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Comment by rossy | Hacker News Reader

I tried this out a little while ago and I was really impressed. It's worth mentioning that this isn't just a Debian chroot/container, the software is actually compiled to run natively on the Android NDK. It seems like they work around any limitations of Bionic compared to glibc by patching NDK headers and using support libraries.

Check out their "ports tree" to see what packages are available: https://github.com/termux/termux-packages

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What exactly would you use it for? Not trying to be negative, I'm just not sure what would be worth typing out on a phone keyboard on the go, instead of waiting until I have access to an actual keyboard. I guess if you have a keyboard for your phone that's also different. (so for android tablets etc this is great)

Chromebook

I'm still waiting for Amazon to restock after I saw this post go up: https://blog.lessonslearned.org/building-a-more-secure-devel...

On my chromebook I use crouton[1], which is arguably more "native". You get an Ubuntu install in a chroot and can even run X11 apps in a chrome window. I was even able to compile neovim, you just need to set it up to use the system's lua and luarocks.

[1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton

Termux works on stock chromebooks _without_ switching to developer mode.

This is very important for schools which may lend students Chromebooks and thus likely restrict dev mode.

They would likely restrict play store installs, and currently there is no way to side-load Android apps; the normal Android developer mode options does not allow side-loading anyway, much less an enterprise managed device. I don't think there's any way to "restrict" dev mode, necessarily... anyone can put any Chromebook into dev mode, and lose all data that was on it in the process.

Great link. It's got Apache! Always wanted to run a web server on my phone.

You might also look at Servers Ultimate Pro from Ice Cold Apps. It has.... many servers. Perhaps too many. Perhaps enough that it looks like a "Hold my beer" response to a question about how many servers could actually be compiled for Android.

I wouldn't run most (any?) of them on a connection exposed to the real world, but at least in theory if you want to run an AAMP stack I believe you could, though on a quick glance you might actually have to be content with Nginx. You can also provide your own little bit of Gopherspace if you so desire.

This makes chromebook all that more appealing now I slightly regret selling my old one

I use it as a replacement for Android apps in several cases.

- Need to jot a note: vim is far better than most native apps

- Need to access a remote system: use ssh or mosh

- Need a calculator: Python is there, with a lot of useful libraries

It even emulates a mouse, so elinks is quite usable on text heavy websites. For some mobile hostile websites it is more usable since the text is large enough to be legible.

A similar user friendly tool are the widgets, which makes it easy to launch a command from the launcher with a tap.

Given the number of development tools available, it is quite easy to write a program on the computer and run it on a mobile device.

Do you do vim with Gboard/SwiftKey or do you have a hardware keyboard?

If you're doing much with Termux or SSH to other systems (or roguelikes), you should probably look into Hacker's Keyboard (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketwork...). If you miss the autocompletion aspect, there are multiple companion dictionaries that you can load as well for various languages.

I tried hacker's keyboard but didn't find it as good as the keyboard built in JuiceSSH. All the special keys important during a ssh session like Ctrl, Tab, arrow keys are very conveniently placed. I am yet to find a soft keyboard that good.

In termux, swipe from the left and long press the keyboard button to get those keys.

Just wish that compact 5 row would get some more love.

Switching it to anything but english to make use of dictionaries makes potential special characters vanish from the long-press popups...

An on screen keyboard is fine for vim, at least for things light duty tasks. I use the one provided by my phone's vendor (it provides the number row) and Termux offers a row of common keys that usually gets the job done.

I also find that vim is easier to use for editing than Android editors. It is easier to use insertion, movement, and deletion commands instead of trying to tap on the right position or dragging to select.

Termux + full keyboard is a game-changer. That's how I run my 9" tablet, and whilst not quite the laptop-replacement I'd like it to be, it's closer than anything else I've seen. The fact that I don't have the critical weak point of the laptop hinge to deal with, and the portrait/landscape flexibility of a tablet (I read a lot of formatted docs) is tremendously useful.

TL;DR: Your Android device really is a fully-capable computer, if the goddamned vendors will just get out of your goddamned way.

what keyboard do you recommend?

You can pretty much use any keyboard you want with USB. I used to use my tablet with one of those usb thinkpad keyboards - thin and easy to carry around.

For my phone - I looked at some folding Bluetooth keyboards on aliexpress which /look/ nice but at ~$30 it's a little steep for something that might be crap and end up never used/trashed. Maybe on Nov 11th i'll bite the bullet if there is a good sale.

