Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app with no rooting

https://termux.com/

by ZnZirconium • 6 years ago

278 208 6 years ago

termux.com

sigmonsays• 6 years ago

what do people use this for?

While I was really excited when i encountered it, I didn't find any practical uses.

jack-of-some• 6 years ago

I've used it for ssh-ing into my various machines, both work and personal. I also did some development work using this when I was stuck without a laptop. And one time it was useful in sending out a mass text.

sxp• 6 years ago

On phones, I've installed node & python in it and used those systems as a powerful handheld calculator.

On my tablet, I used it as an ssh client.

On my VR headset, I used it to create a self-contained development environment: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/fc5sfr/oculus_qu...

You can use its PRoot functionality to run various Linux distros: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot

And you can run Linux GUI apps if they are compiled properly: https://github.com/adi1090x/termux-desktop

giancarlostoro2• 6 years ago

I could see it as a rather easy way to get people to try programming with a tablet / keyboard combo. You can install Go, or Python and run a web server and visit it from within the browser... It's pretty impressive and capable honestly. You can find < $100 Android phones that are prepaid these days, I got a few ages ago.

crtasm• 6 years ago

A bash script that scps today's photos to my NAS

Persistent SSH session to a server running Weechat for IRC

(Remember to run 'pkg update' every so often, a recent update to the app required a reinstall or manual fix for anyone like me who didn't know it could be a problem)

bergie• 6 years ago

I'm using this almost daily for various open source work. It has my vim setup, tmux, node, and git.

Primary usage is via Samsung DeX so I have multiple windows and a proper mechanical keyboard.

maelito2• 6 years ago

Same, but miss a real browser with devtools so much. Everything's great apart from that. UserLand is ok but the VNC mode messes with a proper environment with alt-tab.

muxator2• 6 years ago

Just a few days ago I thought about using termux-api to do a quick poc for a monitoring application. Namely, I wanted to send an SMS when an event occurred.

Termux-api used to offer this [0], but apparently some time ago google decided to make it impossible:

Usage of this API is no longer allowed by Google and we had to disable it to prevent delisting of Termux:API application from the Google Play.

It's my device, my SMS plan over a (supposedly) open source system. But it's the vendor's platform, and a huge part of it is proprietary (the play services).

This is the windows monopoly all over again, but in our pockets and with deep analytics backed in.

OK sorry, this ended being a rant. Is there an escape hatch? When will we have a credible free software mobile operating system?

[0] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux-sms-send

lytedev• 6 years ago

You can buy Linux phones right now!

_underfl0w_• 6 years ago

Termux:API is available on F-Droid. Maybe the functionality exists in that version?

MarkusWandel4• 6 years ago

Syncing photos off. Termux has sshd (you have to start it manually once, then it stays running until Termux is killed or the phone is rebooted).

With ssh-copy-id it takes a single command (1-line script) to rsync the phone's DCIM directory to my main machine for further processing. Nothing needs to be done on the phone at all other than to lightly nudge it to wake it up so sshd sees the connection attempt.

Downside: Android security clampdowns mean termux can't see the SD card. So I can only sync down the phone's internal camera directory and that's where I have to store the new pictures and videos. This means space occasionally runs low and I have to move stuff to the SD card. But in the future, they probably won't allow Termux to even work any more in its current form - no "exec" of executables that werent' installed as part of the apk.

Why do all this? Because I'm old school. My phone is an extension of my data ecosystem, which lives on (redundant and backed-up) hard disks in my home computing setup. I don't even let the phone sync the photos to the cloud.

Admittedly I've found no other practical uses for it; all the interesting stuff is blocked by Android security (e.g. back up or otherwise process your call/SMS history).

knaik943• 6 years ago

If DCIM syncing from external SD card is an issue, I would suggest looking into FolderSync. I've used it personally for music syncing. I'm old school too when it comes to curating my own music library.

noja• 6 years ago

Alternatives:

Resilio Sync: use it in backup mode to sync photos to your desktop pc/mac/nas. Delete photos from phone when you want to free space. Also lets you access and edit normal files, either on demand or by sync. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.resilio.sy...

