I saw someone else mention this, it would be ironic if it were easier to run software of your choice via a VM on Android than simply install an apk. Nonetheless, I would love to see gpu acceleration being well supported. It's already insane how many old games can be emulated, and being able to run even just desktop versions of apps is excellent.
> it would be ironic if it were easier to run software of your choice via a VM on Android than simply install an apk
That seems to be the road we are heading down, but I think some of it may be intentional. It's a way to shut up the masses without relinquishing control of the OS back to the user.
Google's way of going "Here, we'll just "let" you run Linux" but it's also getting people used to the idea that Linux is just an "app" you run, the underlying OS still remains locked down as ever. The dangerous parts of Google's change isn't just not being able to run your own software, it's device attestation and the power that gives them (and Governments) to control what your computer can and cannot do.
If Microsoft ever implements similar changes to Windows I'll view WSL the same way.
It's just an illusion of freedom to placate us nerds.
Termux is the only thing making Android nerd-useful and Google could make it useless at any time by just tweaking some permissions (e.g. come up with a few more ways to restrict app access to the file-sysye m). I don't want a phone without convenient ssh or rsync support (or git or fossil), or having to find some app to use instead of all the already existing command-line tools that Termux provides.
It is good enough that I am not in a hurry to try to go back to use some more open linux-based phone again, but definitely held back by not being allowed to be better integrated in the OS.
That's the world we are in. Operating systems in modern computers are pretty much just sandboxed apps being run by the firmware.
On lower end phones, it is already common to have the OS that the firmware runs be a realtime hypervisor that multiplexes Android with a higher priority realtime OS to help drive the radio.
> device attestation and the power that gives them (and Governments) to control what your computer can and cannot do.
Device attastation is probably the least scary form of this. You still get to run whatever software you want; all you lose out on is the ability to interact with external services that demand attestation. This is a much more pro-consumer way of implementing DRM than actually locking down computers, which looked to be the way the industry was heading for years.
> all you lose out on is the ability to interact with external services that demand attestation.
That's the problem "lose out on the ability to function on modern society unless you use an approved device or an approved OS." Not looking forward to a world where I have to have two phones, one "approved government and bank services phone" and one that's a device I actually own and control.
> This is a much more pro-consumer way of implementing DRM than actually locking down computers
No such thing as pro-consumer DRM, it's an oxymoron.
And Google IS locking down computers, requiring identity verification and Google to sign any app to run on Android, which conveniently they could pull at any time.
What happens when online services stop even doing business via their website and forces the use of a mobile app? Suddenly now all Linux (and Mac and Windows) computers are locked out of interacting with most of the commercial web and you are forced to have a tracking device to simply exist.
Maybe it's a "lesser evil" but it's still evil, and not something we should just settle on and accept.
Is there someone who knows if there is a good solution to running new android virtual? I want to be able to use my smartphone as a dumb terminal to log into the real phone at home. Here in the Netherlands internet is so fast that is must be doable. Haven't found a good emulator yet.
Depending on what you're trying to do exactly, you may have some luck with waydroid. Whether that counts as virtualized Android is an argument of semantics, but it would let you run many Android apps on a normal desktop in a way that can be exposed over VNC or whatever.
Containers are native. They aren't (usually) emulators. They are shipping the entire OS with the runnable, but the runnable is still ultimately working with the host kernel and the host memory spaces.
As for Wayland v X11. Wayland has gotten pretty nice over the last year or so. It's much more straight forward to work with vs the old fiddly xorg.conf files.
> As for Wayland v X11. Wayland has gotten pretty nice over the last year or so. It's much more straight forward to work with vs the old fiddly xorg.conf files.
I don't think they wanted Xorg, I think they were asking for SurfaceFlinger rendering directly to hardware with no intermediate layer.
The worst thing we could do is start to rely on Android/iOS for desktop work. As soon as it starts to become normalized that your desktop environment can forbid you from running code that isn't blessed by their app store, it's over.
