very cool. termux has to be peak for unbridled nerddom, the new linux terminal in android 16 is really a pale shadow of it. you don't get access to anything non-virtual, not even the gpu (atleast, i couldn't get it to work.)
theres so much cool hardware on modern smartphones, with quite solid drivers by virtue of the (relatively stringent) android quality requirements, and its all locked away. video encoders, decoders, 3d accelerators, etc, but none of it is really accessible in a power-user kind of way.
some more thoughts...
the android development kit really is very heavy. compared to `gcc -o main main.cpp && ./main`, it is several orders of magnitude away.
the jetpack stuff and whatnot - the big android app shops probably do actually appreciate that stuff. but i wish the dev env 'scaled to zero' as they say, but in the sense of cognitive overload.
could it be time to move away from java, and shift towards everything being a native binary? we have the tools now to make it secure, and its not like phones get faster 'for free' anymore. it would also vastly simplify the developer experience.
You don't have to use Android. I've been using various GNU/Linux phones for the last 17 years, so being able to do `gcc -o main main.cpp && ./main` on a phone is just natural to me. Back in 2008, as a teenager, I could choose to spent my first earned money to get me either one of the first GNU/Linux phones on the market or the first Android phone, and I feel that as the time goes it only validates my decision.
What is your feedback in regards to battery? Android have been exhausted in development to optimize battery usage but I'm reading linux phones don't really care that much so you end up with a dead phone in less of a day.
Has a power user, what has your experience been on that topic?
I'd switch my phone to linux on a heartbeat because android apps seem compatible enough nowadays to run there too but battery is always the pressing limitation.
I've been looking at Linux phones for a while, and now the latest 'sideloading' lockdown from Google has pushed me to seriously consider getting off Android. What phones do you use or recommend for someone who has a little Linux experience?
It is possible to write native code for Android using Native Development Kit. Typical NDK use would be to develop a library that is then called into by java code. But one can make whole app with it, 100% java-free:
It is never Java free outside games, because all relevant Android APIs are hidden behind JNI calls, implemented in Java.
Also NDK is designed to produce shared libraries that are then loaded into the Java host process for the application, if not manually written, one gets the generic activity (NativeActivity or GameActivity) written by the Android team, expecting specific symbols on the shared library mapping to the native method declarations.
I know sooo many good golang applications on linux that I wish more people of android could access it and in an even nice way via something like f-droid so I am definitely contemplating what might be the best way for something like this...
For rust applications, I think that tauri might make the most sense, but I am just curious as to what you guys think is the best way for a beginner to create a golang/rust android application without worrying *too much*
> the android development kit really is very heavy. compared to `gcc -o main main.cpp && ./main`, it is several orders of magnitude away.
> the jetpack stuff and whatnot - the big android app shops probably do actually appreciate that stuff. but i wish the dev env 'scaled to zero' as they say, but in the sense of cognitive overload.
I tried to build a small binary that listens for events and launches/wakes an app to do some automation. But apparently there's no way to send Intents or Broadcasts from native code? So I need to boot a JVM in the binary if I want it to communicate with anything else on the system!
Of course, you can always communicate via stdio, but that's useless because everything in Android speaks Intents/Broadcasts. Native code can also do raw Binder calls, but nothing on the system speaks raw Binder.
>But apparently there's no way to send Intents or Broadcasts from native code? So I need to boot a JVM in the binary if I want it to communicate with anything else on the system!
There is "am" i think which can be invoked to do this.
However, Termux API exists, and is a nice package for calling other services. They have the scripts interface, which calls the actual app over a socket. Kinda inefficient, but at least the work is done.
"could it be time to move away from java, and shift towards everything being a native binary?"
they literally do just that for fuchsia, but idk if google can pull this off tbh
the tech DEBT is huge and massive undertaking that even google can be nervous
I mean this is their own fault too tbh, imagine windows that try to release every new release every year and try hard to add feature on top of that and it break down all API underneath
I've been playing with Termux, both on Chromebook (Eve), and my Samsung Galaxy S22 - pretty cool, though hit some issue with recent `bazel` - as newer versions try to access a `/dev` endpoint that's not available.