PhotoSync: sync your photos to pretty much anything. https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html

npsimons4• 6 years ago

Android security clampdowns mean termux can't see the SD card.

Not sure that's what's causing it; I can definitely scp files from my Android phone's SDCard to my servers. But I've not tried initiating the scp from the other machine to my phone.

vorpalhex2• 6 years ago

Rooting isn't as terrifying as it used to be, and it means you can do actual real backups and genuinely own your data.

knaik943• 6 years ago

This takes some setup, but you can add ffmpeg and python, and from there youtube-dl. There's a url handler so I can download podcasts and other things by using the built in android share function from page links.

People also use it on chromebooks for dev work that doesn't require low level compiling. I have seen NPM and webdev work being done using termux and I have seen people use it for Jupyter Notebooks too.

It also integrates with Tasker (another android automation app).

yjftsjthsd-h2• 6 years ago

What setup? I thought it was just `pkg i ffmpeg python && pip install --user youtube-dl`?

jhbadger3• 6 years ago

Programming on the go. Ruby, Python, Rust, Go, Nim, and many other programming languages are available for it. As are editors like Emacs and Vim.

UI_at_80x24• 6 years ago

Troubleshooting services and bypassing Google's help.

Scenario 1: You're in the middle of your data center. Internal tools/tests say that $service is running correctly, but external customers says it isn't working, and firewall won't let you use an external IP without having to run 3 floors away on the other side of the building.

Solution 1: Open termux, and running telnet aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd $PORT and test

Quicker then waiting for a co-worker to get back to you on Slack.

Scenario 2: You are setting up a new VPN server and want to confirm that your outgoing connections are being routed through the correct IPs/Gateways.

Solution 2: Open termux and run tracert and see where you are being routed.

and many more....... I used to own a Nokia N900. Having a Linux CLI that works in portable device (wifi + cellular) is so damn handy. I use it atleast 2 times a week. It's a perfect diagnosing tool for OOB troubleshooting.

jaggirs• 6 years ago

Routing a development server to the phone's localhost so I can use https-only features like service workers and camera access without setting up https.

ssh -L 8080:172.383.20.18:8080

mcshicks2• 6 years ago

I use it for emacs, mostly org mode on my phone. It works reasonably well with a small bluetooth keyboard.

npsimons4• 6 years ago

I use it for emacs, mostly org mode on my phone.

I'm not the only weirdo who does this! Although I manage to get by with Hacker's Keyboard.

nanomonkey• 6 years ago

This was my use case, unfortunately I never figured out how to get my keyboard to accept CapsLock as a Ctrl key. Any suggestions??!

rehemiau• 6 years ago

ssh into a secured machine with port forwarding, then being able to access services exposed from that machine e.g. for web testing on Android, or using VNC / NoMachine to remote into it.

npsimons4• 6 years ago

what do people use this for?

Emacs, org-mode, git and ssh. That's pretty much it, but allows me to have access to my org-mode files anywhere, just like on desktop.

But I'm also one of those weirdos who runs his own email server and sshes in to read mail in mutt.

michrassena• 6 years ago

I've found it useful to occasionally ssh into my raspberry pi. But I don't think I could use it as a serious work tool unless I had a Bluetooth keyboard connected to my phone.

donio4• 6 years ago

- ssh (with a proper openssh config and various convenience wrappers around it)

- a local bookmark manager and search redirector that i wrote in Go (much easier to just run in termux than turning it into an Android app)

- sshd to allow adhoc file transfer and command execution over ssh, getting various information from the phone using the termux cli APIs

- random shell stuff although i tend to do most of that over the ssh connection.

Spica• 6 years ago

I learnt python and did coding on phone(too broke to buy pc) so I used it for running python projects, using git and deploying the projects on heroku with the CLI.

trynumber9• 6 years ago

I rarely use it for more than ssh into work servers on the weekend, downloading videos, or testing code snippets. But it's really nice to be able to use normal iperf rather than looking for some Android application that wraps it and may or may not contain ads.

onedr0p5• 6 years ago

This. Termux is a great AIO app for a lot of apps available on the Play Store. I use it for running kubectl, ssh, scp, rclone, rsync, etc.. if there is a ARM binary it will most likely run in Termux.

briangray• 6 years ago

A combination of general use and learning.

