Google introduces Debian Linux terminal app for Android. My phone's a laptop at last!

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.

  • Matriks404@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 days ago

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

    • gamer@lemm.eeEnglish
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      5 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.

  • Renohren@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    6 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.xyzEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • Eagle0110@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    6 days ago

    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

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
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    6 days ago

    While interesting, that’s not really news.

    I have been running bash linux commands on my android device back in 2016 via Termux. it worked perfectly fine back then already, you could apt install applications and python3 your script.

    The problem is with other things. Android is dedicated to being actually usable on touch-screen devices. Installing desktop apps on Android would un-do that effect, so i guess it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

  • dai@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • dai@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      And I’m having issues writing / completing the install to /boot

      Files are written to boot by the nixos-infect script, then disappear after sometime… If the VM is shutdown / rebooted I get the previously displayed unrecoverable error screen.

      Might be an easier way to achieve this.

  • the_q@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • SynopsisTantilize@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      5 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.

    • Webster@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 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.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      IIRC you can do exactly that with the Nintendo Switch (carry it around like a handheld until you plug it into the TV and it becomes a stationary console), though i’ve never had a Switch myself so i don’t know for sure.

      • TacoSocks@infosec.pubEnglish
        0·
        5 days ago

        The switch is more or less the same when docked, only additional feature is you get to use a higher resolution.

    • Diurnambule@jlai.luEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      I join you on this. The closest I found is a and old surface pro with Linux and waydroid on it. It is nicer than all my previous try but far far from perfect, not even good. Just meh + +.