Quick fix, was to add `~/.bazelrc` this:
common --experimental_collect_system_network_usage=false
and then it works! Though sometimes I need to first `termux-chroot` and then it it handles cases, where some tooling expects `/usr/bin` and not `/mnt/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin`
On measurements it's a bit 2x, 3x slower than Crostini (Termina) on Chromebook, but being available (so far) on all my Android devices is just awesome!
And there exist X11 too!
I wish there would be backdoor for F-Droid in the future, though maybe not as it seems :(
hm you can try out userland https://userland.tech/download/ which runs it inside proot and you can use something like alpine or debian and they can actually make the vnc/installing gui setup actually pretty easy.
Highly recommended.
I coded some python with micro in alpine in userland on my phone.
I really really enjoyed it, like more than my pc for that day. I am proud of it.
EDIT: Thanks @yjftsjthsd-h and @detaro for your suggestions! I tried Telnet via tmux - it worked. Then I tried telnet directly, and it suddenly worked too. Turns out Arduino’s Telnet implementation is single-user only, and my dev machine’s reconnect loop kept the connection open; the working login just fooled me.
I don't have one set up to test, but dumb suggestion: What if you run it inside tmux on termux? Just thinking that tmux is essentially a second terminal emulator that might do better.
Note also you can use webrepl, which exposes MicroPython's REPL as a web page. It's not a real replacement for termux, but it is still quite useful- I often deploy ESP32s running Micropython around my workspace but they aren't connected to any serial terminal.
I'm trying to repurpose my Pixel 6a that I no longer use, as a Home Assistant Core main driver. I was hoping the author will talk a little bit about that.
I still haven't had the luck to have a fully working Home Assistant running inside (rooted) Termux.
Anyone succeeded to start `hass` and have it running without throwing errors?
If you have root, it is fairly trivial to run full-on arm64 Linux distro in chroot. That should fix most problems with linux software running in android.
There is also Linux Deploy[1] that automates the process of setting up chroot, ssh and even gui desktop (through framebuffer).
Hey maybe I didn't get ya but by home assistant core main driver, do you mean the linux application of this as in cli / terminal right?
what are your thoughts on something like https://userland.tech/download/ which can just straight up boot up into any distro that you might need (you can use something like alpine/debian/archlinux)
they are open source too btw
and also I tried and if you have a server running, then there are ways to make it so that those web servers can be accessed from outside out of the box as well so there is nothing to worry about that either.
It doesn't require root either, I run it on an unrooted phone!
You could as well use any old Raspberry as go-between. If you use USB-tethering, the Raspberry will appear locally around 192.168.43.XX and you can termux-ssh into it and use mpremote therefrom.
I heard something that Termux has a lot of Chinese influence, anybody aware of this? I love Termux but that kinda added a bad taste. But I don't have anything to back it up but quotes from trusted people
The commit history doesn't seem to reflect this [1], and the contributors seems to have just a handful of commits outside of two main committers [2]. Seems to be a tonne of trivial commits merged from some code hackathon [3] [4].
very cool. termux has to be peak for unbridled nerddom, the new linux terminal in android 16 is really a pale shadow of it. you don't get access to anything non-virtual, not even the gpu (atleast, i couldn't get it to work.)
theres so much cool hardware on modern smartphones, with quite solid drivers by virtue of the (relatively stringent) android quality requirements, and its all locked away. video encoders, decoders, 3d accelerators, etc, but none of it is really accessible in a power-user kind of way.
some more thoughts...
the android development kit really is very heavy. compared to `gcc -o main main.cpp && ./main`, it is several orders of magnitude away.
the jetpack stuff and whatnot - the big android app shops probably do actually appreciate that stuff. but i wish the dev env 'scaled to zero' as they say, but in the sense of cognitive overload.
could it be time to move away from java, and shift towards everything being a native binary? we have the tools now to make it secure, and its not like phones get faster 'for free' anymore. it would also vastly simplify the developer experience.
You don't have to use Android. I've been using various GNU/Linux phones for the last 17 years, so being able to do `gcc -o main main.cpp && ./main` on a phone is just natural to me. Back in 2008, as a teenager, I could choose to spent my first earned money to get me either one of the first GNU/Linux phones on the market or the first Android phone, and I feel that as the time goes it only validates my decision.
What is your feedback in regards to battery? Android have been exhausted in development to optimize battery usage but I'm reading linux phones don't really care that much so you end up with a dead phone in less of a day.