"Motorola moto g play 2024 Smartphone, Android 14 Operating System, Termux, And cryptsetup: Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) Encryption/Decryption And The ext4 Filesystem Without Using root Access, Without Using proot-distro, And Without Using QEMU": https://old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1jkl0f8/motorola_mot... (old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1jkl0f8/motorola_moto_g_play_2024_smartphone_android_14/)
Damn Today I learnt that termux doesn't in fact run through proot or is an emulator like userland but that it somehow does it natively using android-ndk
I was using userland which is doing emulation from what i know, my phone for god knows what for some reason doesn't work through termux but now I kinda want to patch an app with termux or something and publishing it to f-droid :p
All of this is just adding the capabilities needed to lock down the future Android-powered “Chromebooks” and just give you a walled Linux shell garden and say it’s “just as good” as running the real thing on the metal itself.
"Motorola moto g play 2024 smartphone, Termux application, and QEMU running under Termux: Booting "Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)" with debian-12-nocloud-amd64.qcow2": https://old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1mkyers/motorola_mot... (old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1mkyers/motorola_moto_g_play_2024_smartphone_termux/)
I thought so until I met people who use termux with a GUI and then just plug a normal screen / mouse / keyboard to their android phone with a usb-c dock
Microsoft has demonstrated with Windows for touchscreen PCs that it's not just a problem with small screens, but small touch targets in mouse oriented user interfaces.
The other side of the coin is with everybody trying to cram AI features into an existing touch UI, touch targets are shrinking and buttons and hard to differentiate gestures are getting overloaded. It used to be that I could tell people that touch UI was great because a toddler could readily master it. Try telling a toddler about edge gestures. Those days are gone now.
> touch targets are shrinking and buttons and hard to differentiate
iOS 26 went overboard in this direction, especially on iPad. They took what used to be a great touch screen experience and made it only usable with mouse and keyboard. The traffic light buttons are horrible touch targets, as is the menu on top of the screen.
Even on iPhone the long press menus have been crammed so full and their font size reduced that they are much worse touch targets.
This OS that used to work great on a 3.5" screen is now difficult to use on a big 6.5" screen. We've gone totally backwards.
Windows 8 set out to change that by redesigning the UI to make most touch targets much bigger, and add lots of padding around them. And many highly visible parts of Windows (and other MS apps) still live with these design compromises. It can be done. Many would even call this "modern" and "clean" design.
Gnome is quite usable on a touchscreen paradigm. As a keyboard-driven user I don't like the touchscreen paradigm anyway, but I've seen my kids use Gnome with a touchscreen and be pretty satisfied with it. For individual apps I expect we'll see either mobile-friendly UIs emerge or entirely new apps. Predicting open source is pretty tough, but that's my gut on it.
Too bad there’s not a single usable touch screen video app for gnome, the main reason I’m using it (well phosh). Browser video works well so it can be done.
> "Desktop interaction paradigms (mouse/keyboard) and UI layouts do not make sense on a mobile phone."
Yes, they obviously do; these very paradigms become important the moment one connects relevant HIDs to a capable-enough smartphone. That also includes high-precision operation in an untethered state, e. g. by way of a suitable stylus. Etc.
It’s not even just about that. The real advantage is being able to dock a phone and edit photos or videos shot earlier in the day within a desktop-style environment directly on the device. This removes the need to transfer files to a separate editing system. The phone itself becomes a complete creative workstation that can sync to the cloud whenever needed.
Note that Google doesn't allow you to install your distro of choice there - it's only the debian OS prepared by them.. maybe today you'll have root access inside that VM, but tomorrow you might not..
And of course to run a VM (if you wanted to make a competing app for example) you need a special system permission which you can't get without your device losing "integrity" status.
Since when does a UI need GPU acceleration to be smooth? It certainly doesn't on the linux desktop. Many smartphones are powerful (non-general purpose) computers these days; is it just energy/battery restrictions preventing them from being useful computers?
But also: why does this matter? Android is a dead ecosystem. Smart phones are a dead ecosystem. Google literally just announced that no one is allowed to develop for it and actually have random people run their applications without paying a protection fee and doxing yourself for future leaks and/or government crackdowns. Just like Apple. On your "own" smartphones you won't even be allowed to run your own software.
The only reason anyone would ever keep developing software for such platforms is if someone is paying them. And that leads to crappy software. The smartphone platforms will be entirely commercial and lose all the "scratch my own itch" software. Becoming merely a fancy bank/video/navigation/shopping terminal you have no control over.