General: Using T-UI because I'm not a fan of modern touch UIs, but it is limited to Android functions like messages and launching apps. Anything beyond that (SSH, text editing, web calls, etc) I do through Termux. I wish I could combine the two more seamlessly, but it's effortless to switch between the two.

Learning: Wanted to learn to use vim. Termux provided simple vim access and vimtutor. I've also used Termux to freshen up on languages and write a few scripts. Namely, differences between Python2.7 to Python3 which I didn't look into until this year. Starting on C and/or Rust soon.

trynewideas2• 6 years ago

I don't use it often, but I did use it twice to get a misbehaving apache service restarted while on the bus/train to work, saving me about 20 minutes of downtime before I could get in front of a better keyboard.

There's a widget addon that makes doing those sorts of things one-tap: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux:Widget

Though naturally once I created a widget to kick apache, it never failed again.

tomcooks• 6 years ago

tmux + Termux + brow.sh allows me to do browsing, email, maps, even shopping online in the middle of nowhere with a few bars of 2g connectivity.

miguelmota3• 6 years ago

You can run it on a FireTV stick by downloading termux via the F-Droid repository. Connect a bluetooth keyboard and you have a nice little linux environment to play around with. I installed archlinux on it and use it to test packages for ARM.

gkfasdfasdf• 6 years ago

A colleague used it to run iperf3 to test his home wifi.

vharuck• 6 years ago

For me, it's either to youtube-dl music onto my phone (mostly stuff from CDs I had bought but were stolen or lost), or run a small Python script to cheat at word games (finds all combinations of letters in a dictionary file).

Things that don't rise to the level of deserving an app, but are nice to have.

opan3• 6 years ago

- routine backups with rsync (one time setup in my shell config with a `bkup` alias and then I just run that when I think of it)

- grabbing albums off my PC with sftp

- easy way to unzip files

- play audio via mpv

- run `xdg-open` on a file and get a native popup to select an app to open it with

- ssh into your other machines, works well to pick up your irc chat away from your pc if you use irssi + tmux (or weechat, or screen, etc.)

- use a "real" editor like vim or emacs locally on your phone

- api stuff, you can control the torch, notifications, etc. you can make scripts around that (imagine a simple `sleep 30m && ...` sort of one liner that turns on your light and plays some audio to wake you from a nap (I haven't done much with this part of termux)

a_e_k• 6 years ago

- Stand up an ad-hoc web server with `python -m http.server 8000` and use it fetch some photos onto the desktop over local wifi.

- Having a backup of my private repos and dot files that's always with me. Easily keep them up to date with a pull every now and then.

- Occasionally do some lightweight symbolic math or high precision arithmetic with Emacs' calc.

- Test the portability of a library I've been writing by building and running its test suite on a lower-powered ARM environment.

onedr0p5• 6 years ago

If there is a ARM64 binary, it will most likely run in Termux. I use it with helm, kubectl, rclone, ssh just to name a few.

ssh is the most used for me because I don't want to use Termius (paid) or some other SSH wrapper app. Termux is free, allows you to easily create ssh keys and use ssh-copy-id.

BenjiWiebe• 6 years ago

See if JuiceSSH fits the bill for you. I use it and love it.

a3n• 6 years ago

I run sshd on termux, and mount it wirelessly on my laptop via the phone's hotspot with sshfs on the laptop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20660301

So I can copy photos from phone to laptop and post process with a script.

dspillett2• 6 years ago

rsync over SSH for backups. Google photos want including the highest quality images, and I had tremendous terrible with both this and my last phone copying off large files (long recorded videos at high res) locally via normal USB methods.

A script running rsync over SSH over wi-fi works every time. And as I use rsync for backups generally (have done for many years) this integrates nicely with my general way of doing things.

I've not tried running SSHd to allow things to be pulled off or pushed to devices, but others report that working well too.

