[HN Gopher] Termux on Android 5 or 6
___________________________________________________________________
Termux on Android 5 or 6
Author : app4soft
Score : 137 points
Date : 2022-11-21 11:14 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| julienchastang wrote:
| 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.
| LanternLight83 wrote:
| For what it's worth the F-Droid folks are pretty tight about
| security, eg. they do manual reviews and insist on building
| apps themselves (often delaying updates). You can sometimes add
| additional repos to circumvent this curation and/or get faster
| updates (depending on whether the apps you're using have such a
| third-party repo).
| TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Hi, what are the issues with Rahul Kumar Patel apps?
| commoner wrote:
| Rahul Kumar Patel (whyorean) is the developer of Aurora Store
| (https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore), a FOSS client for
| the Play Store. Aurora Store is one of the most convenient
| ways to download apps from the Play Store without using
| Google Play Services or needing your own Google account.
|
| Recent versions of Termux are not available on Aurora Store
| because they are also not available on the Play Store.
| However, whyorean also develops Aurora Droid, an alternative
| F-Droid client, which does have the latest version of Termux.
| (Aurora Droid has not seen updates for a while.)
|
| whyorean's apps are trusted by many Android users, and I
| don't know of any good reason to avoid his work in general.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| That's very specific. I googled the name but didn't see
| anything obvious. Want to elaborate?
| asveikau wrote:
| I read it as a rather uncool appeal to South Asian
| stereotypes.
| cogburnd02 wrote:
| Who is that, and why?
| [deleted]
| pawelduda wrote:
| 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!
| y04nn wrote:
| I use it termux mainly to ssh to a server but also to ssh from
| my laptop to the phone by running sshd inside termux. By using
| scp and with the right ssh host config and authorized_keys I
| can send and receive files across devices, really useful when
| devices are on the same VPN but not on the same network.
|
| I also use Termux:Widget [1] to launch scripts. For example, I
| have added all my contacts to abook [2], and with a bash script
| that use fzf I can filter my contacts and it automatically get
| the contact gps field and automatically start the navigation.
|
| [1]https://github.com/termux/termux-widget
|
| [2] https://abook.sourceforge.io/
| esrh wrote:
| - testing short code in various repls
|
| - using qalculate! for complex calculation (think physical
| constants, unit mixing, trig), currency and unit conversion,
| simple symbolics
|
| - ffmpeg. i have aliases for video compression, stripping
| audio, etc
|
| - converting between file formats, imagemagick and pandoc
|
| - untarring files, encrypting files, batch renaming
|
| - sending files somewhere else via scp
|
| - remote controlling computers
|
| - it's possible to set up a vnc server and a full gui desktop
| environment, for a highly portable system that gets you the
| same program and file setup on any computer supporting a vnc
| client.
|
| Once you build up a collection of aliases / shell functions it
| can be very powerful even with a small virtual keyboard. The
| fish shell is also a great qol addition.
| fallat wrote:
| How do you get ffmpeg and other goodies you mentioned? Is
| there some software repo termux maintains? Is downloading
| software that way reasonably "safe"? I've used Termux before
| but never considered these things...
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| `pkg install ffmpeg`
|
| It's a thin wrapper around apt for whatever reason. Quite a
| lot of software packages are distributed by/for termux!
| HumptyDumptySat wrote:
| There are number of different places to get this info. I
| use Termux with yt-dlp and decode to MP4 or extract audio
| only which requires ffmpeg and it works fine if a little
| slow. I decoded a 300 GB twitch stream that after
| downloading took about 20 mins to complete the decode
| (encode?) to mp4 on my Pixel6. But it works perfectly.
|
| e.g see https://gist.github.com/cyrillkuettel/d63785cf5f4c0
| 0106ae215... for example.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Termux has an open source repository of packages. It's
| similar to arch, debian, alpine, etc.
| https://github.com/termux/termux-packages
|
| Termux doesn't get special privileges unless you root your
| device. It can't go messing with your phone data unless you
| granted it permission to do so (but even then it doesn't
| have access to everything). It's no worse than any other
| Android app IMHO.
