That headline got me really excited before I realized they meant “in an app”.
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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It's just virtualization, the same way you would run a Debian VM under Windows or whatever.
yeah, but being able to replace Android would have been nice.
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.
Feels backwards and you're still not fully in control.
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
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
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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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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.
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.
May I introduce you to what already existed at one time? (Motorola Atrix 4G from 2011 with Ubuntu desktop when docked.)
Wow, that is incredible!
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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.
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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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.
I don't think anybody expected that. This is just a shitty headline.
How about multi-booting via Ventoy?
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Isn't that Termux?
Yes, except google is slowly killing Termux with a thousand cuts, while they will kill this only after a few years.
They do? Can you elaborate?
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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Sorry Google, PostmarketOS will scratch that itch and soon enough eat your lunch: https://postmarketos.org/
I like postmarketos, but lol. Lmao, even.
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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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.
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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Can't believe it's been 10 years since Ms-Dos mobile.
I am pretty sure it was possible even like 15 years ago through unofficial app on Google Play. What's new here?
It's now official™
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.
This part of the merge between Chrome OS and Android and is intended to replace Cros
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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What's the catch
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!
The GrapheneOS devs have been working on enabling this with all their hardening tweaks
Everything you want, except sudo! That's freaking dangerous for you!
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.
Like the Nokia N900 did back in 2004 - except it was a real mobile OS (but fully yours)
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Samsung’s DEX had a downloadable Linux VM running nearly a decade ago.
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Why do we want this when we can already install it via Termux?
This is native while termux is emulated, I think.
If this is anything like crostini on ChromeOS, Google's solution is also virtualized.
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Is there an official source for this?
The article links to this blog post, but I did not see anything relevant in it: