
Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones - djvdorp
https://seap.samsung.com/linux-on-galaxy
======
JorgeGT
It's quite interesting that with the power of today's mobile devices
(multicore 1GHz+ CPUs, GPUs, 2Gb+ RAM) we still don't have a standardized
interface to plug them into desktop peripherals and launch a desktop OS/GUI.

One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a
standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc.

~~~
rsync
"One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a
standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc."

My favorite computing peripheral form factor has always been the PCMCIA card.

It seems to me that you could fit a minimum viable phone inside a PCMCIA card
_and then_ insert that PCMCIA card into a normal sized laptop when you choose.

The laptop would have no CPU/RAM - it's just a big USB keyboard and monitor -
and the phone would probably have limited battery life, given the size
(although you could bump out the non-port end of the PCMCIA card with some
extra battery, the same way that wifi cards had an antenna bump ...)

Something like this was proposed ... there was some minor project where they
had built an entire PC (not a phone) into a PCMCIA card (although with
different pin-outs) and proposed using it as a portable "guts" for any laptop
"host" but I can't find the URL for that project anymore ...

I certainly would welcome a phone the size of a pc-card and a cable-less
docking of the brain into the host laptop would be much better than either 2-3
USB cables or some weird, proprietary phone dock ...

~~~
admax88q
I think you're thinking about the EOMA project. Boards are soon to go out for
their production run.

[https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-
desktop/updates/pcb...](https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-
desktop/updates/pcb-and-3d-printer-progress)

~~~
rsync
Yes that is indeed what I was thinking of - it's a very interesting project.

Imagine if that device was a fully functional, standalone phone ...

~~~
dpark
I don’t understand the desire for this. In this model, you’re still carrying a
laptop. It’s just utterly useless without the phone.

~~~
rsync
The use-case is in the opposite direction: when I only have my phone, I have
my _entire computer_ with me - including the storage and the files and keys
and so on.

No syncing required. You only have a single computer. That's a big win, I
think ...

~~~
dpark
If you care about the stuff on that computer, you really want it synced
somewhere anyway.

I don't personally see the utility in having my phone be my computer. I don't
need Visual Studio or Photoshop on my phone. If I don't have my
laptop/desktop, I'm not going to work on the things I typically do with a
full-power computer. The phone is just not the right form factor, so it
doesn't help for that stuff to be on my phone.

~~~
rsync
"If you care about the stuff on that computer, you really want it synced
somewhere anyway."

I disagree.

If you care about (stuff) you really want to _back it up somewhere_.

This is different than "syncing" which can mean anything, is usually a
completely unintelligible process for the end user, is fragile, and _is
actually a hard problem_.[1]

Much more intelligible and manageable is to have one single repository of data
and carry that "kernel" of stored data everywhere. Yes, certainly you should
back it up, but the backup is just that: a point in time backup that you do
not operate against.

[1] Two way sync, dealing with new, but different objects on both devices ...
this is not a "solved" use-case ...

~~~
dpark
> _This is different than "syncing" which can mean anything_

Then we should probably define it before asserting that it's "completely
unintelligible", "fragile", or a "hard problem", right? Yes, full multi-way
sync is not a simple problem. Most scenarios don't need this (and even ones
that do tend to devolve into simple cases since single-actor conflicts are not
that common).

The simplest case for "sync" is just "my stuff is in the cloud". Call it
remote storage, since sync is ambiguous. Make the client dumb, put the data
online, and most of the complexity evaporates. Of course, local storage with
remote backup is also a reasonable solution that has different tradeoffs.

For me personally, I prefer the "remote storage" solution for most things. I
greatly appreciate that my email is just "magically" everywhere I need it to
be without me carrying a repository of email in my pocket. I love that all my
important documents and photos are accessible everywhere even if I forget my
phone.

------
jpalomaki
What I would like to do is use my phone as portable storage device and then
plug it in to external processing unit and _boot_ from my phone. The external
processing unit could be desktop computer, laptop or tablet.

The reason? When sitting behind my desk at home or office I don't like to be
limited with the mobile CPU. I have the required kWhs to power a proper CPU,
GPU and run 64GB of memory. I also don't want to run separate computers on
each location, because keeping these in sync (OS settings, applications,
databases etc) is painful.

Technically we are almost there. We can put reasonably fast flash storage to
the phone. USB-C should provide enough bandwidth. On OS software side we would
need some work to make plugging in/out convenient. I don't want to do a full
reboot every time I "unplug" the phone from desktop processing unit and move
it somewhere else. As I move between processing units I would like to keep my
apps open, maybe just doing a hibernate/sleep and then waking the system up
connected to a different processing unit.

