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I'm waiting for Android Virtualization Framework to run a full Linux distro on my smartphone with portable monitor (glasses). Already using Termux but AVF is ho

I'm waiting for Android Virtualization Framework to run a full Linux distro on my smartphone with portable monitor (glasses). Already using Termux but AVF is hopefully much more performant. Maybe the Samsung S26 Ultra will have full support. I might ditch my miniPC if this works out.

fsflover 1y ago
Full Linux distro already works fine on my Librem 5, without unnecessary, costly virtualization.
- arend321 1y ago
  It's a very interesting project, but I don't think I'm ready to let go of all my Android apps.
  - seba_dos1 1y ago
    On those rare occasions that I need to launch an Android app (such as my banking app), I run it in Waydroid.
    - djrj477dhsnv 1y ago
      That won't work with apps that require Play Store Integrity, right?
      - fsflover 1y ago
        I prefer to switch bank when they force me to support American megacorps.
      - seba_dos1 1y ago
        Likely won't, but I never had to use those.
boomskats 1y ago
I'm waiting for one of the headset vendors to support IMU-based HID mouse cursor control in hardware, with the same end goal in mind. In the meantime I'm stuck on amd64 with my little libinput driver[0]. [0]: https://github.com/boomskats/woahland https://github.com/boomskats/woahland
- TechDebtDevin 1y ago
  How long can work on one of these for?
  - boomskats 1y ago
    I find it extremely comfortable. Considerably moreso than with my desk and monitor setup. I'm long sighted and the projection distance means I don't need glasses to see, and they don't get overly hot (nothing compared to a VR headset). Most significantly though, I can change the position of my head whenever I want without changing what I'm looking at, which makes a difference for my neck comfort, posture, etc. To answer your question directly, I've done multiple 2-3 hour sessions at a time without taking the glasses off and have done 10+ hour days in them when away from home. At home I typically tend to use them for a couple of hours in the afternoons when I'm tired and more willing to sacrifice screen real estate for comfort. The detail isn't the same and you have to plan your screen layout a bit (i.e. looking at code near the edges of the screen is annoying). But I think they're the future - a much bigger deal than VR or AR.
    - TechDebtDevin 1y ago
      Awesome, I may try this out. I have similar eye issues and over the last couple years its actually been almost impossible for me to look at monitors in the afternoon after my eyes have fatigued.
flyinghamster 1y ago
I've been playing with it[0] - it still has a few rough edges. It's rather slow to start up compared to firing up a VM in virt-manager, and when you shut it down you must wait for it to finish shutting down before trying to restart it. Woe to you if Debian pushes a systemd update. It took repeated incantations with apt to get that update to take, because updating systemd would crash the VM Every. Damn. Time. [0] The current console-only incarnation.
- arend321 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I hope with Android 16 and Samsung implementing AVF for DeX these issues will be ironed out.
yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
> Already using Termux but AVF is hopefully much more performant. I'm cautiously optimistic about AVF, but I don't see why it would have any better performance than native code running directly on the host system?
- arend321 1y ago
  I thought AVF has hardware virtualization where proot is user-space.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    Oh, sorry, I missed that you meant running another distro under termux. Yes, that probably will be faster, I agree. (I thought we were talking about native termux, which doesn't have the proot perf hit)

fsflover 1y ago

Full Linux distro already works fine on my Librem 5, without unnecessary, costly virtualization.

arend321 1y ago
It's a very interesting project, but I don't think I'm ready to let go of all my Android apps.
- seba_dos1 1y ago
  On those rare occasions that I need to launch an Android app (such as my banking app), I run it in Waydroid.
  - djrj477dhsnv 1y ago
    That won't work with apps that require Play Store Integrity, right?
    - fsflover 1y ago
      I prefer to switch bank when they force me to support American megacorps.
    - seba_dos1 1y ago
      Likely won't, but I never had to use those.

boomskats 1y ago

I'm waiting for one of the headset vendors to support IMU-based HID mouse cursor control in hardware, with the same end goal in mind. In the meantime I'm stuck on amd64 with my little libinput driver[0]. [0]: https://github.com/boomskats/woahland https://github.com/boomskats/woahland

TechDebtDevin 1y ago
How long can work on one of these for?
- boomskats 1y ago
  I find it extremely comfortable. Considerably moreso than with my desk and monitor setup. I'm long sighted and the projection distance means I don't need glasses to see, and they don't get overly hot (nothing compared to a VR headset). Most significantly though, I can change the position of my head whenever I want without changing what I'm looking at, which makes a difference for my neck comfort, posture, etc. To answer your question directly, I've done multiple 2-3 hour sessions at a time without taking the glasses off and have done 10+ hour days in them when away from home. At home I typically tend to use them for a couple of hours in the afternoons when I'm tired and more willing to sacrifice screen real estate for comfort. The detail isn't the same and you have to plan your screen layout a bit (i.e. looking at code near the edges of the screen is annoying). But I think they're the future - a much bigger deal than VR or AR.
  - TechDebtDevin 1y ago
    Awesome, I may try this out. I have similar eye issues and over the last couple years its actually been almost impossible for me to look at monitors in the afternoon after my eyes have fatigued.

flyinghamster 1y ago

I've been playing with it[0] - it still has a few rough edges. It's rather slow to start up compared to firing up a VM in virt-manager, and when you shut it down you must wait for it to finish shutting down before trying to restart it. Woe to you if Debian pushes a systemd update. It took repeated incantations with apt to get that update to take, because updating systemd would crash the VM Every. Damn. Time. [0] The current console-only incarnation.

arend321 1y ago
Thanks for sharing. I hope with Android 16 and Samsung implementing AVF for DeX these issues will be ironed out.

yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago

> Already using Termux but AVF is hopefully much more performant. I'm cautiously optimistic about AVF, but I don't see why it would have any better performance than native code running directly on the host system?

arend321 1y ago
I thought AVF has hardware virtualization where proot is user-space.
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  Oh, sorry, I missed that you meant running another distro under termux. Yes, that probably will be faster, I agree. (I thought we were talking about native termux, which doesn't have the proot perf hit)