Valkhyr7• 6 years ago

Primary: File management. I tend to prefer the command line for that kind of thing. Includes occasionally rsync-ing or scp-ing stuff to and from servers, and modding a few games I have on Android (Beamdog's Enhanced Edition mobile ports of old CRPGs).

Secondary: Study programming - I am a self-taught programmer, and before the pandemic I would study a lot on public transit, in coffee shops, while waiting for people etc. This actually used to be the primary use case before I started working as a professional programmer and was also using breaks to study. Android/Termux is not really suitable for actual dev work (e.g. you'll probably need Docker at some point if you're doing backend, and you'll want a browser with dev tools for frontend), but for limited study projects (especially backend dev) it's absolutely awesome.

It's also my SSH client to access a few servers I keep privately, but this is a feature that certain dedicated apps (e.g. JuiceSSH) could do equally well or better, and I'm just using Termux because I already have it.

rmorey• 6 years ago

see also: iSH for iOS (https://ish.app/)

giancarlostoro2• 6 years ago

The key caveat being that iSH does x86 emulation to achieve this, but otherwise it seems to looks pretty darn nice. I have yet to try it but now that I've switched over to iOS I may just download it to compare usage vs Termux.

jeromenerf2• 6 years ago

It is great but slow and 32bit.

dr_hooo• 6 years ago

Quick question as I'm giving this a spin (thanks!!). How do I go about installing an ssh client? Or is that only available in the testflight version?

Valkhyr7• 6 years ago

iSH is great, I have it on my iPad (my phone is a Pixel with Termux), but performance is atrocious due to the emulation.

Maybe it's better on the most recent Apple SoCs, but on my iPad mini just opening a small text file in vim takes a second or two (instant on Termux/any other CLI I've used in the last decade.

Rsync is so slow as to be useless - I think because it takes forever to calculate the diff.

fsflover9• 6 years ago

It's much more convenient to use a native terminal on a GNU/Linux phone. Everything you would do on a desktop, you can do with it.

thesuperbigfrog3• 6 years ago

Out of curiosity, what GNU/Linux phone would you recommend?

Most of the ones I have read about are still fairly alpha-level products, particularly for the phone software and app ecosystem.

I would love to have a fully-functional phone running GNU/Linux that I can use as a phone and carry around in my pocket and then plug in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and have a "good enough" computer for basic office and programming capabilities.

fsflover9• 6 years ago

I recommend Librem 5: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5. The company develops both hardware and software respecting the users.

Upd: Video showing Librem 5 used as desktop: https://puri.sm/posts/a-librem-5-video-made-on-a-librem-5/

rektide3• 6 years ago

I have seen some happy & successful users of the PinePhone[1] on my social network feeds. The price is great, capabilities are all there & supported, the community has been doing a good job scratching-their-own-itches & furthering support. The only thing that's held me back from fully adopting it is that the main camera is 5MP, and I have been feeling a little short with even the 12MP camera on my Samsung S series daily driver.

[1] https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

dheera• 6 years ago

I would love to have a fully-functional phone running GNU/Linux that I can use as a phone and carry around in my pocket and then plug in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and have a "good enough" computer for basic office and programming capabilities.

As much as I like the idea of 100% FOSS in my pocket, it's simply not practical because I need to use Android apps to hail rides and contact friends who often use only closed-source messenger apps.

If you're in the same boat, a very realistic alternative would be to just carry around a Raspberry Pi.

cstross• 6 years ago

I'd like to note that Termux is totally amazeballs on a Cosmo Communicator: https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/cosmo-communicator

Having a proper fold-out QWERTY hardware keyboard makes for an eccentric Android experience, but Termux (or, alternatively, their dual-boot Linux solution) makes a huge difference.

jhbadger3• 6 years ago

On the other hand, every other non-terminal task would be far less convenient. And maybe even impossible, given that some tasks require apps that are only available on Android or iOS.

fsflover9• 6 years ago

It's not a necessity that non-terminal tasks are less convenient. It depends on the GUI and definitely can be done well. For Android-only apps, there is anbox.

