10 ms·

Termux on Android 5 or 6

152 points by app4soft 4y ago

mrelectric 4y ago
This is excellent and I'm glad to see they took on the effort. Thanks for sharing
creshal 4y ago
But why?
- AkshatJ27 4y ago
  to be able to run stuff on the years old android phones
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  Are you implying that it shouldn't have been done, or are you just curious about authors' motivation? If the latter, I'd guess that some of them still want to support Android 5/6 phones. Some of them still exist and work fine.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    And tablets
- dspillett 4y ago
  There are a fair few devices out there still running old versions of Android¹ – particularly a number of ebook devices that are commonly rooted to do more/other than run the officially included software which may be inadequate², deprecated³, or simply dead⁴. --- [1] >3% of android running 6 or 5, according to several sources found in a quick search, of which https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android seems to be the most up-to-date. [2] Not supporting newer formats/features perhaps, or just being a very tightly walled garden of minimal features. [3] So not supported at all any more. [4] If they rely on external services that have since closed, for instance.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Yup. Notably, these devices are pre-Treble, so there's no prospect for any sort of GSI support (which would open up things like Droidian). So Termux is pretty much the best you can do if you care about providing a sensible environment in a device-independent way.
- app4soft 4y ago
  Initially Android 5/6 was dropped[0] since 2020-01-01, but this year it was decided to bring Android 5/6 support back for app & bootstrap.[1] Additional context: read-only package repos (as archived on 2019-12-09) moved to official site.[2] [0] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4467 https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4467 [1] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/pull/2740 https://github.com/termux/termux-app/pull/2740 [2] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4658 https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4658
- xchip 4y ago
  to have your own cloud running on your old cellphone, I use it to store backups, pictures, vpn,...
kjuulh 4y ago
Termux together with WireGuard works really well. I am easily able to use my tablet as a client to either one of my hosted machines or my development workstation. Can highly recommend =D That said my use-case is basically either ssh or mosh, so I haven't really tested how capable termux really is, but it is enough that I don't get artifacts and such when connecting over ssh.
- suprjami 4y ago
  I use Termux for a lot of things on my phone. git, neovim, ffmpeg, ImageMagick, mass downloading using scripts in various languages, SSH to other systems, grepping the Wordle list with regex when I'm stuck at 5 guesses... Anyway it's great. It handles everything I've thrown at it like a champ. I am constantly amazed someone managed to make a phone environment this reliable and full featured. I'm well aware it's just apt packages with the base path modified but I'm still really impressed. The documentation is also really good. I've never had to ask a question to do anything I've wanted.
  - never_inline 4y ago
    There's also `termux-distro` so you can run in a sandbox popular distros like Debian and Arch.
xchip 4y ago
This is awesome, now we can use our old cellphones as small cloud servers (I have one with a 128Gb SD card running rsyncd, sshd, smbd, nginx, php, openvpn, transmission)
Maxburn 4y ago
It seems like the crowd here is pro things like this. I understand the e-waste angle. How do you protect and defend android devices that haven't received security updates for a long time?
- razemio 4y ago
  I use old Android devices for smart home stuff (e.g. tablet as sensor overview). I guess as long as it is not exposed to a public endpoint, there is not much to fear?
  - Maxburn 4y ago
    If you can resist using it to browse the internet or receive SMS/MMS I see your point.
- 867-5309 4y ago
  harden at the app level and put a reverse proxy in front of it
- Hello71 4y ago
  termux doesn't use most of the system libraries that are likely to be remotely exploitable, e.g. openssl and webview. the remaining unupdatable weakness is the kernel, but it's pretty unlikely to have a TCP RCE or something like that. there's SACK Panic, but that's only DoS, not RCE, and if you're running something on android 5 you probably have low reliability expectations anyways.
  - Maxburn 4y ago
    OK, I see now. For this Termux use case having an old device isn't really a big deal. Just make sure no cellular and only use it on protected LAN.
- kramerger 4y ago
  I think only core OS vulnerabilities (kernel plus a few libraries) are not updated. 9 times of 10 these are local privilege escalation that are less important if you don't run random apps. Depending on the Android version, most other things could be updated in other ways (security updates from OEM, system updates via play services, app updates including system apps via play store). On top of that, you can add local and network firewalls and similar stuff to harden the system. Basically, probably good enough for the intended usage.
baybal2 4y ago
Chinese OEMs still pump devices running Android 4.* by millions. Why? Chipset support: Spreadtrum, RockChips, AW, AmLogic simply didn't release BSP updates for some of their most in demand chips.
- flas9sd 4y ago
  in what formfactors? as phones or in other devices (TV,..) ? would be interested in seeing examples. I wonder about the Chinese android scene, haven't had much insight. Actually just yesterday built an old 3.10 spreadtrum kernel