Has a power user, what has your experience been on that topic?
I'd switch my phone to linux on a heartbeat because android apps seem compatible enough nowadays to run there too but battery is always the pressing limitation.
My thanks in advance.
4 replies →
I've been looking at Linux phones for a while, and now the latest 'sideloading' lockdown from Google has pushed me to seriously consider getting off Android. What phones do you use or recommend for someone who has a little Linux experience?
7 replies →
The only stopper for most of us fully moving to Linux phones are banking apps...
I am interested to hear how you deal with that as a full linux phone user
4 replies →
It is possible to write native code for Android using Native Development Kit. Typical NDK use would be to develop a library that is then called into by java code. But one can make whole app with it, 100% java-free:
https://github.com/cnlohr/rawdrawandroid
It is never Java free outside games, because all relevant Android APIs are hidden behind JNI calls, implemented in Java.
Also NDK is designed to produce shared libraries that are then loaded into the Java host process for the application, if not manually written, one gets the generic activity (NativeActivity or GameActivity) written by the Android team, expecting specific symbols on the shared library mapping to the native method declarations.
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeAc...
https://developer.android.com/games/agdk/game-activity
So while someone's own APK might be Java free, there will be Java on the process execution runtime.
Yes I am also interested in something like this 100% java-free but instead of C I'd prefer golang
I have been thinking more and more about creating golang applications for android simply because of how much I admire f-droid.
There are apps that have done this through 2 approaches
https://github.com/xlab/android-go?tab=readme-ov-file (Either something like this) Or https://github.com/LeastAuthority/destiny which is a dart app but uses golang's backend using https://github.com/LeastAuthority/dart_wormhole_william TLDR: they create dart bindings to go code and run it on android...
I know sooo many good golang applications on linux that I wish more people of android could access it and in an even nice way via something like f-droid so I am definitely contemplating what might be the best way for something like this...
For rust applications, I think that tauri might make the most sense, but I am just curious as to what you guys think is the best way for a beginner to create a golang/rust android application without worrying *too much*
> the android development kit really is very heavy. compared to `gcc -o main main.cpp && ./main`, it is several orders of magnitude away.
> the jetpack stuff and whatnot - the big android app shops probably do actually appreciate that stuff. but i wish the dev env 'scaled to zero' as they say, but in the sense of cognitive overload.
I tried to build a small binary that listens for events and launches/wakes an app to do some automation. But apparently there's no way to send Intents or Broadcasts from native code? So I need to boot a JVM in the binary if I want it to communicate with anything else on the system!
Of course, you can always communicate via stdio, but that's useless because everything in Android speaks Intents/Broadcasts. Native code can also do raw Binder calls, but nothing on the system speaks raw Binder.
>But apparently there's no way to send Intents or Broadcasts from native code? So I need to boot a JVM in the binary if I want it to communicate with anything else on the system!
There is "am" i think which can be invoked to do this.
However, Termux API exists, and is a nice package for calling other services. They have the scripts interface, which calls the actual app over a socket. Kinda inefficient, but at least the work is done.
1 reply →
"could it be time to move away from java, and shift towards everything being a native binary?"
they literally do just that for fuchsia, but idk if google can pull this off tbh the tech DEBT is huge and massive undertaking that even google can be nervous
I mean this is their own fault too tbh, imagine windows that try to release every new release every year and try hard to add feature on top of that and it break down all API underneath
that's what happen to android and ios is
I've been playing with Termux, both on Chromebook (Eve), and my Samsung Galaxy S22 - pretty cool, though hit some issue with recent `bazel` - as newer versions try to access a `/dev` endpoint that's not available.
Quick fix, was to add `~/.bazelrc` this:
and then it works! Though sometimes I need to first `termux-chroot` and then it it handles cases, where some tooling expects `/usr/bin` and not `/mnt/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin`
On measurements it's a bit 2x, 3x slower than Crostini (Termina) on Chromebook, but being available (so far) on all my Android devices is just awesome!
And there exist X11 too!
I wish there would be backdoor for F-Droid in the future, though maybe not as it seems :(
hm you can try out userland https://userland.tech/download/ which runs it inside proot and you can use something like alpine or debian and they can actually make the vnc/installing gui setup actually pretty easy.
Highly recommended.
I coded some python with micro in alpine in userland on my phone.