yjftsjthsd-h2• 6 years ago

While this is strictly true, 1. it's reduced by Android compat via anbox, 2. some version of that is always true; Android users don't get iOS-exclusive apps, iPhone users don't get Android exclusives, and neither of them can get some desktop apps (although Android can do VNC with termux or a chroot to get very very close, and iOS does have iSH, bringing us back to "if the compatibility layer is good enough..."). The question is whether the apps that each users wants are sufficiently available on the platform of their choice. And true, sometimes the answer is no; just as some people are stuck on NT because WINE doesn't work and they need a Windows app, so some people will be stuck on Android/iOS, but by the same token some of us are doing just fine on FOSS platforms.

breakfastduck3• 6 years ago

But with a significantly reduced phone experience.

I see the benefit, but the phone isn’t anywhere near the quality of a high end android or iOS device in terms of hardware or general app availability.

Termux is clearly provide the opposite to what you’re suggesting - having a terminal available without sacrificing everything else.

fsflover9• 6 years ago

in terms of hardware

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

Librem 5 has a number of features generally only found in high-end phones, such as USB 3, dual-role port, DisplayPort alt-mode, high resolution video out and a discrete audio DAC, but its CPU performance and its video processing capability are those of a low-spec phone from several years ago. For people who want to buy a phone that supports convergence or a specialized security/privacy phone, the price of the Librem 5 is very competitive with the other options on the market.

general app availability

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

There is are a huge number of existing desktop Linux applications that can be adapted [not rewritten!] to run inside Phosh.

Valkhyr7• 6 years ago

Agreed in principle.

Do you know any on-screen keyboard for mobile Linux that is as good as (or at least approached) Hacker's Keyboard on Android?

I have a Librem 5 on pre-order, and am following PureOS and PinePhone related development somewhat, but so far I have not seen an on-screen keyboard that gives you all the modifier/control keys (+ chording of keys) and arrow keys...without those, the CLI really is not very useful unless you're always going to use an external keyboard (doesn't make sense to me, it's no longer portable then) :-/

j-james• 6 years ago

Termux has recently run into issues with Android 10 and the more recent APIs, which break its form of package management.

Their workaround is fairly clever (although not yet implemented) but means that updates to the Play Store version have been temporarily put on hold.

https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

rektide3• 6 years ago

Comments like this one[1] that mention having difficulty using Termux to access SD cards keep making me feel like we are radically over-securing devices. More and more it feels like the OS, the browser, are guarding the user not against bad apps, but also against the user. Firefox Mobile only allowing less than a dozen extensions. Chrome mobile supporting no extensions. These are different than the OS, but the same kind of decisions done "for the user" by removing capabilities from the environment.

Even the people not fighting against people in the War on General Purpose Computing keep seceding our sovereign systems away from us. The need for security is real, but I don't see that we are approaching it with balance. We seem to be growing ever more heavyhanded, permitting users less & less, and I don't see a reciprocal respect & empowerment being considered, furthered or advanced.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982862

heavyset_go4• 6 years ago

More and more it feels like the OS, the browser, are guarding the user not against bad apps, but also against the user.

This is something Stallman and others have been talking about[1] for more than a decade now.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24881893

quicklime• 6 years ago

What worries me most is that our devices are being radically over-secured according to a threat model that doesn't include companies that share my data without my permission, but does include open source developers building general-purpose tools. The former are actively encouraged, and the latter are considered collateral damage.

npsimons4• 6 years ago

Stallman was right.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 6 years ago

Can the user really achieve "security" without having full control. When the user is not the customer of the third party providing "security". (In this case advertisers are the customer.)

Hopefully courts will begin to recognise that this sort of "security" is in fact created for the benefit of the company and its customers, not users. Any benefits to users are incidental.

Users are not soliciting these "security" measures. They are always initiated by the company.

MarkusWandel4• 6 years ago

Well, I approach it from two angles at once. One, a pocket computer running Linux which, using Termux, could be a full Linux machine - in which I can run Perl scripts on my SMS messages, grep my emails, rename and organize my photo library and so on. Which was presumably mostly possible on old, less secure versions of Android. With Android 10 and its exec restriction, sure you can still install precompiled packages as apk's but what about simply compiling a small C program and running it? So the old school tinkerer is sad that I'm locked out of a perfectly good Linux machine that I own.