- phh 4y ago
  Cheapest Spreadtrum (now Unisoc) you can buy is SC7731E, which has at the very least Android 7, and is slated to get Android 13 BSP. Most current cheap rockchips are rk3328/rk3228, who got at least Android 8, even more recent (I think 3328 got Android 12). Last Allwinner board, H616, I got was running Android 9, but it was few years ago so it was pretty recent, and it's considered an obsolete SoC on several accounts. I don't really know what Amlogic sells nowadays Granted, I only buy devices for which the the Android devices is displayed, because well I want GSI to run on it, but I haven't seen a device sold as Android 4.* for years. I ordered an iPhone knock-off that might prove me wrong... (it says Android 11 on the spec sheet)
twism 4y ago
Not exactly the same but wanted to share what has worked wonders for me for years. I needed to run a terminal multiplexer on a remote machine, SSH into it, and be able to use emacs (key bindings and all) on my Pixel 5. I found this combination of now defunct open source apps worked better than any I've tried. https://github.com/irssiconnectbot/irssiconnectbot https://github.com/irssiconnectbot/irssiconnectbot For SSH client. (not version 2. version 1.7.1-irssi specifically) https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard Keyboard that has Ctrl/Alt/Meta keys without having to switch modes. A bit cramped and the UI for AutoSuggestion dissappeared in Android 13 :( These tools are not without their quirks tho but I'm sure with some TLC they can be ironed out. Funny I'm an Android dev by day but haven't had time to look into the minor issues both tools have because they are so old. Then again, they are not serious issues and I've been able to whip out emacs and write code (clojure: so succinctness helps) when the moment strikes or in lieu of social media.
pawelduda 4y ago
A bit of offtopic, but what do you use termux for on your Android phones? I use it to run my restic backup script to backup my phone data, it's a bit barebones but seems to work. I find it cool to have a shell on my phone, to be able to launch vim (but definitely not use it with the onscreen keyboard, lol)... was wondering what others are up to!
- calmingsolitude 4y ago
  I have termux installed to quickly run `ip neigh` to find the IP addresses of devices connected to the hotspot - unfortunately my version of Android doesn't have this feature built in. This is especially useful when you have multiple Pis connected and need to know the IP address to ssh to.
  - cft 4y ago
    Are you on a rooted phone? ~ $ ip neigh Cannot bind netlink socket: Permission denied Pixel 6 Pro Android 13
    - Yizahi 4y ago
      Works on my not rooted Samsung, Android 12.
    - maple3142 4y ago
      You can use this without root by using the rish provided by [Shizuku](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=moe.shizuku.privileged.api https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=moe.shizuku.pr...), because it only need adb shell permission for this.
- m-p-3 4y ago
  Personally I use it for youtube-dl / yt-dlp. Being able to grab most media to watch offline from anywhere is great.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
notorandit 4y ago
If only I could link an external display to my droid phone...
- ccouzens 4y ago
  You can with Samsung Dex. I also did so using my pixel 4a (which doesn't normally support video out), a usb displaylink adapter and this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.displaylink.presenter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.displaylin... But in reality you'd probably do better with just about any old Linux laptop.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    You can even use Dex to connect a Wacom One LCD tablet and use the main screen while you are drawing for something else (refference images, etc.).
julienchastang 4y ago
Termux is not available via the Google Play store (or not the current version at least, is this still true?) so you have to download it via the F-Droid app repository. I do this, but I am always a bit uneasy going via a non-sanctioned store. My main concern is a malware attack via F-Droid.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  Considering how the sanctioned store basically already acts like malware, you're SOL, but you should be fine as long as you stay away from apps by Rahul Kumar Patel.
  - guerby 4y ago
    Hi, what are the issues with Rahul Kumar Patel apps?
    - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
      I downloaded the PayPal app from the Aurora Store, on a brand new phone, and the app tried stealing money from me. Worked fine with small amounts, but once I got my tax return, it changed. Will not go into specifics in an open post with strangers, so it can be replicated.
  - raffraffraff 4y ago
    That's very specific. I googled the name but didn't see anything obvious. Want to elaborate?
    - asveikau 4y ago
      I read it as a rather uncool appeal to South Asian stereotypes.
      - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
        That interpretation originated from your mind, racist.
habibur 4y ago
I use it to send SMS from my phone. - fetch SMS text and number from application API. - send from local phone.
saagarjha 4y ago
You know, I wish we could do something similar for iOS, but their toolchain generally drops support for targeting older versions of iOS faster than we do so. Has anyone checked to see if you can patch apps and submit them through App Store review with doctored deployment targets?
kasajian 4y ago
Termux is bae
Katherine1212 4y ago
Katherine1212 4y ago
emilyhunt945 4y ago
ANDREWm1212 4y ago

152 points by app4soft 4y ago

mrelectric 4y ago

This is excellent and I'm glad to see they took on the effort. Thanks for sharing

creshal 4y ago

But why?