>Android is a dead ecosystem. Smart phones are a dead ecosystem.
Smartphones are going to become our legal digital identity. While I'm not greatly happy about that, I do see it's inevitability - as no good alternatives have emerged. At least there are two platforms and not just one.
There's been a good alternative the whole time. It's called not requiring a "digital identity."
Anonymity and pseudo-Anonymity on the web has worked, and would continue to work. We don't need device attestation that you are running a specific OS, from a specific vendor, with specific apps (or not) to interact with the digital world. People have been interacting with digital services from a computer web browser without that tech since the 90s.
If a digital identity is a must (and I don't think it is), it should at minimum not be tied to a proprietary, locked down OS on proprietary hardware that you don't own or control. I'd rather my "legal digital identity" be a public/private key pair that I control, not tied to any specific device.
> We don't need device attestation that you are running a specific OS, from a specific vendor, with specific apps (or not) to interact with the digital world.
> Smartphones are going to become our legal digital identity.
This is not a “done deal“ by any means and it’s a mistake to speak of it this way. I for one will reject such a mandate even if it makes life incredibly inconvenient. (I also know others who are switching away from big tech smartphones and who do not intend to return.)
We can’t hand off something as essential as ID to these megacorps, as it will only further increase their leverage over governments (i.e. the people). While I’m not happy with many government actions lately, at least they are nominally accountable!
I said that it's an inevitability not a done deal. Governments will probably provide a backup of sorts - like now when you fly you can say that you don't want your face scanned but the backup is to go wait in another line.
The only backup that I can envision is to memorize a long passphrase.
I understand your sentiment here, but
> Smart phones are a dead ecosystem.
is not true.
Google and Apple think they can do it because they know they are a duopoly.When they keep doing things like these, I hope we will see someone else coming forward to better serve their customers.
> The only reason anyone would ever keep developing software for such platforms is if someone is paying them
Have you ever heard the name of f-droid?At least in android , this is not true.
We can't let the bad examples be the only examples.
afaik at least half the things you said are simply not true. Android is not dead. It might be dead to you based on your values, but that doesn't change the fact that loads of people use it and develop for it. Stop exeggerating, please.
>Becoming merely a fancy bank/video/navigation/shopping terminal you have no control over.
Eh? I'm pretty sure I qualified my statements and you're just agreeing with the qualification I made. Yes, people will continue to use them. Yes, corporations will continue to develop for them. But they're not general purpose computers anymore. And if you're a human person geek I doubt you're going to want to use them for computing. But it'll take a bit for everyone to wake up to the new situation. Just like it took a bit for everyone to wake up to the social media problems. https://xkcd.com/743/
Yes, I accidentally was doing that until last month because I messed up my drivers and didn't notice. It's fine. Seriously, I didn't even notice until I happened to open the about dialog in KDE and it cheerfully informed me that we were using llvmpipe. And having since fixed it to actually use the GPU... I can't actually tell the difference now.
I saw someone else mention this, it would be ironic if it were easier to run software of your choice via a VM on Android than simply install an apk. Nonetheless, I would love to see gpu acceleration being well supported. It's already insane how many old games can be emulated, and being able to run even just desktop versions of apps is excellent.
> it would be ironic if it were easier to run software of your choice via a VM on Android than simply install an apk
That seems to be the road we are heading down, but I think some of it may be intentional. It's a way to shut up the masses without relinquishing control of the OS back to the user.
Google's way of going "Here, we'll just "let" you run Linux" but it's also getting people used to the idea that Linux is just an "app" you run, the underlying OS still remains locked down as ever. The dangerous parts of Google's change isn't just not being able to run your own software, it's device attestation and the power that gives them (and Governments) to control what your computer can and cannot do.
If Microsoft ever implements similar changes to Windows I'll view WSL the same way.
It's just an illusion of freedom to placate us nerds.
Termux is the only thing making Android nerd-useful and Google could make it useless at any time by just tweaking some permissions (e.g. come up with a few more ways to restrict app access to the file-sysye m). I don't want a phone without convenient ssh or rsync support (or git or fossil), or having to find some app to use instead of all the already existing command-line tools that Termux provides.