However the other angle is, this phone is an appliance and I want it to just work. I'm personally competent enough to have that cake (programmability) and eat it too (reliable usability) - after all I've been running Red Hat/Fedora as my primary desktop OS at home for two decades and it works just fine, thank you. But I also remember what a horrible mess the average schmoe's home computer was back in the good old days... remember an outdated version of Internet Explorer with half the screen obscured by a stack of junky toolbars, and the whole thing running at 800x600 on a monitor capable of higher resolutions "because otherwise the letters are too small". Good riddance.

Anyway for the moment, second-hand desktop and laptop machines that can run a full, unencumbered compute environment are still plentiful. Maybe by the time they aren't, I'll be a truly old fart who doesn't care any more.

Valkhyr7• 6 years ago

Could not agree more.

There should be a "I know what I'm doing" switch that disables a bunch of restrictions and essentially enables full root privileges for your user.

fogihujy4• 6 years ago

This is not a part of the war on general purpose computing; it's a part of the effort to make Eternal September to end by making software that works for everyone.

As it is, this entails limiting the users' freedom to tinker in such a way that they simply cannot screw things up no matter how hard they try. Because, you know, if users have that option, then someone will take advantage of it and screw things up.

This line of thought has powerful political and philosophical backing, as digitalization is seen as the magic bullet that will solve a wide array of issues throughout society, and the general idea seem to be to protect people for their own good. Incidentally, it's often the most profitable route as well, as it's the only way to get non-technical users on-board.

unicornporn• 6 years ago

Chrome mobile supporting no extensions.

Kiwi browser does.

bosswipe2• 6 years ago

I hate the direction Google is taking Android. They're on an appliance-ification quest trying to hide any exposed linux-ness of the OS, including trying to remove developer access to all file handles. They always claim it's in the name of security but my suspicion is that it's an effort to transition from Linux to Fuchsia.

varispeed5• 6 years ago

For me so far the worst thing Google did was disabling API for call recording. That makes new phones pretty much useless for me. I always record calls, so that I can go back to them if I forget something or that nobody can claim they said something when they didn't (most recently insurance salesperson told me I will have option X if I take their insurance and they once I bought it, there was no such option. Once I pulled the "I have recorded your salesman lying to me", I got a prompt refund and apologies).

pjmlp3• 6 years ago

Android was always about Java (now Kotlin).

The NDK was only added in 2.0 to appease game developers and workaround for Dalvik anemic performance.

Any access to Linux APIs was accidental and never part of the official native APIs.

AsyncAwait• 6 years ago

That's why I decided to get a PinePhone this year.

CivBase• 6 years ago

Ironically, the biggest concern I have with "security" on my Android phone is Google itself. Their overzealous collection of private data makes them a constant liability which I have practically no control over other than to abandon the Android platform altogether. I've ditched Google for almost everything else, but Android is one of the few things which I don't have a reasonable alternative for.

badsectoracula• 6 years ago

They always claim it's in the name of security

Like pretty much everything that goes against the user and people are way too quick to accept anything that has the word "security" applied to it.

Valkhyr7• 6 years ago

This.

Ballas• 6 years ago

I heard somebody mispronounce the color fuchsia as fucks-ya. Seems apt in this case?

saagarjha5• 6 years ago

This is annoying but not actually a big deal; it is easy to work around this with a custom dynamic linker.

donio4• 6 years ago

The workaround won't help with self-installed executables though, right? Like when I cross-compile something on my dekstop and copy the executable to run under Termux?

kbenson• 6 years ago

It seems like maybe as long as you package your executable into a DEB it can convert it into an APK? That shouldn't be too hard. It's probably possible for them to release a script that does it automatically depending on what information is preserved from the DEB in the APK with regard to types of files and how complex the thing you want to install is.