I really really enjoyed it, like more than my pc for that day. I am proud of it.
Using proot and proot-distro is highly recommended in general. Extremely useful when one needs software not directly packaged by Termux.
> I coded some python with micro in alpine in userland on my phone.
Nice to see I'm not the only smartphone programmer around...
Oh, wow! I would try this one! I didn't know about it! Thanks!!!
If I telnet into an ESP32 via Termux, it doesn’t recognize \n. I haven’t found a solution yet. It works fine with other Linux consoles.
EDIT: Thanks @yjftsjthsd-h and @detaro for your suggestions! I tried Telnet via tmux - it worked. Then I tried telnet directly, and it suddenly worked too. Turns out Arduino’s Telnet implementation is single-user only, and my dev machine’s reconnect loop kept the connection open; the working login just fooled me.
I don't have one set up to test, but dumb suggestion: What if you run it inside tmux on termux? Just thinking that tmux is essentially a second terminal emulator that might do better.
Telnet often uses "\r\0" instead, but it also can be configured with most clients.
Note also you can use webrepl, which exposes MicroPython's REPL as a web page. It's not a real replacement for termux, but it is still quite useful- I often deploy ESP32s running Micropython around my workspace but they aren't connected to any serial terminal.
If you like this stuff, I highly recommend you look at Samsung Galaxy phones. They come with DeX, which is a linux DE that you can use with a dock.
The GNU/Linux version was dropped a while ago: https://9to5google.com/2019/10/18/samsung-discontinues-linux...
Galaxy S25 still comes with DeX, and I think the S26 will also.
1 reply →
Technically a Linux DE by virtue of being an Android DE, but most definitely NOT a Linux DE for purposes of a discussion involving Termux.
"Running PlatformIO: the xtensa-esp32-elf-g++ binary would not execute, as it is compiled for another architecture"
PlatformIO is providing C binaries that have dependencies.
Please PlatformIO ship your binaries statically so that we can run them everywhere.
I had the same problem on Alpine.
to work around the issue, I had to spin a debian in docker-proot and install platformio in there. Ugly but it worked.
I'm trying to repurpose my Pixel 6a that I no longer use, as a Home Assistant Core main driver. I was hoping the author will talk a little bit about that.
I still haven't had the luck to have a fully working Home Assistant running inside (rooted) Termux.
Anyone succeeded to start `hass` and have it running without throwing errors?
If you have root, it is fairly trivial to run full-on arm64 Linux distro in chroot. That should fix most problems with linux software running in android.
There is also Linux Deploy[1] that automates the process of setting up chroot, ssh and even gui desktop (through framebuffer).
[1] https://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy
Hey maybe I didn't get ya but by home assistant core main driver, do you mean the linux application of this as in cli / terminal right?
what are your thoughts on something like https://userland.tech/download/ which can just straight up boot up into any distro that you might need (you can use something like alpine/debian/archlinux)
they are open source too btw
and also I tried and if you have a server running, then there are ways to make it so that those web servers can be accessed from outside out of the box as well so there is nothing to worry about that either.
It doesn't require root either, I run it on an unrooted phone!
Cool article. Did anyone else check their screens for damage while reading?
I saw it as well. Really like that Nier Automata CSS.
You could as well use any old Raspberry as go-between. If you use USB-tethering, the Raspberry will appear locally around 192.168.43.XX and you can termux-ssh into it and use mpremote therefrom.
I heard something that Termux has a lot of Chinese influence, anybody aware of this? I love Termux but that kinda added a bad taste. But I don't have anything to back it up but quotes from trusted people
The commit history doesn't seem to reflect this [1], and the contributors seems to have just a handful of commits outside of two main committers [2]. Seems to be a tonne of trivial commits merged from some code hackathon [3] [4].
[1] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/commits/master/
[2] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/graphs/contributors
[3] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/commit/549f09573f4631fb...
[4] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/commit/c6dce125104620be...
Termux' package manager wrapper pkg can randomly select Chinese mirrors, but you can remove them from the selection list.
Using Termux to program an ESP32 directly from an Android phone is a brilliant hack for anyone who wants a truly portable development setup.
It's quite unfortunate Apple doesn't expose CDC-ACM to iOS devices.
Very useful! Would be incredible to get something similar on iOS.