It is good enough that I am not in a hurry to try to go back to use some more open linux-based phone again, but definitely held back by not being allowed to be better integrated in the OS.
That's the world we are in. Operating systems in modern computers are pretty much just sandboxed apps being run by the firmware.
On lower end phones, it is already common to have the OS that the firmware runs be a realtime hypervisor that multiplexes Android with a higher priority realtime OS to help drive the radio.
> device attestation and the power that gives them (and Governments) to control what your computer can and cannot do.
Device attastation is probably the least scary form of this. You still get to run whatever software you want; all you lose out on is the ability to interact with external services that demand attestation. This is a much more pro-consumer way of implementing DRM than actually locking down computers, which looked to be the way the industry was heading for years.
> all you lose out on is the ability to interact with external services that demand attestation.
That's the problem "lose out on the ability to function on modern society unless you use an approved device or an approved OS." Not looking forward to a world where I have to have two phones, one "approved government and bank services phone" and one that's a device I actually own and control.
> This is a much more pro-consumer way of implementing DRM than actually locking down computers
No such thing as pro-consumer DRM, it's an oxymoron.
And Google IS locking down computers, requiring identity verification and Google to sign any app to run on Android, which conveniently they could pull at any time.
What happens when online services stop even doing business via their website and forces the use of a mobile app? Suddenly now all Linux (and Mac and Windows) computers are locked out of interacting with most of the commercial web and you are forced to have a tracking device to simply exist.
Maybe it's a "lesser evil" but it's still evil, and not something we should just settle on and accept.
> one that's a device I actually own and control.
Where do you find such a device today? Pixel with GrapheneOS? Any decent mobile Linux hardware I don’t know about?
https://murena.com/products/smartphones/
/e/os is just lineage os fork? What does it give me over my one plus with linage os? Also if this is de googled probably banking apps won't work.
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
Is there someone who knows if there is a good solution to running new android virtual? I want to be able to use my smartphone as a dumb terminal to log into the real phone at home. Here in the Netherlands internet is so fast that is must be doable. Haven't found a good emulator yet.
Depending on what you're trying to do exactly, you may have some luck with waydroid. Whether that counts as virtualized Android is an argument of semantics, but it would let you run many Android apps on a normal desktop in a way that can be exposed over VNC or whatever.
I’ve been wanting to run an Android VM for a long time. It’s a workaround to keep Android apps isolated in a Linux phone (or tablet).
But there’s really not much in this space. It seems that nobody is running Android on VM… or those that do aren’t sharing how they do so.
I think it is called emulator.
> It seems that nobody is running Android on VM… or those that do aren’t sharing how they do so.
On GNU/Linux mobile, Waydroid allows to run Android apps.
On desktop, Qubes OS runs everything in VMs for security, and they have related guides:
https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/waydroid-template/23356
https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/android-vm-options-and-blissos-...
https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/android-x86-qube-installation-g...
Very good, but I was hoping for the reverse: Android GUI on Linux.
https://waydro.id/
No, not like that. Not in a container and display through wayland. Native and instead of wayland.
Containers are native. They aren't (usually) emulators. They are shipping the entire OS with the runnable, but the runnable is still ultimately working with the host kernel and the host memory spaces.
As for Wayland v X11. Wayland has gotten pretty nice over the last year or so. It's much more straight forward to work with vs the old fiddly xorg.conf files.
> As for Wayland v X11. Wayland has gotten pretty nice over the last year or so. It's much more straight forward to work with vs the old fiddly xorg.conf files.
I don't think they wanted Xorg, I think they were asking for SurfaceFlinger rendering directly to hardware with no intermediate layer.
Native instead of Wayland is just called Android.
It's not hard to run waydroid on cage as the whole desktop, at which point I don't think there's a meaningful distinction.
> Android GUI on Linux
Isn’t that exactly what Android is? A GUI on a Linux kernel?
The worst thing we could do is start to rely on Android/iOS for desktop work. As soon as it starts to become normalized that your desktop environment can forbid you from running code that isn't blessed by their app store, it's over.
Android is over. Linux on mobile is the future.
I hope so. I would buy glasses with monitor and some gloves that allow me to manipulate ui that runs on my phone.