This solution means double spending on CPUs and memory, but desktop hardware
is relatively cheap.

~~~
dpark
> _I don 't want to do a full reboot every time I "unplug" the phone from
> desktop processing unit and move it somewhere else._

How do you expect this to work? You can’t hibernate an OS and swap out all the
hardware and expect it to actually wake back up. You’re going to have to do a
full boot.

~~~
emidln
Actually, you probably could. If you write the hibernate image to a place
using a machine-id of some sort. Imagine you have images like

    
    
        /hibernate/machine/5c76f5e0-9117-4e33-8093-9de2e2f1b6de
        /hibernate/machine/d755fe2c-2b13-4436-8a5b-ba3363b9c642
    

When your kernel boots up, it grabs its machine-id and looks for a hibernation
image to map into its memory. If it finds one, great, you have an "instant
wake". If it doesn't, you boot as normal. Now imagine that your kernel tries
to mount a specific device to `/hibernate` prior to looking for hibernate
images. Upon hibernating, it writes its image to its machine-id. You could
easily share the disk between two machines (even of different architectures)
and keep two separate hiberante images on disk. You wouldn't be sharing the
processes, but you could share your data.

With a sophisticated enough setup, you could probably even dual-install
binaries (although this would be much involved with ELF where you must have
separate binaries compared to something like Mach-O) to something like
/usr/bin_x86_64/ and /usr/bin_arm64/ and then use your shell to select your
path. This might work on a system level, but would certainly work on a per-
install basis manually.

~~~
fragmede
Stick a hypervisor and (some sort of) NFS share in the mix to sidestep having
to know about the layout of fs blocks on disk . Also, just extend the linux
kernel ELF loader to know about fat-binaries to make the scheme work - there
were proposed patches to accomplish this that were (unfairly) derided, but
there's nothing fundamentally _wrong_ with that proposal.

------
nickcw
I think termux ( [https://termux.com/](https://termux.com/) ) does most of
what I need when I need a bit of emergency Linux on my phone.

Termux provides a recompiled debian distro which runs as a android App. It
doesn't chroot or need root and it works amazingly well. No desktop apps
though.

~~~
boyce
Termux is so bloody handy. That and one of the recent Blackberry phones and
you've a tool rather than a toy

~~~
mschuster91
...or a tablet and Hacker Keyboard (which is loads better than the Google or
Samsung one, especially because it has arrow keys!). That's my setup.

~~~
mavendependency
Volume up button plus W A S D

------
saagarjha
> Linux on Galaxy allows the _latest_ Samsung Galaxy smartphone users to run
> their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same
> Linux kernel that powers the Android OS to ensure the best possible
> performance. (emphasis mine)

I knew there was a catch somewhere. I seriously doubt there's a technical
reason why older Galaxy models can't support running Linux as well. I don't
understand why it's so difficult for Android manufacturers to allow users to
install whatever they want– _I_ bought _my_ phone, now let me install what _I_
want. Sure, void the warrant or refuse to support it, but don't get in my way.

~~~
simonh
We're all used to having desktop computers with generic x86 compatible
processors and highly standardized internal interfaces and components, and
compiling our software and installing it on any x86 computer we want.

Smartphones with ARM SOCs aren't like that because they aren't just a CPU,
they also include a crapload of additional system components. Even SOCs like
the Snapdragon within a specific model will offer many variations to the
manufacturers. Outside the SOC itself, phone hardware is far less standardized
than on a PC. You can't compile your Linux distro for ARM then install it on
any smartphone, the kernel needs to be tailored to the specific phone. That's
why even though unlocked Android phones are around it really takes the
manufacturer themselves to be able to do something like this because only they
have the detailed understanding of the platform and the resources. Otherwise,
other people would be doing it.

~~~
ahartmetz
The Linux Device Tree infrastructure was created as a hardware description for
hardware that cannot describe itself at runtime, which is mostly ARM SoCs.
However that only works when hardware drivers are wired up to the device tree
infrastrucure instead of being fully hardcoded. Given the usual bare minimum
investment in software by most embedded hardware vendors, many/most drivers
probably aren't.

Given a set of hardware with the same instruction set and drivers with full
device tree support, one can now create one kernel for the whole set.

~~~
pjmlp
Device Tree Overlays come to rescue, but only if OEMs actually do care.

[https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/dto/](https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/dto/)

------
herpderperator
I did something like this (shared kernel and chroot) on an old Nexus S back in
2012 with Gentoo. You can use a precompiled stage3 tarball which contains the
fundamental filesystem layout and utilities (for the target architecture), and
then for anything else that you need, you just use Portage (Gentoo's package
manager) to compile stuff for you. Not super practical in terms of battery
life and time if you're constantly compiling packages but a cool project
nonetheless. This wasn't the exact guide I used, but it's the same idea:
[http://thinkmoult.com/installing-gentoo-android-
chroot/](http://thinkmoult.com/installing-gentoo-android-chroot/)

~~~
hdhzy
Very cool thanks for sharing!

> Not super practical in terms of battery life

Samsung avoided this problem by requiring that the phone is connected to the
dock that is also charging it.

------
camillomiller
Maybe 2018 is finally the year of the Linux desktop. Wait... :)

Jokes aside, I can see how this would be useful for sysadmin and devs - bring
along your smartphone and you're set - but this would never fly for a general,
even if geeky, public. Very nice approach though, curious to see where this
ends up going.

~~~
K0SM0S
I tend to agree with your sentiment, but

> this would _never_

From experience, I now pause and consider twice any statement I make using
_never_. You know, I thought Facebook would never become dominant using such a
one-size-fits-all interface where I can't even choose a theme or even my
color, let alone which elements to be displayed and in which order (I keep
thinking their UI is ugly to this day, if this was our 'home' it feels it
looks like a housing project on internet to me). Or back in 2010 when I bought
an iPhone 4 and later an iPad 2, I thought Apple would _never_ keep iOS so
dumbed down compared to OSX (e.g. "Smart" features, a great first step into
intuitive automation, the real graal of computers imho, lest one thinks it's
OK to become a robot and click/tap thirty times to perform thirty times the
same operation).

So... yeah, I don't know. Everything says you're right today, but with just
the right tools/apps, a good Linux distro tailored to popular phones could
reach the same level of popularity than, say, iPhones (currently ~10% of the
market, roughly one in ten Android phones).

~~~
camillomiller
Good observation. I will keep it in mind.

------
5h
I've been using termux and a fold out bluetooth keyboard for django
development & code review for quite a while on my pixel XL.

I absolutely love having my dev work on my phone, being able to hack away or
do code review for 5 minutes wherever is incredible.

At home using a chrome-cast and have it on a big screen.

It would be nice to have a window manager I suppose - but i'll probably end up
in a full screen terminal anywya.

When mobile the biggest problem for me is just plain old screen size - I'm
tempted to get a cheap Chinese tablet and use it as a remote screen somehow -
leaving my phone in my pocket.

~~~
JepZ
Yeah, screen size sucks. Didn't Intel build some wireless screen technology a
few years ago? Somehow I never saw it in action, but as far as I can imagine I
would like to have a >24 inch screen which I could use as a normal Display
Port monitor, but also via NFC (+ some magic wireless technology) as a
wireless monitor for my smart phone.

Does anybody know where I can buy such a device or why it is not yet
available?

~~~
nrki
It's called WiDi / Miracast.

It's in most Android phones. Many TVs support it, or you can buy an adapter.

------
dobecker
>> Thank you for showing your interest in the Samsung for Galaxy project

This should be Linux for Galaxy right?

~~~
castis
Could also be 'Thank you for showing your interest in Samsung for the Galaxy
project'?

------
nopacience
We need phone drivers! To enable us to install any distro or OS. I would love
to download X distro directly from their website > install on the smartphone
somehow > boot > install phone drivers > make calls

I have nothing against Android. I would like to choose who creates the OS used
on my smartphone

~~~
morganvachon
> _" I would love to download X distro directly from their website > install
> on the smartphone somehow > boot > install phone drivers > make calls"_

Unfortunately it will never be that simple. First, the distro you want would
need to have an ARM port targeting the same version of ARM SoC in the phone.
ARM isn't like x86 with just two targets (32 bit and 64 bit), it's a quagmire.

Second, your distro of choice would need to stick with the exact kernel
version used by the phone, and I guarantee if you take any three Android
phones by three different manufacturers made in the past two years, you'll see
three different kernel versions, each with tweaks made just for that device.
Said tweaks would make it impossible to have a distro targeting all three
devices even if they did have the exact same kernel version.

Third, your distro maintainer would need to own or have access to every
Android device she wished to target, and while that works for a community
driven project like Lineage OS, it's not realistic for the lone Linux distro
developer or small team who wants to add phones as targets for their existing
desktop class distro.

~~~
Brakenshire
> Second, your distro of choice would need to stick with the exact kernel
> version used by the phone, and I guarantee if you take any three Android
> phones by three different manufacturers made in the past two years, you'll
> see three different kernel versions, each with tweaks made just for that
> device. Said tweaks would make it impossible to have a distro targeting all
> three devices even if they did have the exact same kernel version.

Would this apply for the new Purism phone? i.e. if all the drivers are
upstreamed into the mainline kernel, does thstnot mean you can use any kernel
past the point where the drivers are included, without modification?

------
djvdorp
Samsung press release: [http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/stories/samsung-
dex's-expa...](http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/stories/samsung-
dex's-expanding-ecosystem-pushes-the-possibilities-of-the-smartphone)

~~~
saagarjha
> At Samsung, we continuously ask ourselves what else is possible, and what
> else we can do to bring a better experience for our users.

Here's a tip: don't mess with my scrolling.

------
ericfrederich
Ubuntu wanted to do this but it never went anywhere... and they didn't open
source their code. What an absolute shame.

I really loved the idea of it. You had the whole Android / Java / Bionic
runtime sharing the same kernel as your GNU stuff. They had a way that you
could even access your Android stuff from within your desktop environment like
apps, contacts, text messages, etc.

~~~
j605
It is open source and it is being continued at
[https://ubports.com/](https://ubports.com/)

~~~
dharma1
I think he might be talking about Ubuntu for Android, which was classic Ubuntu
running on an Android phone, predating Ubuntu Touch.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_for_Android](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_for_Android)

It worked on Galaxy S4, and Samsung were really close to shipping it on every
S4. It never did ship though, and the project was abandoned. A couple of
people who worked on it tried to push for open sourcing it, but I don't think
it ever was open sourced.

You could hook it up to an external monitor with an MHL-HDMI cable. Of course
the SoC wasn't as beefy as ones we have now, but it was pretty OK.

------
pjmlp
Given how Tizen has been managed thus far I am not having big hopes for it,
but lets see.

~~~
bostand
Tizen on smartwatch is pretty awesome.

Imho its miles ahead of the other watch OSes

~~~
pjmlp
I guess you never bother to actually program on it.

Tizen already went through these reboots:

1 - Replaced Meego SDK with Bada OS SDK

2 - Replaced Bada OS SDK with EFL + C++ SDK

3 - Dropped C++ SDK and replaced a new pure C API alongside EFL

4 - Currently adopting .NET Core + Xamarin.Forms

Then there is the whole issue of code quality.

[https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened](https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/12/samsungs_tizen_no_l...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/12/samsungs_tizen_no_longer_worst_ever/)

~~~
distances
I never understood why Samsung didn't stick with Qt for Tizen. Was it because
it was owned by Nokia back then?

Everything they've tried to do on the UI layer is something I wouldn't touch
with an eleven-foot pole.

------
0xFFFE
I miss my N900, I could run full fledged Debian on it. The Maemo OS also had
Terminal app with full SSH client & server app. I used to SSH into my phone
from my laptop just for kicks. And then Nokia had to go and fuck it all up.

~~~
thesandlord
I had a N810. Great device, but once iPhone and Android smartphones came out,
the market for these quickly shrunk to niche status.

------
bfrog
Maybe I'm the only one that is getting tired of smart phones? I feel like it
just takes over every ones life sometimes. I'm ready to go back to a $30 nokia
that just f'n works for half a decade, doesn't die every day due to battery
usage, and in general... doesn't spy on my entire life story for the supposed
purpose of better targeted ads.

I think there's some serious room back in the mobile market with the way these
devices are going. Outrageously expensive disposables aren't sustainable
forever. At some point people get tired of throwing $500 in the bin for the
exact same thing they had last year, just so they can have a full day worth of
battery charge again.

~~~
blubb-fish
would love to do that, too - but if you use the phone responsibly and maturely
then its smartphone capabilities are pretty useful.

for starters - don't throw away the phone - throw away the crapps - FB, WA,
IG, Twitter, SC, ...

------
kasabali
It's already mentioned in sub comments but I'd like to mention GNURoot Debian
[0] in a top level comment.

It is regular Debian (full repository of unmodified packages unlike Termux),
and unlike variety of other chroot based solutions it doesn't require root
access (utilizes proot).

0:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gnuroot.de...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gnuroot.debian)

------
jaclaz
As often happens, I don't understand why one would want to subscribe in order
to be notified when it becomes public.

I mean, I can understand subscribing in order to get a beta or pre-release,
but if right now nothing is available and when it will be available it will be
public, it seems to me nothing more than a personal data collection.

When it will be public there will also be a lot of publicity about it, so it's
not likely that one needs to be notified.

