this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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Qualcomm claims that my Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus' Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU is faster than the Intel Core Ultra 288V chip. My smartphone also has 12GB of RAM and 512GB of solid-state storage. In short, it's more powerful than most of my laptops. So why not use it as a laptop?

Why not, indeed, says Google, which has introduced -- at long last -- a native Linux Terminal application in its March 2025 Pixel Feature Drop.

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[–] slippyferret@lemmy.blahaj.zone 80 points 5 days ago (3 children)

That headline got me really excited before I realized they meant “in an app”.

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's just virtualization, the same way you would run a Debian VM under Windows or whatever.

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 5 days ago (1 children)

yeah, but being able to replace Android would have been nice.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Why would you want to not use Android? Can't you just de-google your android if that's your concern? Android is made for mobile devices.

[–] Kyouki@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Feels backwards and you're still not fully in control.

[–] Anivia@feddit.org 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

How are you not fully in control when running a foss rom? The only thing you can't do (easily) is run a different Linux kernel due to drivers

[–] anzo@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

Firmware. The same things that Linux struggles to control any given phone fully with all the hardware that basically make a "phone" (gps, bluetooth, wifi, camera, accelerometers, etc.) for details, see https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

The only phones that support it are either old or niche, I love my Google Pixel 9 and I would rather not give it up (I also love GraphineOS)

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[–] crabigno@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Spanish BQ manufacturer sold Ubuntu phones a while ago. I had one, and it felt great. Unfortunately the phone itself (the screen in particular) was pretty low quality, and the customer support not qualitative enough. Mine broke just by sitting in the couch with it in my pocket. That was a huge lost opportunity.

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[–] Renohren@lemmy.today 16 points 4 days ago

Lil Debbie works on Android phones for quite a few years now, devs didn't wait on google to chroot the hell out of android.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 21 points 5 days ago (4 children)

This doesn't sound like proper linux to me. I want to be able to plug in a USB (or what ever the storage device would be, microUSB for phones I guess) and boot from that. Where 1 image works for any device of the same architecture. This is the main thing I dislike about ARM currently.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago

I don't think anybody expected that. This is just a shitty headline.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 days ago

How about multi-booting via Ventoy?

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[–] the_q@lemm.ee 33 points 5 days ago (9 children)

My dream has been to have a phone that works like a phone until I get home and plug in a monitor and kbm then it's a full fledged PC. Think Dex but not shitty Samsung Android. While I'm dreaming while docked it could also utilize a desktop grade GPU.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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[–] Webster@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

Honestly the steamdeck shows we are getting close. It works like that, just in a slightly bigger form factor and without some of the phone hardware.

A little more tech advancement and I think this won't be that hard to do.

[–] SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

Dex is the closest I can get right now. I'd love to have one device. However I'll need to degoogle and foss more things. I rely on Google Too much for games and such.

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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 46 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 38 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Yes, except google is slowly killing Termux with a thousand cuts, while they will kill this only after a few years.

[–] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They do? Can you elaborate?

[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Author faces regularly many issues when trying do make a new version of Termux to yet another set of googles demands or restrictions, sometimes unable to update play store version for years. As an (just) example, see this issue: https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-Android-10

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[–] tinsuke@lemmy.world 24 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sorry Google, PostmarketOS will scratch that itch and soon enough eat your lunch: https://postmarketos.org/

[–] gamer@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

I like postmarketos, but lol. Lmao, even.

[–] Eagle0110@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is just a Linux VM just like th Crostini in ChromeOS, so I'd expect similar 40%+ performance loss compares to for example proot container through Termux running natively.

The only thing this could probably offer would be giving you better OS GUI Integration into Android, like Crostini on a ChromeOS device. But if that is needed you might as well just use an Android port or an Android equivalent of your Linux software anyway, it's not like you'd ever want to run Matlab, GIMP or OpenFOAM on your Android phone with its tiny screen anyway LMAO

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[–] Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago

Can't believe it's been 10 years since Ms-Dos mobile.

This part of the merge between Chrome OS and Android and is intended to replace Cros

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I am pretty sure it was possible even like 15 years ago through unofficial app on Google Play. What's new here?

[–] lonesomeCat@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 days ago

It's now official™

[–] gamer@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

I remember running some linux distro on my G1 wayy back in the day. Idk if it was debian, but it was a formative learning experience for me since it taught me what "chroot" was.

[–] JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Tested this on my Pixel 8a. Works as you would expect. Personally I have a little hard time coming up with use cases for this but I guess it's kinda cool.

[–] American_Jesus@lemm.ee 32 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Looks very similar to termux

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 days ago

Probably hella nerfed in comparison.

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[–] GenderNeutralBro 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Does it have access to the same filesystem as Android? I've been looking for Android apps that can do something like dropbox's "online only" feature. Most cloud storage providers offer that on desktop but I've never found one that works on Android. It's just photo syncing or nothing usually, and even that doesn't work like I want.

Also, can it run uninterrupted in the background or is android going to unceremoniously kill it randomly like it does with normal apps?

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[–] dai@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Man I feel I'd almost wiped the debian install and added NixOS (nix package manager works fine under debian) using nixos-infect

A clean install and a night's sleep and I'll probably forget I was attempting this, but looks promising.

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[–] bennypr0fane@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Like the Nokia N900 did back in 2004 - except it was a real mobile OS (but fully yours)

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[–] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] perishthethought@lemm.ee 34 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Its goog so:

  • you get Debian terminal, run whatever you want!
  • they get to track everything you do, remember your passwords for you and sell that data to everyone they can!
[–] SatyrSack@feddit.org 45 points 5 days ago

The GrapheneOS devs have been working on enabling this with all their hardening tweaks

[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Everything you want, except sudo! That's freaking dangerous for you!

[–] cron@feddit.org 28 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This incident will be reported.

[–] cron@feddit.org 8 points 5 days ago

If this will be anything like the Linux environment in chromebooks, then it will lack hardware acceleration. This could result in linux programs feeling sluggish and slow.

[–] TheWilliamist@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Samsung’s DEX had a downloadable Linux VM running nearly a decade ago.

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[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Why do we want this when we can already install it via Termux?

[–] Grazed@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is native while termux is emulated, I think.

[–] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago

If this is anything like crostini on ChromeOS, Google's solution is also virtualized.

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