"Motorola moto g play 2024 Smartphone, Android 14 Operating System, Termux, And cryptsetup: Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) Encryption/Decryption And The ext4 Filesystem Without Using root Access, Without Using proot-distro, And Without Using QEMU": https://old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1jkl0f8/motorola_mot... (old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1jkl0f8/motorola_moto_g_play_2024_smartphone_android_14/)
Damn Today I learnt that termux doesn't in fact run through proot or is an emulator like userland but that it somehow does it natively using android-ndk
I was using userland which is doing emulation from what i know, my phone for god knows what for some reason doesn't work through termux but now I kinda want to patch an app with termux or something and publishing it to f-droid :p
All of this is just adding the capabilities needed to lock down the future Android-powered “Chromebooks” and just give you a walled Linux shell garden and say it’s “just as good” as running the real thing on the metal itself.
"Motorola moto g play 2024 smartphone, Termux application, and QEMU running under Termux: Booting "Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)" with debian-12-nocloud-amd64.qcow2": https://old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1mkyers/motorola_mot... (old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1mkyers/motorola_moto_g_play_2024_smartphone_termux/)
Desktop interaction paradigms (mouse/keyboard) and UI layouts do not make sense on a mobile phone.
I thought so until I met people who use termux with a GUI and then just plug a normal screen / mouse / keyboard to their android phone with a usb-c dock
You can plug a keyboard, mouse, and external display into Android via a USB-C hub.
Microsoft has demonstrated with Windows for touchscreen PCs that it's not just a problem with small screens, but small touch targets in mouse oriented user interfaces.
The other side of the coin is with everybody trying to cram AI features into an existing touch UI, touch targets are shrinking and buttons and hard to differentiate gestures are getting overloaded. It used to be that I could tell people that touch UI was great because a toddler could readily master it. Try telling a toddler about edge gestures. Those days are gone now.
> touch targets are shrinking and buttons and hard to differentiate
iOS 26 went overboard in this direction, especially on iPad. They took what used to be a great touch screen experience and made it only usable with mouse and keyboard. The traffic light buttons are horrible touch targets, as is the menu on top of the screen.
Even on iPhone the long press menus have been crammed so full and their font size reduced that they are much worse touch targets.
This OS that used to work great on a 3.5" screen is now difficult to use on a big 6.5" screen. We've gone totally backwards.
Windows 8 set out to change that by redesigning the UI to make most touch targets much bigger, and add lots of padding around them. And many highly visible parts of Windows (and other MS apps) still live with these design compromises. It can be done. Many would even call this "modern" and "clean" design.
Gnome is quite usable on a touchscreen paradigm. As a keyboard-driven user I don't like the touchscreen paradigm anyway, but I've seen my kids use Gnome with a touchscreen and be pretty satisfied with it. For individual apps I expect we'll see either mobile-friendly UIs emerge or entirely new apps. Predicting open source is pretty tough, but that's my gut on it.
Too bad there’s not a single usable touch screen video app for gnome, the main reason I’m using it (well phosh). Browser video works well so it can be done.
Probably this is mainly for Android on laptops. They're replacing ChromeOS.
And Android phones plugged into desktop docks.
> "Desktop interaction paradigms (mouse/keyboard) and UI layouts do not make sense on a mobile phone."
Yes, they obviously do; these very paradigms become important the moment one connects relevant HIDs to a capable-enough smartphone. That also includes high-precision operation in an untethered state, e. g. by way of a suitable stylus. Etc.
It’s not even just about that. The real advantage is being able to dock a phone and edit photos or videos shot earlier in the day within a desktop-style environment directly on the device. This removes the need to transfer files to a separate editing system. The phone itself becomes a complete creative workstation that can sync to the cloud whenever needed.
Why not? Convergent desktop apps can automatically adjust their UI when shown on a small screen.
Android is atrocious to use on a tablet! I'm not a big fan of Linux, but it would be a delight to use instead of Android on tablets with a stylus.
https://puri.sm/products/librem-11
Heck it's hard enough bringing desktop Linux guis to desktop Linux
Note that Google doesn't allow you to install your distro of choice there - it's only the debian OS prepared by them.. maybe today you'll have root access inside that VM, but tomorrow you might not..