AkshatJ27 4y ago
to be able to run stuff on the years old android phones
bheadmaster 4y ago
Are you implying that it shouldn't have been done, or are you just curious about authors' motivation? If the latter, I'd guess that some of them still want to support Android 5/6 phones. Some of them still exist and work fine.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  And tablets
dspillett 4y ago
There are a fair few devices out there still running old versions of Android¹ – particularly a number of ebook devices that are commonly rooted to do more/other than run the officially included software which may be inadequate², deprecated³, or simply dead⁴. --- [1] >3% of android running 6 or 5, according to several sources found in a quick search, of which https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android seems to be the most up-to-date. [2] Not supporting newer formats/features perhaps, or just being a very tightly walled garden of minimal features. [3] So not supported at all any more. [4] If they rely on external services that have since closed, for instance.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Yup. Notably, these devices are pre-Treble, so there's no prospect for any sort of GSI support (which would open up things like Droidian). So Termux is pretty much the best you can do if you care about providing a sensible environment in a device-independent way.
app4soft 4y ago
Initially Android 5/6 was dropped[0] since 2020-01-01, but this year it was decided to bring Android 5/6 support back for app & bootstrap.[1] Additional context: read-only package repos (as archived on 2019-12-09) moved to official site.[2] [0] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4467 https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4467 [1] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/pull/2740 https://github.com/termux/termux-app/pull/2740 [2] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4658 https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4658
xchip 4y ago
to have your own cloud running on your old cellphone, I use it to store backups, pictures, vpn,...

kjuulh 4y ago

Termux together with WireGuard works really well. I am easily able to use my tablet as a client to either one of my hosted machines or my development workstation. Can highly recommend =D That said my use-case is basically either ssh or mosh, so I haven't really tested how capable termux really is, but it is enough that I don't get artifacts and such when connecting over ssh.

suprjami 4y ago
I use Termux for a lot of things on my phone. git, neovim, ffmpeg, ImageMagick, mass downloading using scripts in various languages, SSH to other systems, grepping the Wordle list with regex when I'm stuck at 5 guesses... Anyway it's great. It handles everything I've thrown at it like a champ. I am constantly amazed someone managed to make a phone environment this reliable and full featured. I'm well aware it's just apt packages with the base path modified but I'm still really impressed. The documentation is also really good. I've never had to ask a question to do anything I've wanted.
- never_inline 4y ago
  There's also `termux-distro` so you can run in a sandbox popular distros like Debian and Arch.

xchip 4y ago

This is awesome, now we can use our old cellphones as small cloud servers (I have one with a 128Gb SD card running rsyncd, sshd, smbd, nginx, php, openvpn, transmission)

Maxburn 4y ago

It seems like the crowd here is pro things like this. I understand the e-waste angle. How do you protect and defend android devices that haven't received security updates for a long time?

razemio 4y ago
I use old Android devices for smart home stuff (e.g. tablet as sensor overview). I guess as long as it is not exposed to a public endpoint, there is not much to fear?
- Maxburn 4y ago
  If you can resist using it to browse the internet or receive SMS/MMS I see your point.
867-5309 4y ago
harden at the app level and put a reverse proxy in front of it
Hello71 4y ago
termux doesn't use most of the system libraries that are likely to be remotely exploitable, e.g. openssl and webview. the remaining unupdatable weakness is the kernel, but it's pretty unlikely to have a TCP RCE or something like that. there's SACK Panic, but that's only DoS, not RCE, and if you're running something on android 5 you probably have low reliability expectations anyways.
- Maxburn 4y ago
  OK, I see now. For this Termux use case having an old device isn't really a big deal. Just make sure no cellular and only use it on protected LAN.
kramerger 4y ago
I think only core OS vulnerabilities (kernel plus a few libraries) are not updated. 9 times of 10 these are local privilege escalation that are less important if you don't run random apps. Depending on the Android version, most other things could be updated in other ways (security updates from OEM, system updates via play services, app updates including system apps via play store). On top of that, you can add local and network firewalls and similar stuff to harden the system. Basically, probably good enough for the intended usage.

baybal2 4y ago

Chinese OEMs still pump devices running Android 4.* by millions. Why? Chipset support: Spreadtrum, RockChips, AW, AmLogic simply didn't release BSP updates for some of their most in demand chips.

