dig for checking dns [1] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:API [2] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:Widget https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:Widget
- fomine3 6y ago
  No one made youtube-dl GUI wrapper app, is it really?
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    They did, it's called NewPipe

panpanna 6y ago

Why would termux not work in 11?

tjoff 6y ago
Android 10 poses significant friction with termux. So far I believe the solution has been to target android 9, but google will not allow that indenfitely and updates to play store must likely at some time target android 10. That is my very informal and perhaps very obsolete view of it. But I could be misremembering details. https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-Android-10 https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...