And of course to run a VM (if you wanted to make a competing app for example) you need a special system permission which you can't get without your device losing "integrity" status.
can't wait to be able to use GrapheneOS for my desktop tasks :D
Unfortunately, the Linux app devs for Android 16 have locked out the GPU support.
Since when does a UI need GPU acceleration to be smooth? It certainly doesn't on the linux desktop. Many smartphones are powerful (non-general purpose) computers these days; is it just energy/battery restrictions preventing them from being useful computers?
But also: why does this matter? Android is a dead ecosystem. Smart phones are a dead ecosystem. Google literally just announced that no one is allowed to develop for it and actually have random people run their applications without paying a protection fee and doxing yourself for future leaks and/or government crackdowns. Just like Apple. On your "own" smartphones you won't even be allowed to run your own software.
The only reason anyone would ever keep developing software for such platforms is if someone is paying them. And that leads to crappy software. The smartphone platforms will be entirely commercial and lose all the "scratch my own itch" software. Becoming merely a fancy bank/video/navigation/shopping terminal you have no control over.
>Android is a dead ecosystem. Smart phones are a dead ecosystem.
Smartphones are going to become our legal digital identity. While I'm not greatly happy about that, I do see it's inevitability - as no good alternatives have emerged. At least there are two platforms and not just one.
> as no good alternatives have emerged.
There's been a good alternative the whole time. It's called not requiring a "digital identity."
Anonymity and pseudo-Anonymity on the web has worked, and would continue to work. We don't need device attestation that you are running a specific OS, from a specific vendor, with specific apps (or not) to interact with the digital world. People have been interacting with digital services from a computer web browser without that tech since the 90s.
If a digital identity is a must (and I don't think it is), it should at minimum not be tied to a proprietary, locked down OS on proprietary hardware that you don't own or control. I'd rather my "legal digital identity" be a public/private key pair that I control, not tied to any specific device.
> We don't need device attestation that you are running a specific OS, from a specific vendor, with specific apps (or not) to interact with the digital world.
None of that. Just your ID.
> Smartphones are going to become our legal digital identity.
This is not a “done deal“ by any means and it’s a mistake to speak of it this way. I for one will reject such a mandate even if it makes life incredibly inconvenient. (I also know others who are switching away from big tech smartphones and who do not intend to return.)
We can’t hand off something as essential as ID to these megacorps, as it will only further increase their leverage over governments (i.e. the people). While I’m not happy with many government actions lately, at least they are nominally accountable!
I said that it's an inevitability not a done deal. Governments will probably provide a backup of sorts - like now when you fly you can say that you don't want your face scanned but the backup is to go wait in another line.
The only backup that I can envision is to memorize a long passphrase.
I understand your sentiment here, but > Smart phones are a dead ecosystem. is not true.
Google and Apple think they can do it because they know they are a duopoly.When they keep doing things like these, I hope we will see someone else coming forward to better serve their customers.
> The only reason anyone would ever keep developing software for such platforms is if someone is paying them Have you ever heard the name of f-droid?At least in android , this is not true. We can't let the bad examples be the only examples.
afaik at least half the things you said are simply not true. Android is not dead. It might be dead to you based on your values, but that doesn't change the fact that loads of people use it and develop for it. Stop exeggerating, please.
>Becoming merely a fancy bank/video/navigation/shopping terminal you have no control over.
Eh? I'm pretty sure I qualified my statements and you're just agreeing with the qualification I made. Yes, people will continue to use them. Yes, corporations will continue to develop for them. But they're not general purpose computers anymore. And if you're a human person geek I doubt you're going to want to use them for computing. But it'll take a bit for everyone to wake up to the new situation. Just like it took a bit for everyone to wake up to the social media problems. https://xkcd.com/743/
> It certainly doesn't on the linux desktop.
...yes it does, when have you last tried daily driving an llvmpipe-rendered desktop?
Yes, I accidentally was doing that until last month because I messed up my drivers and didn't notice. It's fine. Seriously, I didn't even notice until I happened to open the about dialog in KDE and it cheerfully informed me that we were using llvmpipe. And having since fixed it to actually use the GPU... I can't actually tell the difference now.