| tester457 wrote:
| What do you use for encrypting files and batch renaming on
| termux?
|
| > Once you build up a collection of aliases / shell functions
|
| Could you share yours possibly?
| serial_dev wrote:
| When we are on holidays, I like to chill on the beach and learn
| new programming languages, practice algorithms, reading books
| and taking notes with markdown and syncing these notes with
| git.
|
| I don't want to take my MacBook because it's too expensive and
| the sand and water can get into the keyboard. Leaving it on the
| sun for hours is also a bad idea.
|
| I took my wife's relatively old Android tablet (at least 5 yo),
| connected one of my cheaper Bluetooth keyboard. Then installed
| a terminal, git, vim, rust, dart. This setup lets me practice a
| little bit, I don't need to worry about stuff getting stolen
| (first, because it's not something people steal, and even if
| they did, I wouldn't really mind as the whole setup is less
| than 100 dollars).
| lynndotpy wrote:
| I've had three main use cases:
|
| 1. Running an HTTP server in a directory, so people can connect
| to my hotspot and get a listing of the files. (I've done this
| twice, for sharing movies.) This is easy enough to do with
| `python -m http.server 12345`, and this lets you get a file on
| nearly _any_ single device with a webbrowser in it.
|
| 2. SSHing into my various servers, or getting a file off my
| home machine that I forgot that I need.
|
| 3. Python is a general-purpose calculator for me, so I
| primarily use Termux instead of a calculator app.
| seanw444 wrote:
| I have to concur with #1 primarily. I do this all the time.
|
| #2 and #3 I do less frequently myself, but I use qalc instead
| of Python for a calculator (handles units and algebra).
| m-p-3 wrote:
| Personally I use it for youtube-dl / yt-dlp. Being able to grab
| most media to watch offline from anywhere is great.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| why dont you use newpipe/libretube as it has download built
| right in?
| m-p-3 wrote:
| youtube-dl / yt-dlp supports more than YouTube, and I have
| my config file all set up the way I want to embed
| subtitles, etc in the downloaded file.
| ce4 wrote:
| youtube-dl works for a lot more sites than just YT.
|
| Also: if you use the git sources you can do a quick "git
| pull" in case there were breaking changes and restart the
| download. ytdl is written in python, you can launch it via
| python -m "module name" within the src folder
|
| You can also use different forks of ytdl or run multiple
| downloads in parallel
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Newpipe is exceptionally buggy and unstable in my
| experience. yt-dlp always works vs. newpipe just randomly
| stops downloading anything until the phone is reset.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| been using newpipe exclusively for like 3 years now, have
| managed to switch everyone at home on it too....
|
| it crashes every often when google messes something but
| other than that, it is smooth sailing. you should send
| crash logs to the team
| 77pt77 wrote:
| You might find this interesting.
|
| https://dentex.github.io/
|
| No bloat. No ads. Does the job fine.
| behnamoh wrote:
| You can use Brave browser and add those videos to your
| playlist. It saves them offline for later use!
|
| Brave also blocks ads on YT, which is great :)
| 77pt77 wrote:
| how?
|
| Is there a tutorial online?
|
| My brave browser doesn't seem to have the option to do
| that.
| Diris wrote:
| Powertube [0] is a great app for this
|
| [0] https://github.com/razar-dev/PowerTube
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Thank you. I've been looking for anything like this for
| ages.
|
| Apparently another alternative is
|
| https://github.com/yausername/dvd
|
| And this one is on fdroid.
|
| DVD seems to work on more sites with more format options.
| The inference is super clunky though.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Not exactly a phone, but I use it on my Android tablet (having
| a proper keyboard) to SSH into my server for coding. On my
| phone I used to use it to remotely reboot services on my server
| during a period when they seemed to be randomly crashing.