I don't have much experience with DEBs, but have quite a bit with RPMs and their spec files which are used to create them, and this wouldn't be that hard to do with an RPM (and you can convert RPMs to DEBs in many cases with utilities).

nanna• 6 years ago

Reminder that Termux is available on F-Droid.

javajosh2• 6 years ago

I've had a terrible experience with my LineageOS S9.

swiley3• 6 years ago

If you want to do something other than Instagram then don't buy devices that run "mobile" OSes.

saagarjha5• 6 years ago

It's easy to say that, but the competition isn't all that great so your comment isn't really adding much.

wtracy2• 6 years ago

What is a handheld device that can make phone calls that you recommend instead?

squarefoot• 6 years ago

"This version requires Android 7.0 or newer."

Termux is a great piece of software; I'd love if they would keep supporting older OS versions as well, since it's the kind of software one would keep on that old tablet to be used as a terminal or generally as a Swiss army knife.

JoshTriplett• 6 years ago

I find things like termux most useful with network connectivity, and a device you can't update should never be connected to a network.

encom• 6 years ago

Maximum snark: That covers most Android devices, then.

duckerude• 6 years ago

I find Termux most useful when I don't have connectivity. Two thirds of what I do in Termux could also be done over SSH, but I like keeping it local.

jcynix• 6 years ago

I beg to differ. Network connectivity in a managed home environment is fine. I use Termux to transfer backups, images, PDFs between my home server and an "old" Nexus7 tablet. And I sometimes use it as an offline map device while hiking, after downloading OSM maps and gpx files with track infos.

jraph• 6 years ago

I'm currently using an Android 6 phone. Fortunately, it is still possible to use Termux on it. Some things are not available (extra repositories) but many things are still here.

casept• 6 years ago

Put LineageOS on it.

arendtio• 6 years ago

Does someone know if it is possible to use it on a FireTV Stick (without root)?

midwestemo• 6 years ago

Seems like yes if you side load f droid https://www.reddit.com/r/termux/comments/d4rqma/termux_on_a_...

miguelmota3• 6 years ago

You don't need to root the FireTV stick at all. You can install termux from the F-Droid application by installing F-Droid first by installing the APK from the Downloader app.

If you want to root the device for fun, I wrote a little tutorial post a few months ago https://miguelmota.com/blog/rooting-a-fire-tv-stick-4k/

ohyeshedid• 6 years ago

You might want to check out adbLink[1]. It makes managing firesticks pretty simple.

1: http://jocala.com/

dirtnugget• 6 years ago

A while ago I ran TOR from this while serving a NodeJS chat via HiddenService. Had no issue reaching it from another network. Not sure if it’s still possible, but this app is quite powerful.

maelito2• 6 years ago

If Android had a real browser with devtools (Firefox or Chrom*), with Termux and a command line editor like vim, Web developpement would be completely doable with Samsung Dex or a tablet.

miguelmota3• 6 years ago

One thing to note is that the directory hierarchy in Termux is not the same as a standard Linux. For example, in termux everything is under `/data/data/com.termux/files` and there is no `/tmp`. Use PRoot in termux to install a standard Linux distribution.

grawprog• 6 years ago

I played with termux a bunch. I found it to be lacking when not rooted though. If i remember right it also lacks a lot of access to most of the android api, making any kind of serious development not really practical.

The one i really miss though is SL4A.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_Layer_for_Android

It's a shame it ended up being killed off. I wrote a bunch of lua scripts with it. Including a small app to fetch bus schedules from a current stop. I could add scripts to my launcher and run them the same as a native app.

antocv3• 6 years ago

Termux, Termux-api, there is a termux job scheduler thing. Also rsync and openssh on it.

Then you copy the ssh public key from the phone to your "home-server", and setup a job scheduler to run rsync - now you have better than nextcloud syncing of your phones pictures/what-have-you with your home-server.

LibertyBeta• 6 years ago

But what's the battery usage? And handling meshing? why not just use Syncthing?

antocv3• 6 years ago

Battery usage is basically zero, since I schedule it to run during evenings and night-time when it is charging with the termux-scheduler-thingie. Android wakes the script up, when those conditions are met, no battery waste. The script when waken up - it checks if the file left over from last time is older than 1h, if so continues to sync, otherwise exits.