flas9sd 4y ago
in what formfactors? as phones or in other devices (TV,..) ? would be interested in seeing examples. I wonder about the Chinese android scene, haven't had much insight. Actually just yesterday built an old 3.10 spreadtrum kernel
phh 4y ago
Cheapest Spreadtrum (now Unisoc) you can buy is SC7731E, which has at the very least Android 7, and is slated to get Android 13 BSP. Most current cheap rockchips are rk3328/rk3228, who got at least Android 8, even more recent (I think 3328 got Android 12). Last Allwinner board, H616, I got was running Android 9, but it was few years ago so it was pretty recent, and it's considered an obsolete SoC on several accounts. I don't really know what Amlogic sells nowadays Granted, I only buy devices for which the the Android devices is displayed, because well I want GSI to run on it, but I haven't seen a device sold as Android 4.* for years. I ordered an iPhone knock-off that might prove me wrong... (it says Android 11 on the spec sheet)

twism 4y ago

Not exactly the same but wanted to share what has worked wonders for me for years. I needed to run a terminal multiplexer on a remote machine, SSH into it, and be able to use emacs (key bindings and all) on my Pixel 5. I found this combination of now defunct open source apps worked better than any I've tried. https://github.com/irssiconnectbot/irssiconnectbot https://github.com/irssiconnectbot/irssiconnectbot For SSH client. (not version 2. version 1.7.1-irssi specifically) https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard Keyboard that has Ctrl/Alt/Meta keys without having to switch modes. A bit cramped and the UI for AutoSuggestion dissappeared in Android 13 :( These tools are not without their quirks tho but I'm sure with some TLC they can be ironed out. Funny I'm an Android dev by day but haven't had time to look into the minor issues both tools have because they are so old. Then again, they are not serious issues and I've been able to whip out emacs and write code (clojure: so succinctness helps) when the moment strikes or in lieu of social media.

pawelduda 4y ago

A bit of offtopic, but what do you use termux for on your Android phones? I use it to run my restic backup script to backup my phone data, it's a bit barebones but seems to work. I find it cool to have a shell on my phone, to be able to launch vim (but definitely not use it with the onscreen keyboard, lol)... was wondering what others are up to!

calmingsolitude 4y ago
I have termux installed to quickly run `ip neigh` to find the IP addresses of devices connected to the hotspot - unfortunately my version of Android doesn't have this feature built in. This is especially useful when you have multiple Pis connected and need to know the IP address to ssh to.
- cft 4y ago
  Are you on a rooted phone? ~ $ ip neigh Cannot bind netlink socket: Permission denied Pixel 6 Pro Android 13
  - Yizahi 4y ago
    Works on my not rooted Samsung, Android 12.
  - maple3142 4y ago
    You can use this without root by using the rish provided by [Shizuku](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=moe.shizuku.privileged.api https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=moe.shizuku.pr...), because it only need adb shell permission for this.
m-p-3 4y ago
Personally I use it for youtube-dl / yt-dlp. Being able to grab most media to watch offline from anywhere is great.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago

notorandit 4y ago

If only I could link an external display to my droid phone...

ccouzens 4y ago
You can with Samsung Dex. I also did so using my pixel 4a (which doesn't normally support video out), a usb displaylink adapter and this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.displaylink.presenter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.displaylin... But in reality you'd probably do better with just about any old Linux laptop.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  You can even use Dex to connect a Wacom One LCD tablet and use the main screen while you are drawing for something else (refference images, etc.).

julienchastang 4y ago

Termux is not available via the Google Play store (or not the current version at least, is this still true?) so you have to download it via the F-Droid app repository. I do this, but I am always a bit uneasy going via a non-sanctioned store. My main concern is a malware attack via F-Droid.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
Considering how the sanctioned store basically already acts like malware, you're SOL, but you should be fine as long as you stay away from apps by Rahul Kumar Patel.
- guerby 4y ago
  Hi, what are the issues with Rahul Kumar Patel apps?
  - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
    I downloaded the PayPal app from the Aurora Store, on a brand new phone, and the app tried stealing money from me. Worked fine with small amounts, but once I got my tax return, it changed. Will not go into specifics in an open post with strangers, so it can be replicated.
- raffraffraff 4y ago
  That's very specific. I googled the name but didn't see anything obvious. Want to elaborate?
  - asveikau 4y ago
    I read it as a rather uncool appeal to South Asian stereotypes.
    - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
      That interpretation originated from your mind, racist.

habibur 4y ago

I use it to send SMS from my phone. - fetch SMS text and number from application API. - send from local phone.

saagarjha 4y ago

You know, I wish we could do something similar for iOS, but their toolchain generally drops support for targeting older versions of iOS faster than we do so. Has anyone checked to see if you can patch apps and submit them through App Store review with doctored deployment targets?

kasajian 4y ago

Termux is bae

Katherine1212 4y ago

emilyhunt945 4y ago

ANDREWm1212 4y ago