| calmingsolitude wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Are you on a rooted phone? ~ $ ip neigh
| Cannot bind netlink socket: Permission denied
|
| Pixel 6 Pro Android 13
| maple3142 wrote:
| You can use this without root by using the rish provided by
| [Shizuku](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=moe
| .shizuku.pr...), because it only need adb shell permission
| for this.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Works on my not rooted Samsung, Android 12.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| I use it to run an ssh server on the phone, which then allows
| me to copy files to/from my computer with zero fuss.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Nothing, I embrace Android as it was designed for with its Java
| based userspace.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Very primitively - I run ping in a loop when there are network
| issues on the phone.
|
| PS: Oh, and once I was ssh'ing into an embedded device in a
| lab, while standing next to it and fiddling with wires. I could
| have brought a laptop, but it's a big hassle - VPN goes down,
| wifi network may be misbehaving, all windows are moved to the
| laptop screen etc.
| wazoox wrote:
| I use it to connect to my PCs when I'm away from my laptop (I
| can check my email, run commands, connect to various customers
| through VPNs etc).
| troyvit wrote:
| I use it for nearly the same thing. It seems to me like the
| best solution to back up to rsync.net. Other tools that claimed
| to support rsync, like FolderSync, didn't actually work. It
| also helps that termux can avoid cron and instead uses termux-
| job-scheduler to get around power saving issues.[1]
|
| [1] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/2015
| julienchastang wrote:
| > what do you use termux for on your Android phones?
|
| When I go on vacation, I bring my Android / Termux equipped
| phone to have access to cloud VMs I manage in case of an
| emergency. I verify my .ssh/config is in order before I leave.
| I have an external Bluetooth keyboard and a surprisingly full-
| fledged emacs in Termux. This solution has come in handy a
| number of times, and I am always impressed by how well it
| works.
| habibur wrote:
| But Termux can't access sd card. Only the phone built-in
| storage.
|
| That limits what I can backup.
| joak wrote:
| I did manage to access my external sdcard rw. Without
| rooting. Just cd to /storage/<your sdcard id>. It might
| work...
| ArcMex wrote:
| Quick SSH sessions mostly.
| sgiratch wrote:
| IRC! termux widget with a shortcut to a command running mosh
| and screen -rd. One click IRC access
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| I switched to UserLAnd a while back, but I mainly use it when I
| want to try something quickly in code and I can't SSH into my
| laptop.
|
| For a while I also played around with having my Android phone
| as an SSH server and connecting to it from my iPad for a
| lightweight portable coding setup.
| farrelle25 wrote:
| I run Termux on an Onyx Boox Leaf (e-ink reader). As well as
| using Onyx for ebooks, I keep 10 years worth of notes in
| markdown txt files that I edit in Vim & sync with git.
| trynewideas wrote:
| When I was a volunteer sysadmin, I sometimes used Termux to ssh
| into the servers I managed. More than once I triaged an
| incident from the same phone that paged me about it, while I
| was on a bus or train commuting to my day job.
|
| mosh[1] was especially useful for this over mobile data.
|
| [1]: https://mosh.org/
| freedomben wrote:
| I've also used mosh on termux with a small travel keyboard a
| number of times to investigate/fix outages while traveling.
| It's been a life saver!
| mrkeen wrote:
| Used to program on an old tablet which had an insane battery
| life (for the time). Good for long flights.
| flas9sd wrote:
| from termux I use mosh (and wireguard) to attach to a tmux
| session at home, how the latest build is doing and give it a
| nudge if it makes sense. Helps to leave the house for good
| weather and worry about failing builds later. Even with on-
| screen keyboard tmux can be handled, though I bought a little
| bluetooth keyboard
| nelblu wrote:
| Many times I would download interesting videos, pictures etc.
| and scp them into my TV. My TV setup is a smart TV which has
| been un-smarted by never connecting to the internet but it is
| connected to a linux computer via HDMI. So when I need to send
| any files to the computer I use scp from termux.
