I have a Samsung a51 that I debloated, I want to use it as a Linux toy and get a distro running either installed or through an emulator like termux.
I want to run something like debian
Any recommendations for apps to use to get Linux running?
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You’re already running linux. There is no such thing as linux emulator.
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If you want to run debian - install debian. It eill be one hell of a learning experience.
Yeah, Linux is just the kernel, and android a layer on top of it with a GUI, anyway you can easily have a terminal open on a cellphone or even from a PC do a “adb shell” command and you’re in it, top, mkdir, cd, etc. If you are root, install busybox and all.
I guess OP wants to install a full distro on his cellphone?
Debian supports my device?
Tjisb is I need a way to interact with it on the phoen alone
Nah they’re wrong debian doesn’t support 99% of android hardware, most of which is proprietary and non reverse enginered.
The best you can do is termux, but there are ways to get gpu acceleration depending on your hardware
So only option is twrmux?
Essentially yeah, any phone that can run linageos has a lot more options but a lot worse support for anything that doesn’t like root.
If you are one of those lucky few you can look into things like Ubuntu touch
I looked at Ubuntu but the best I could do is a clone of the launcher. Its real picky
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Try using just Termux. You can actually do a lot with it, even without installing a distro. If you want Debian though, one approach would be through proot-distro which installs a traditional distro in the Termux environment. It has some limitations, check the wiki page.
Anlinux from app store
Think you can install a desktop environment on termux, there are guides online for that
Termux isn’t an emulator though, afaik it’s an actual distro that runs on your phone’s existing Linux kernel alongside android
It runs a lot like a container
No it doesn’t, Termux is just a set of Linux packages which are compiled to use the Android Termux application data directory as the base install path. There is no separation from the host system like a container does with Linux kernel namespaces. The only permission in Termux is what Android itself enforces.
You got me there, like a container without containing it?
But I suppose most like a privellaged container (as much as the android user is privellaged).
The most important connection in my analogy though was it runs its ‘root’/those packages separately from the android operating system, cause we can’t install our own packages there