~~~
pjmlp
The whole point is not to notify you, rather to get a feeling how much people
would eventually buy it.

~~~
jaclaz
>The whole point is not to notify you, rather to get a feeling how much people
would eventually buy it.

Sure, but I wasn't expressing a doubt on why Samsung put that on, I was
doubting why an end user would want to give away his/her name/email/company,
substantially in exchange of nothing.

~~~
jhasse
Because he wants this to happen.

------
SakiWatanabe
Engadget article: [https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/samsung-introduces-
linux...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/samsung-introduces-linux-on-
galaxy/)

------
xchip
I've been using for 4 years and old cellphone as my home server.

I run on it Nginx + PHP, OpenVPN, Samba, SSH, MiniDLNA, a git private server,
AvaHi, python scripts...

To get extra memory (not that I need it) I turn off the android UI and to save
power I turn off the LCD.

ping me if you want to know more!

------
pedroaraujo
I'm surprised no one commented about this yet:

[https://maruos.com/](https://maruos.com/)

------
dm319
I can hear Shuttleworth swearing right now.

~~~
tinco
Swearing? Don't you mean jubilating? Isn't Ubuntu on Samsung Galaxy phones
exactly what he would want?

~~~
morganvachon
Who said it will be Ubuntu? If this is anything like past attempts at a Linux
desktop running from a mobile phone, it will be a Samsung optimized (i.e.
locked down) half baked chroot monstrosity with limited tools and locked to
the phone's ancient, bastardized kernel with zero security updates from launch
forward.

I think it would be awesome and amazing if I was completely wrong about all of
that, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd rather wait for the Pyra to release
and carry two devices than torture myself with an impossible dream.

~~~
Jonnax
Here's a photo of it running Ubuntu 16.04 at a Samsung booth with a 4.4.
Kernel.

[https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664](https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664)

~~~
deusum
I spy a Virtual Box, no? The kernel looks too new for Android, as well.

I'm guessing users here don't want the emu penalty, just extend what's already
there a bit.

~~~
MikusR
1\. That is the current Note8 kernel. 2\. That virtualbox is the info string
of the machine that compiled that kernel.

------
emilsedgh
This is amazing.

The reason we have high quality free software for desktops is that you can
easily install anything you want on your laptops and PC's.

Significance of this is that it allows free software stacks to be built for
phones.

Kudos to Samsung for such move. Let's hope other phone makers also open up the
phones.

------
MikusR
[https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664](https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664)
Some pictures from a demo booth. Runs Ubuntu 16.04.2 on 4.4.13-1.

------
padraic7a
This is definitely interesting and I would be curious to see where it goes in
the future.

In the meantime however anyone who wants to use Linux on their phone today
should check out [https://ubports.com/](https://ubports.com/)

It works now!

~~~
kagamine
I followed the link, but don't quite understand the product. Does Ubuntu Touch
OnePlusOne replace the OS on the device? So I buy one of the supported phones
listed, and then erase and replace Android with this in it's place? Or it
installs on top of?

~~~
padraic7a
It replaces the OS, so you will lose everything you currently have on the
phone. The installation process is similar to flashing a ROM and you can
choose to reflash and move back to Android in the future.

~~~
kagamine
Actually sounds good. I'm tired of Apple devices going in a direction that
doesn't fit with what I want, and have never been impressed with Android.

------
neals
So can we go Samsung -> Linux -> Virtual Box -> Windows?

Or is that not how this works?

~~~
icebraining
To get fast VMs, you need the guest OS (in this case, Windows) to be built for
the same CPU architecture, and preferably to have virtualization features on
the CPU. Since you're not likely to get either, you'd have to emulate the CPU.
QEMU can do it, but it'll be _slow_.

On the other hand, if Windows 98 is enough for you, you can run it on your
phone right now:
[http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows98](http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows98)

That site is doing the CPU emulation in JavaScript(!). It's fast enough
because, well, it's Windows 98.

------
throwaway613834
[OT] Does anybody have any idea when the Windows x86-on-ARM phones will come
out? That's what I'm really waiting for and not seeing much information on.

------
obenn
Will there be immediate driver support for the DeX docking stations? I have an
S8+ and this might push me to purchasing one of the stations as well.

------
jankotek
Can Galaxy even run without Linux kernel?