| westmeal wrote:
| I love this tool. Use it for emacs and I've written a few c++
| programs that help me take quick notes on my phone via the
| shell. For example, if someone suggests I should listen to this
| or that album/movie/whatever, I note it down and let my mini
| program throw it into a file that gets sent to my server. It's
| like a ghetto cloud service :)
| crest wrote:
| I used to have git annex in termux to sync files according to
| their metadata, but without a Bluetooth or USB keyboard I found
| if far too slow and annoying to use the shell as a normal shell
| and wrote a dialog based menu system.
| jchw wrote:
| I _was_ using it to run YouTube-dl to save or backup online
| video (not just from YouTube; it can also effectively rip video
| from sites that are annoying like Reddit and Twitter.) until I
| found dvd on F-Droid, which is a nice UI for that.
|
| Now I mostly use it to ssh. But it is surprisingly powerful,
| and occasionally you find a new use case that makes it worth
| having a generic Linux shell.
| jphilip wrote:
| I was once upon a time plumbing together an ARM matrix multiply
| backend for an on-device neural machine translation engine.
|
| The objective was to get something working for the Mac M1
| (which none of us had at the time). So I'd just cross-compile
| targeting my android phone, download built binary using wget on
| tmux and then run it to test if it's working. I remember I
| could build just the matrix multiply library locally on termux
| as well (after getting cmake and build-essentials via `pkg`).
| joak wrote:
| To transfer gigabytes of music to my phone with rsync over
| wifi. Why: 1. You can start again if interrupted. 2. From MacOS
| to Android, I didn't find a drag-and-drop way of doing it
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| Working through sicp in my spare moments.
| donio wrote:
| I use Termux to ssh to my home system and access my Emacs
| session and also various shell stuff. I do my email, chat,
| notetaking and everyday Emacs things this way. I access this
| same Emacs session from my desktop, laptop and phone.
|
| Been doing this since the Treo 650 days (pssh) and then
| Connectbot and nowadays Termux on Android. I always use phones
| with a physical keyboard, must have had a dozen different ones
| over the decades.
|
| A big advantage of this workflow is consistency. For example
| chat systems come and go, each with their own wacky UI. But for
| me they are all IRC buffers in my Emacs session, configured
| just the way I wanted it.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| I tried doing this in the past on an Android tablet, and was
| unable to get the caps lock switched with the ctrl key. Any
| suggestions on making this work, or do you do without?
| donio wrote:
| Do you mean with a BT keyboard attached to the tablet? One
| approach is to use keymapper:
|
| market: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.gi
| thub.sds1...
|
| github: https://github.com/keymapperorg/KeyMapper
|
| fdroid:
| https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.sds100.keymapper/
|
| It's a very versatile tool, can be handy even if you don't
| have a keyboard. It is also possible to use custom keyboard
| layouts but I don't have a link handy for that.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Yes, on a bluetooth keyboard. I downloaded something
| similar to keymapper back in the day, the only paid app
| that I've purchased for android, and even it wasn't able
| to get any bluetooth keyboards to play nicely.
|
| I'll try this out. Thanks again.
| ce4 wrote:
| I run a very crude shell-based scanning app (termux has an
| option to add shell scripts as "apps" on the homescreen),
| amongst others.
|
| termux supports native GUI dialogues (input/checkboxes), and
| the scan-shellscript uses that for input (name,
| greyscale/color, jpg/pdf output and number of pages for pdf)
| then launches a couple of remote scanimage + ocr postproc + pdf
| generation commands and transfers + opens that in the local pdf
| app
| kjuulh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There's also `termux-distro` so you can run in a sandbox
| popular distros like Debian and Arch.
| twism wrote:
| 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 For SSH
| client. (not version 2. version 1.7.1-irssi specifically)
|
| 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.
| kasajian wrote:
| Termux is bae
| baybal2 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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)
| saagarjha wrote:
| 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?
| xchip wrote:
| 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)
| mrelectric wrote:
| This is excellent and I'm glad to see they took on the effort.
|
| Thanks for sharing
| Maxburn wrote:
| 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?
| bakugo wrote:
| You don't, because you mostly don't have to unless you're
| installing random malware apps, same as a desktop computer. "If
| you use a phone that hasn't been updated in 2 months the evil
| hackers will hack into it and make the battery explode to kill
| you" is fear-mongering from hardware manufacturers.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| You don't.
|
| Android has pretty good "defense in depth" security, from
| screening in the Play Store, to the app sandbox, to kernel
| hardening. If you only get reputable apps from reputable
| sources, have an eye on phishing attempts, and have no reason
| to think you are a target, you may afford to have a few weak
| spots in your system. A _lot_ of people run outdated Android
| version, and most don 't get hacked, and among those who do, it
| is almost always phishing techniques that software updates
| wouldn't have prevented.
|
| If you really can't, it you have a popular, higher-end Android
| phone from years ago, you may find up-to-date custom ROMs, that
| you can further optimize for security.
| Maxburn wrote:
| You don't is my position. Lots of things that can be done
| past end of support to extend it a bit but you are right it's
| all shades of gray.
| razemio wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| If you can resist using it to browse the internet or receive
| SMS/MMS I see your point.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| harden at the app level and put a reverse proxy in front of it
| Hello71 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| tunap wrote:
| To add: Custom kernel, de-googled ROM(sans Play Store) &
| side-loading apps.
| Maxburn wrote:
| That came to mind for extending device support. As I
| understand it though the hardware drivers are all closed
| source and end support rather quickly. I believe that the
| drivers are sometimes the source of the problem which sort
| of complicates extending the lifespan.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I'm aware the play store can do a LOT more than the name
| implies.
|
| What I wasn't thinking about was this tool generally doesn't
| need the device to be on public IP, so remove the cellular
| access and have it behind a LAN firewall and it should be ok.
|
| Previously I was thinking along the lines of MMS attack's
| being a problem. I seem to get suspicious links regularly.
| ruune wrote:
| Only real way is never connecting it to the internet. Otherwise
| you will always have a vulnerable server with the only hope
| that it's not a mainstream server and by that not that much
| threatened by script kiddies and mass scans
| Maxburn wrote:
| I guess in this use case removing the cellular access and
| only using it on LAN would be good enough?
|
| Edit; second though NO. Clicking a bad link with some browser
| exploit on it will still get you infected in that case. So
| you couldn't use this to browse the internet safely. Still as
| a Termux only tool seems safe.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Unlike on iOS, your browser runtime is not tied to your
| phone. Most phones come with Google Chrome as the default
| browser which no longer gets updates below Android 7, but
| Firefox still gets updates on Android 5.0+.
|
| With an up-to-date browser you run about the same risk you
| run if you're using a computer. The kernel exploits are
| problematic, but Android also adds annoying sandboxing that
| requires a lot of device-specific exploit code to bypass
| properly.
|
| Realistically, even if just the browser was exploited and
| the kernel and runtime around it were perfectly secure,
| you'd still have a huge problem. Your browser is where all
| the access tokens and passwords go into and where your
| search history is coming from.
|
| I wouldn't bank on these long unmaintained devices, but I
| think they're fine to use for most people.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Good point on the browser, so you'd need to go through
| and uninstall old browsers (if you can) and change the
| default browser.
|
| I agree, seems like this is prolonging things and just
| delaying the inevitable.
| creshal wrote:
| But why?
| AkshatJ27 wrote:
| to be able to run stuff on the years old android phones
| bheadmaster wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| And tablets
| dspillett wrote:
| 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
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
|
| [1] https://github.com/termux/termux-app/pull/2740
|
| [2] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/4658
| xchip wrote:
| to have your own cloud running on your old cellphone, I use it
| to store backups, pictures, vpn,...
| habibur wrote:
| I use it to send SMS from my phone.
|
| - fetch SMS text and number from application API.
|
| - send from local phone.
| notorandit wrote:
| If only I could link an external display to my droid phone...
| ccouzens wrote:
| 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.displaylin...
|
| But in reality you'd probably do better with just about any old
| Linux laptop.
| m4rtink wrote:
| 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.).
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