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.
That headline got me really excited before I realized they meant “in an app”.
It’s just virtualization, the same way you would run a Debian VM under Windows or whatever.
yeah, but being able to replace Android would have been nice.
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.
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 + +.
That would be the life.
Sorry Google, PostmarketOS will scratch that itch and soon enough eat your lunch: https://postmarketos.org/
Isn’t that Termux?
Yes, except google is slowly killing Termux with a thousand cuts, while they will kill this only after a few years.
They do? Can you elaborate?
Tested this on my Pixel 8a. Works as you would expect. Personally I have a little hard time coming up with use cases for this but I guess it’s kinda cool.
Looks very similar to termux
Probably hella nerfed in comparison.
It has been called 8 elite so that people think they bought an X elite?
That’s not very nice…
Does it have access to the same filesystem as Android? I’ve been looking for Android apps that can do something like dropbox’s “online only” feature. Most cloud storage providers offer that on desktop but I’ve never found one that works on Android. It’s just photo syncing or nothing usually, and even that doesn’t work like I want.
Also, can it run uninterrupted in the background or is android going to unceremoniously kill it randomly like it does with normal apps?
It has access to
/sdcardas a shared folder. And yes it can run in the background, though it’ll eat your battery if you keep it running for a while.It has access to /sdcard as a shared folder.
How does this work? The app doesn’t seem to have any settings related to it yet. Under
/mntin the VM I noticed foldersharedthat seems to match the downloads folder on my phone, which seems odd…shit, I think you’re right, it might be the Downloads folder. Sorry! I’ll check mine next time I boot it up.
So does it run X? Or GNOME? Can you make a call from it? Can you receive a call? And does the internet work?
Nope. But as mentioned in the article, some support for display servers might be coming in Android 16.
Networking does work. I was able to install packages using apt and also ping machines on my local network. Could be useful.
I guess in a pinch it could be used to ssh into other machines. However, I’m sure there are plenty of SSH clients available for Android, which are much more lightweight solution than running a whole VM.
I have a phone that acts as a grid outage resistant p2p webserver. runs stuff like syncthing, briar mailbox, etc. i can see this being useful for that kinda stuff.
Is there an official source for this?
The article links to thid blog post, but I did not see anything relevant in it:
Why do we want this when we can already install it via Termux?
This is native while termux is emulated, I think.
Life is full of choices, isn’t it.
What’s the catch
Its goog so:
- you get Debian terminal, run whatever you want!
- they get to track everything you do, remember your passwords for you and sell that data to everyone they can!
The GrapheneOS devs have been working on enabling this with all their hardening tweaks
Everything you want, except sudo! That’s freaking dangerous for you!
This incident will be reported.
To Santa!
If this will be anything like the Linux environment in chromebooks, then it will lack hardware acceleration. This could result in linux programs feeling sluggish and slow.
oh i like this.
too bad its still android with al there tracking and bloatware. Hopefully degoogled roms will follow
I’m pretty sure I saw this is going to work on graphene
Would be nice to have some alternative for my Note 10+ that is no longer getting updates. Seems it’s not popular enough to have an EOL root/custom rom made, so it’s just stuck. Seems a waste for a device with decent CPU/GPU and 12gb ram.
Zomg, you have Lineage OS!
LineageOS A free and open-source operating system for various devices, based on the Android mobile platform.
Your phone will feel snappier than ever, you’ll get latest Android stuff (I’m sure official support for 15 is coming), and security updates.
You can also easily google or degoogle it.
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/d2s/
(Or if it’s the 5G variant)Only if they have the Exynos variant. Won’t work on the Qualcomm variant, annoyingly.
Bingo, it’s the Qualcomm variant unfortunately.