~~~
pjmlp
In theory yes.

Android doesn't expose a proper Linux to userspace and Google has been
clapping down what we are allowed to do with the NDK since Android 7.0 (edit:
corrected, only started in 7.0).

So playing "what if", you can replace Linux with something else that is
compatible the NDK APIs and no one would notice, other than the OEMs.

~~~
throwaway613834
> Android doesn't expose a proper Linux to userspace and Google has been
> clapping down what we are allowed to do with the NDK since Android 6.0.

Would you have a link to more details/reading on this? I wasn't aware.

~~~
pjmlp
Here are the official NDK APIs.

[https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html](https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html)

Here are the documentation entries related to clamping down unauthorized use
of other on-device libraries or Linux Syscalls.

[https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-
ch...](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-changes-for-
ndk-developers.html)

[https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-...](https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-stability-with-private-cc.html)

[https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/07/seccomp-
fi...](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/07/seccomp-filter-in-
android-o.html)

[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-...](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes.html#ndk)

[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8....](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8.0-changes.html#security-
all)

Small correction, it is actually Android 7.0, not 6.0

~~~
throwaway613834
Great, thanks!

------
TheChaplain
If I understand this correctly, it's a LXC with a distribution built by
Samsung?

------
diegoprzl
Just bought a Dex Station. If Emacs runs well enough then it will be a
lifesaver.

~~~
bergie
If Emacs is all you need, you can run it today with Termux. Dex is of course
nice for giving a bigger screen etc.

What this "Linux on Galaxy" thing will provide on top of Termux is X (or
Wayland?) and probably a bigger selection of software.

~~~
diegoprzl
I already tried Emacs in Termux but I was too slow and did crash while trying
to do some things.

Nowadays I simply use JuiceSSH and mosh to connect to my main computer. I
would like to have Emacs in my smartphone even while I don't have mobile
signal though.

------
capdotnet
i wonder how it will compare to the "Complete Linux Installer"App project.

------
themtutty
Why does this link go directly to a sign-up page?

------
turbinerneiter
chroot ftw!

(right?)

------
byterollingbits
No thanks! I'm not buying a phone that won't get updated with security
updates. My trash box is littered with Korean Android phones that have no
upgrade path or ability to clean with a fresh install.

I'm opting for a Pixel 2 and an iPhone X for work and personal. They're
expensive at first, but way cheaper and far more convenient in the long run.
They always have immediate security updates, and they update their OS for
atleast 3 years. Korean phones are rip offs, they barely update at all. Every
single one of my Korean phones are still waiting for security updates. It
costs way more to own a Samsung or LG phone in the long run.

Don't buy Samsung or LG phones.

~~~
swiley
It doesn't matter who the OEM is. All Android phones are now wrappers around
the Qualcomm snapdragon SOCs if they're sold in the US. They all have the
update problem because Qualcomm has refused to work with other organizations
or maintain their kernel forks.

~~~
microcolonel
It's been getting better recently as third parties have taken on the work of
maintaining drivers for Qualcomm chipsets, there are now a lot of their
chipsets which can run on upstream kernels, and if Android kernels were closer
to upstream, AOSP kernels could probably be built to function on some Qualcomm
chipsets today.

------
stephenr
This has exactly the same problem as Microsoft's WSL: they're conflating Linux
with "distribution built around GNU userland".

I'm not a gnu zealot. I think rms has many faults. But a major company saying
"now you can run Linux on android" or "now you can run Linux on Windows
subsystem for Linux" is beyond stupid.

In the case of Samsung it's Like saying you can make a sandwich out of a
sandwich. In the case of Microsoft it's like saying you can make a real roast
chicken out of a soy chicken.

~~~
nolok
And now you've just understood why the gnu zealots (whom I'm not a part of
either) insisted on the proper GNU/Linux naming, because they saw it coming
and now all of it got mixed up in the single name "linux" which can mean
anything and everything.

The number of things I've spent decades thinking "wow, rms/they're borderline
crazy" only to end up with "oh okay, they had a point" is kind of humbling.
DRM, encryption, naming, ...

Yet I'm still not in agreement with the GPL and keep thinking MIT or BSD are
better. Maybe only to be proved wrong again in the future.

~~~
stephenr
I always kind of got their point, but if I say "I used to run Debian Linux in
a virtual machine, now I can just run Debian under Windows subsystem for
Linux" there is no ambiguity, no one should be confused.

Nobody just runs Linux + the gnu environment compiled from source themselves.
People use a distribution, which has a name.