Just search "folding keyboard" on ali.

None.

This is a major frustration point for me, as I'm working with a keyboard that's missing one physical key and has two others which only intermittently generate the requested character(s). I have ... workarounds, but they're frustrating.

I've written about this at more length than is good for either my sanity or its reputation here:

https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq

Upshot: industry standardisation on device sizes, case attachments, and keyboard layouts would be an exceedingly good thing. The pictured keyboard/case (a Logitech device) seems to be among the better general options, though I question its attachment hardware.

Again, given the near-ideal nature of the form-factor, the industry fuckwittedness here is pretty staggering. I've spent more time than I care to think combing through Amazon, Newegg, and other shopping sites (product descriptions themselves make this tedious), and through various online forums and discussions.

The ability to pretty-much instantly, and without concern, switch between keyboarded/landscape and touchscreen/portrait modes is exceptionally useful. "Kickstand" type cases, and loose keyboards, don't offer this, or the ability to use the device in my lap (as I am now) as well as on a table or desk, or (in tablet mode) freestanding.

http://archive.is/FYE7D

Much as I don't care for iOS devices, the standardisation and sales volume Apple have attained make for a far superior accessories market than Android. The killer there is the lack of a true compute environment (shell, dev tools) on iOS.

Other options include laptops (including hybrids), though for my use case (many, many, many formatted documents), landscape-mode-only is a tremendous negative, and I am exceedingly averse to all-in-one, hinge-based designs. (For all its faults, Bluetooth doesn't physically wear.)

Mostly I play Old Man Yells At Clouds.

It works also on tablet.

Android, Termux and Dev Environment https://rsdoiel.github.io/blog/2016/09/20/Android-Termux-Dev...

I used it for SSH and scripts like youtube-dl. Also for the short time that I played Pokemon Go, I deployed a flask server (to track pokemon overlayed on gmaps) in termux and accessed it from Android's browser. It was sweet.

If you're using youtube-dl, take a look at mps-youtube (a Python application, install via pip).

Search, download, and play video (or soundtrack) interactively from console. Manage playlists (and save them permanently, locally), etc. Very impressive app.

I have a set of scripts that work on my local network, as well as arbitrary useful commands.

E.g. I can control the volume of the radio via a simple ssh command that turns the media center volume down. Termux has an additional extension that lets you map arbitrary scripts to a button / widget on the android home screen.

> What exactly would you use it for?

Give me an Android tablet, Bluetooth keyboard, this and Emacs...

And you’ll be surprised at what I can accomplish.

(You'll find patches to pretty big projects around the world which I've delivered this way :) )

Mostly for tablets, I suspect, though I do occasionally restart servers etc. from my phone but that tends to be via an ssh connection so I don't need a "local" userland...

But the replacement for my recently-dead Chromebook is an Android tablet/notebook hybrid (detachable keyboard), and while it's not comfortable, it does provide a tolerable alternative for when I don't want to drag my 17" laptop around.

Going to reply to myself as it's too long so I can't edit: Installed Termux and the API package and widget, and the API package (paid) has me tremendously excited. Not because it's all that advanced, but between the ability to open quick little dialog boxes to collect text, and the widgets ability to spawn them from a button, it just looks amazingly useful to automate quick little tasks without going down the particularly hellish route that is full app development for mobile...

Yeah, that's a valid question. I do use it on a phone and I don't think a phone's on-screen keyboard is suited for programming or heavy terminal use, but I've used termux for small things that I need to do when away from home. For example, rsyncing music from a server to the phone so I can listen to it, or fixing the config file in RetroArch with Vim, since sometimes fiddling with options can get it into a state where it needs an external text editor to fix, and Vim is easy to use on a restricted keyboard.

I mainly use it to run vi for small notes (i don't think it has full vim by default). I'm not really a vi fan (i used vim at the past, but today vi in termux is the only vi i use) but i just couldn't find any note taking application that i liked.

I also run mc sometimes.

Btw i use it with "Hacker's Keyboard", although the only reason i use that is because it has an esc key :-P.

I used it on my phone to run mp3Gain to adjust some mp3's volume, and I've also use it to write and run a couple of short C programs (not more than 20 lines of code) I had in mind. It's good also if you need to quickly SSH to a server and you can easily use your RSA key if you have one.

I run our clubs website using Jekyll. With this I could make a quick change to a markdown file and push it if I needed to update while out and about.

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