mmobder Your throwing around a lot of words here. CN-related? Syncthing depreciation?
Android 16 with terminal - useful?
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TrustExecutor Termux by itself is kinda old and dangerous app, not talking about its repositories that are almost always connect to .cn servers
Syncthing is a FOSS file sync cross-platform app that is now retiring it's Android apk version leaving only cli linux-based app version that can be used only under Termux atm. Syncthing allows sync of files between nodes without involving cloud.
So one could, for example, sync contacts (address book .vcf) and calendar (.ics) within others without any cloud infra (even self-hosted).The same goes for KeePassDX backup to other people in encrypted manner. Or backing up your digital archive to any "permanent" storage.
All of that relies on unsafe Termux. Having it migrated to native environment would be great.
Not speaking of Termux limitations, like inability to be run in non-owner profile, etc
mmobder there isnt a great way to make a useful + safe terminal app. Unless u do what they did on ChromeOS.. Spay the thing, remove package manager, net logging and only give a few select programs to run with NO man pages by default.
Is that what people are looking to do? Write shell scripts and move files around via terminal from their phones (within their phone or another they own)?
jackFang Look at the replies that GrapheneOS posts here:
https://infosec.exchange/@tasket/113360063157076966
The team goes into details about use of VM and GPU acceleration.
mmobder
Sorry to hear they ditch the Android apk... This has been a neat solution for a lot of people. Maybe a skilled developer take on the maintenance of the app.
Thanks. I heard there have been serious vulnerabilities with Termux before. I have now uninstalled that app.
mmobder neither. i am saying if there's a "new " terminal app, it most definately will be nuetered. Probably like the Crosh term within ChromeOS.
That is all i was saying. Not sure where u got those other ideas from. Termux is one of the first things most new devs and hackivists will get to see where, they look and be like "that is cool", and want to do that.
Who doesn't like pretty printed text, raining matrix alphabet, and moo-ving through the FS manually?
They dont even completed desktop mode , why would they add such a large function in the next upgrade, does not make sense.
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mmobder Termux by itself is kinda old and dangerous app, not talking about its repositories that are almost always connect to .cn servers
The Play Store version targets SDK 34 now though which is nice.
This has now rolled out to the stock Pixel OS as part of the March 2025 update, according to https://www.androidauthority.com/android-linux-terminal-app-available-3532999/
Though it is reportedly terminal apps only (GUI apps are expected to work in Android 16).
Anyone gotten a chance to try it out yet? I'm guessing, at least right now, it's on stock OS only. I don't see the option to enable it on my GOS device.
spammerofspam It's in the developer options on the latest release which will go to stable soon, but it does not work on GrapheneOS yet. We need to make it work with our hardening, which we're actively working on, and it will be possible to use it in a future release.
matchboxbananasynergy Great to know! I'm hoping it may be feasible to use this instead of Termux in the future, but I guess it remains to be seen how well this solution integrates with Android storage, etc.
Even with just terminal apps, though, it'll hopefully be useful for firing off the occasional ffmpeg or rclone command.
matchboxbananasynergy
Would it be possible to have the terminal accessible with the developer options disabled?
slimjim55 It probably will be.
I hope people share their use cases once it goes live. Debian already runs on all my other devices, and I believe there will be many innovative setups w/ the additional capabilities
The next release should have this working.
Super cool that you guys have this working now! I just tried it myself and I couldn't be more excited. Does anyone know how to access internal storage from the terminal?
matchboxbananasynergy Much love <3 I wanted a good terminal app for a while