Termux - Hacker News

Posted by tosh 4 days ago

Termux(github.com)

359 points | 180 commentspage 3

twism 4 days ago|

I've tried Termux but use the old irssiconnectbot (https://github.com/irssiconnectbot/irssiconnectbot) but with slight modifications over the years since its open source... along with an also modified hackerkeyboard (https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard) to support my workflow which is heavy on emacs and GNU Screen.

The colors/graphics seem to be better on irssi and can also handle all the emacs and gnu screen keyboard chords and escape sequences.

I try every android terminal but nobody is really thinking about running more than simple commands.

maxamillion 4 days ago||

Galaxy Tab S11, in DeX Mode, with the Book Cover Keyboard Slim, running Termux and Tailscale is a great companion device to ssh to any system on my tailnet so I can do real work on the road. So good. I donate monthly to Termux, you should too. :)

kjuulh 4 days ago||

Use it all the time.

I've got a wireguard setup from phone or tablet to my workstation. Using mosh with zellij and I can do all the development I want. Whether it is restarting a machine, or actually writing code, using claude code etc. It works really well

bear330 4 days ago||

I also really like Termux. When I was developing https://github.com/nuwainfo/ffl (a tool similar to croc, but the receiver uses a browser and doesn't need to install anything), it was because I wanted an easy way to get things off my phone. I actually packaged ffl—which is pure Python—into an APE just to make it compatible with Termux. Although many people here use ssh, rsync, or solutions like copyparty, I prefer my own minimalist solution: just one binary to transfer whatever I want. Anyway, Termux is cool.

yjftsjthsd-h 4 days ago|

May I also recommend https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46855265

bhelkey 4 days ago||

One downside of Termux is the package management as described here [1].

Some new phones have access to Android Linux Terminal [2]. It is similar to Windows Subsystem for Linux. Like WSL, Android Linux Terminal lets one use apt directly.

[1] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Package_Management

[2] https://deepakness.com/blog/android-linux-terminal/

ce4 4 days ago||

I use it for lots of stuff, remote scanning from an old Canon flatbed scanner attached to my NAS (powered by a really ugly phone-local bash script, nothing else), rsync, renames (or the like using one liners), ssh tunnels to different destinations (to circumvent IP blockages) and of course YT downloads (using the source git folder and running it using "python -m yt_dlp $OPTIONS $URL" - when it breaks, a git pull is all it needs most of the time, I also have local patches that are not upstreamed)

chlorion 4 days ago||

I have been able to do some light programming in elisp in termux in emacs on my moto g. My emacs config is now setup to detect termux and config itself accordingly which is neat.

Also I have a wireguard vpn setup so that I can ssh between my phone and desktop computer via a VPS with a public ipv4 address. This allows me to just "ssh 10.0.0.4" to access the phones sshd, instead of having to deal with changing IP addresses and NAT traversal.

leephillips 4 days ago||

I use it to run Julia on my phone: https://lee-phillips.org/juliaOnPhone.jpg

eigenspace 4 days ago|

Do you have instructions somewhere for getting this to work? I've tried installing julia on termux a few times with no success.

leephillips 4 days ago||

I just downloaded the archive (from the usual Julia downloads page) for ARM on the phone and put a link to the binary in /usr/local/bin — same as on Linux desktop. But I did this in the proot Debian environment.

eigenspace 4 days ago||

Ah I see. Even after installing proot Debian I couldn't get juliaup to work, but I'll have to give it a shot manually installing the binary and linking to /usr/local/bin

tetris11 4 days ago||

the only true way to experience Emacs on android

Tiberium 4 days ago||

Modern Emacs isn't really meant to be used in a TUI, it has a very capable GUI. And there's a fully native Android port of that GUI.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/android-ports-for-gnu-emacs...

https://mstempl.netlify.app/post/emacs-on-android/ https://kristofferbalintona.me/posts/202505291438/

timonoko 4 days ago||

Try this:

  (menu-bar-mode -1)
  (setq inhibit-splash-screen t)
  (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message t)
  (global-set-key "å" 'hippie-expand)
  (global-set-key "∆" 'toggle-truncate-lines)
  (global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'toggle-truncate-lines)
  (xterm-mouse-mode 1)
  (global-set-key (kbd "<mouse-5>") 'scroll-up-command)
  (global-set-key (kbd "<mouse-4>") 'scroll-down-command) ;
  (global-set-key (kbd "<wheel-up>") 'scroll-up-command)
  (global-set-key (kbd "<wheel-down>") 'scroll-down-command) ;
  (setq case-fold-search t)
  (setq-default truncate-lines t)
  (setq sort-fold-case t)
  (autoload 'scad-mode "scad-mode" "A major mode for editing OpenSCAD code." t)
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.scad$" . scad-mode))
  (require 'scad-preview)
  (global-set-key (kbd "Å") 'dabbrev-expand)

  (add-hook 'python-mode-hook 'whitespace-mode)
  (setq whitespace-line-column 128)
  (custom-set-faces
   '(default ((t (:background "#000000" :foreground "#ffffff"))))
   '(whitespace-space ((t (:background "black" :foreground "blue"))))
   '(whitespace-tab ((t (:background "black" :foreground "blue"))))
   '(whitespace-newline ((t (:background "black" :foreground "blue"))))
   '(whitespace-empty ((t (:background "black" :foreground "grey50")))))

Antibabelic 4 days ago||

Not really? The Android version of Emacs is perfectly fine.

MarsIronPI 4 days ago|

Does anyone know of an X server or Wayland compositor app for Android that gives each window its own Android window (or whatever they're called on Android)? IMO that'd mix perfectly with Termux for GUI apps.

Yes, I know Termux-X11 exists but that app is a single Android window (again, I'm not sure if that's the right term) for all X windows. I'm wondering if there's an app that creates an Android window for each X window.

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