I'm so very lucky to have a device with linux mainline ported to it.
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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Linux phone user spotted in the wild! Nice! ❤❤❤
Linux tablet* :))
Someone who owns a fancy new phone with Android 15 or 16, could you please test if you can run GUI Linux apps on it using my X server app?
Supposedly it should work like this:
- Install and run XSDL app
- Go to home screen, open Linux terminal
- Run commands
sudo apt-get install task-xfce-desktop
export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0
xfce4-session
Open XSDL app again, you should see XFCE desktop environment with mouse cursor, and you should be able to launch Synaptic and install other Linux packages.
It tells me it is not compatible with my phone. Is it on fdroid? Can I sideload it from somewhere? I have a OnePlus 12 phone and it is running Android 15
Google's bullshit strikes again! All apps must be built for Android 13 or they are removed from Play Store, apparently because Google could not do the Android security correctly for the first 12 versions. Now they can emulate Linux on Android, but cannot emulate an older version of Android on Android. And I last updated my app in 2021, during Android 11 era.
Here's the link to sideload the app:
I'll try to update it on Play Store tomorrow, if my crusty build scrips will work with the new Android SDK.
Ok, the app doesn't have any place to enter those commands. It opens up this msdos like blue terminal and it's stuck there. I can't type anything. And the keyboard shows when I press the back button on the phone. I can't exit the app,I can only exit with the home button
You need to enter these commands in the Linux terminal app, not in the X server app. Once the two apps connect, it should be possible to launch another terminal inside the X server.
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Go to your phone Settings > About Phone and tap "Build number" seven times. You will receive notification that your phone now has developer options enabled.
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Settings > System > Developer Options > Linux development environment. On that page, tap the On/Off slider.
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You will find an icon for the new Terminal app on your home screen. It's going to download 500 MB of data when you open it.
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Long-press the Terminal app icon, tap Info > Mobile data, and enable Unrestricted data usage.
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Now you can download more packages inside your Linux virtual machine using
apt-getcommand, as described in my previous post.
I'm pretty sure this is all in android 16 beta, which I don't have. My dev options don't include that Linux development environment option.
It's supposed to be available on Android 15, but only on 'select devices', so probably only on Pixel.
Thanks for trying it.
Could be. I don't like the pixels. And I don't like OnePlus either. Phones are like TV remotes now. So narrow and watching videos on them sucks. Going back to my Samsung ultra line up next year.
Why do you have to emulate Linux on Android? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Android was Linux?
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is not in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
Yup, Android is Linux, but you can't run desktop apps on it like Gimp or LibreOffice or VS Code, that's what Linux terminal is capable of.
Yeah let me know when I can install mainline Linux.
Definitely a step in the right direction, but the fact that android uses the Linux kernel but still manufacturers keep so much proprietary... It kills me
I mean... This is kinda close. The "Linux Terminal" app is running a full Debian install in a KVM VM. On the newest version of the app (like on Android beta or on GrapheneOS), you even have a full GUI that you can use.
In theory, we should be able to boot any mainline Linux distro in a VM, if someone writes an app for it, as AVF (Android Virtualization Framework) is just a wrapper around Linux KVM with some restrictions. (for now the built-in app only supports Debian)
It reminds me Linux in chromeOS. Do apps use Wayland or X?
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They're doing this because they want to switch chrome to be android based, and they want to have desktop apps available right away since chrome doesn't have much.
Not just that - modern Androids compile apps in a VM these days to reduce the attack surface of the compiler. You can also push other services into VMs that support the main image. You could even push some vendor drivers into VMs and help keep the main kernel less of a vendor fork fest.
It depends of your definition of mainline Linux. You can install Linux on your phone with thanks to postmarketOS Of course only if your phone is supported.
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Press X to doubt.
The root filesystem will very likely still be locked down.
The article is talking about storage space, not about access to files in any particular filesystem.
Previous versions of Android 15 Terminal app only allowed 16GB of space to be used by the guest system. The article mentions it.
So even if you had 128GB in your phone, previously you could only use 16GB of them in the environment Google set up for the Linux Terminal subsystem, which made it very limiting. What the article says is that now they are removing that limitation.
That’s not what this is about at all.
With the latest Android 16 beta, you can now allocate as much storage as you want to the Linux Terminal
until recently, it was restricted to just 16GB of storage space
Yeah, but that means that not the entire storage is available like the headline implies.
VMs can’t ever do that on any OS. I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation.
Correct. The whole thing is lauded as this revolutionary new thing but in reality it's just a bullshit VM isolated from the rest of the system. We have had that almost for as long as Android existed. Along with Termux and similar that actually can access everything.
Doesnt even give access to the camera subsystem's embedded flash memory, essentially useless
/s?
that'd be useful to debloat the phones at the very least.
I am not sure I understand what this has to do with the article. Also, I don't see why that would be the case. I don't see much of a good reason to lock the VMs down.
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Well, this should make for some fun, new script-kiddie malware.
Ok. Now it won't be abandonware for me.
I'd like to be able to test installing a full DE, but I made the mistake of getting only the 128GB model and so now I have always free storage issues 😅
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This is gonna be cool. Does Android 16 release in the fall?
Some time in June.
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