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We could have pretty decent $8 Linux machines, with USB, screen, touch, audio, MBs or even GBs RAM, if there would be some standard way to sideload fresh GNU/Li

We could have pretty decent $8 Linux machines, with USB, screen, touch, audio, MBs or even GBs RAM, if there would be some standard way to sideload fresh GNU/Linux onto billions of retired Android devices.

alexklarjr 4y ago
linux made by corporations exactly to prevent it.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
I thought you could root them and install Linux? But yeah, we need to recycle these phones by making them home servers, etc.
- monocasa 4y ago
  Depends on the phone. It's been getting more difficult.
- imhoguy 4y ago
  Yep, LineageOS+Termux is serving me very well, still it is a lot of manual steps and hacking varying by HW vendor and model.
HPsquared 4y ago
The Termux app provides a pretty good fraction of the useful Linux stuff. It's basically a userspace chroot environment. You can run a lot of Linux distributions this way, though some of the features don't work. Can even have a desktop environment and run things like desktop Chromium. Or things like FTP servers, etc etc. Basically you get most of the useful functionality from installing Linux, without needing root.
- imhoguy 4y ago
  I use Termux as my daily driver, but I never thought it can run desktop stuff. Still HW (Samsung) is locked down a bit as it doesn't allow autostart after power failure or can't power up without battery.
  - alexisread 4y ago
    I have manjaro installed on my note 9 under termux, with vnc viewer to loopback to display x-windows stuff. With the Dex functionality I can plug in a mouse, keyboard and monitor to use it as a Linux desktop. It runs blender and gcc pretty well!
- themoonisachees 4y ago
  Is it really chroot? As far as I can tell termux is just a terminal emulator +shell, and if given proper permissions it can very well access regular root without doing anything special.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    It's called PRoot, you can install other Linux distributions (e.g. Arch, Debian, etc.) within the virtual root environment. https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot
ac29 4y ago
Thats basically the goal of the postmarketOS project: https://postmarketos.org/ https://postmarketos.org/

alexklarjr 4y ago

linux made by corporations exactly to prevent it.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

I thought you could root them and install Linux? But yeah, we need to recycle these phones by making them home servers, etc.

monocasa 4y ago
Depends on the phone. It's been getting more difficult.
imhoguy 4y ago
Yep, LineageOS+Termux is serving me very well, still it is a lot of manual steps and hacking varying by HW vendor and model.

HPsquared 4y ago

The Termux app provides a pretty good fraction of the useful Linux stuff. It's basically a userspace chroot environment. You can run a lot of Linux distributions this way, though some of the features don't work. Can even have a desktop environment and run things like desktop Chromium. Or things like FTP servers, etc etc. Basically you get most of the useful functionality from installing Linux, without needing root.

imhoguy 4y ago
I use Termux as my daily driver, but I never thought it can run desktop stuff. Still HW (Samsung) is locked down a bit as it doesn't allow autostart after power failure or can't power up without battery.
- alexisread 4y ago
  I have manjaro installed on my note 9 under termux, with vnc viewer to loopback to display x-windows stuff. With the Dex functionality I can plug in a mouse, keyboard and monitor to use it as a Linux desktop. It runs blender and gcc pretty well!
themoonisachees 4y ago
Is it really chroot? As far as I can tell termux is just a terminal emulator +shell, and if given proper permissions it can very well access regular root without doing anything special.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  It's called PRoot, you can install other Linux distributions (e.g. Arch, Debian, etc.) within the virtual root environment. https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot

ac29 4y ago

Thats basically the goal of the postmarketOS project: https://postmarketos.org/ https://postmarketos.org/