Setup of a ssh connection is similar to https, rsync exchange of rsync is usually "all good" and thats it. Rsync otherwise is a very efficient but not very documented protocol network-bandwidth-usage-wise.

Mesh? Syncthing, tried it, sucked for reasons I cant remember now. Nextcloud - had it for years, mind you I was contributed to nextcloud the android app, fixing many bugs, but still it caused me data loss / picture loss. Which I only found out after implementing the rsync solution and seeing OMG rsync found so many pictures Nextcloud was supposed to keep in sync for the past year but it just bugged over.

jwalton• 6 years ago

Twice now I've had, for reasons I can't explain, a folder on my Mac somehow gets renamed from "backgrounds" to "Backgrounds", and then syncthing complains it can't sync the folder for a day or two because the folder is still "backgrounds" on the other clients(which I usually don't notice until I go back digging through the logs), and then somehow syncthing deletes all of the files in this folder on all of the machines, and then spits out a steady stream of errors complaining it can't sync files because no machines currently online have these missing files that it just murdered.

jonny3833• 6 years ago

Termux has saved one of our projects literally tens of thousands of dollars in SMS fees from someone like Twilio.

We have a few areas where non urgent SMS reminders need to be sent to users. We literally just use a couple of cheap ($100) Android phones with termux on an unlimited message plan with a local provider (who approved us for commercial usage).

The actual process is a glorified bash script that pulls API jobs down with curl and then uses termux-sms to actually send the message.

dspillett2• 6 years ago

That sounds like it would be very useful for a personal project, but the docs for termux-sms state "Usage of this API is no longer allowed by Google and we had to disable it to prevent delisting of Termux:API application from the Google Play." - are you building your own version, or are there official builds off Play that include the feature?

jonny3833• 6 years ago

We're running builds from FDroid.

hiq• 6 years ago

How many SMS do you send daily? Do you have a regular plan with the local provider, or some specially negotiated one?

jonny3833• 6 years ago

Not totally sure but easily > 1,000. We negotiated but not at a high level.

anitil• 6 years ago

What a fantastic idea!

dmead• 6 years ago

top has been busted for ages

ericol2• 6 years ago

I found Termux a while ago, and thought it was interesting. then I found you can run python, ffmpeg and youtube-dl on it, and now I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I'm still to try to run Jupyter on it, but I think it might be able to.

As all my computers run Linux these days, it also has replaced all my "from-x-to-android" transfer apps.

pokernaming• 6 years ago

I am interested in knowing more about your file share set up

drran• 6 years ago

scp?

antman• 6 years ago

I run Jupyter Notebook python etc and create termux simple apps you even with a small web gui visible through my phone's browser.

But due to the restrictions that were placed on Android a few years back I lost the capability to make system apps in python.

I had a cleanup, backup, and could make custom interfaces enhance other applications using their sqlite data.

I guess now I am protected, from me.

Valkhyr7• 6 years ago

Don't you feel much safer now?

scoot_718• 6 years ago

Yup, use it to run jupyter notebooks.

quintonish• 6 years ago

termux-url-opener has been an excellent tool to easily make use of Android's share menu. Taking inspiration from "YouTube-DL the easy way on Android" [1], I made a script that adds a URL to my bookmarks server [2]. It'd be even better to write a script that has some rules or a prompt so that different URLs can be handled differently (e.g. video URLs prompt for download, or there could be a prompt to add the page to archive.org).

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/baufql/youtubedl_th...

[2] https://github.com/zvakanaka/termux-bookmark#readme

bklaasen• 6 years ago

Here's my termux-url-opener:

$ cat ~/bin/termux-url-opener #!/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/env bash

read -ep "[c]ast or [d]ownload: " -i "c" choice case "${choice}" in c|C) catt cast "${1}" ;; d|D) pip install --upgrade youtube-dl cd ~/storage/movies youtube-dl "${1}" ;; *) echo "Sorry, that's invalid." exit 65 ;; esac

Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app with no rooting

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