20170614-termux_on_android.md (2134B)
1 Do you prefer working in the terminal than with horribly flash GUIs? I prefer it so much I even do away with typical icon based launchers on my Android phone and use a [terminal](https://github.com/Andre1299/TUI-ConsoleLauncher). 2 3 Sometime I need more than just a launcher, and this is where [termux](https://termux.com/) comes in. Termux is an "Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app". You can download it from [Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux) or [F-Droid](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.termux) and install without rooting your device. It comes with a number of shells to choose from and install packages using `apt`. 4 5 Once installed there is no setup required, however there are a few things that you can do to improve the environment. These steps are personal preference, and as always use the commands at your own risk! 6 7 First make sure everything is up to date 8 ``` 9 apt update && apt upgrade 10 ``` 11 12 If you look in the current directory you will see there is nothing there 13 ``` 14 pwd 15 /data/data/com.termux/files/home 16 ls -l 17 ``` 18 19 You can set up links to the shared internal storage by running 20 ``` 21 termux-setup-storage 22 ``` 23 24 This creates symlinks to a number of directories in your phone's storage 25 ``` 26 pwd 27 /data/data/com.termux/files/home 28 ls -1 29 storage 30 ls -1 storage/ 31 dcim 32 downloads 33 movies 34 music 35 pictures 36 shared 37 ``` 38 39 Use the command `ls -l` to see the links. 40 41 A number of packages are provided 42 ``` 43 busybox --help 44 ``` 45 46 I tend to install a number of others (in no particular order) 47 ``` 48 apt install openssh vim zsh less irssi tmux git stow htop 49 ``` 50 51 Then we can pull down our dotfiles! 52 ``` 53 git clone https://github.com/pyratebeard/dotfiles.git 54 cd dotfiles 55 stow {vim,zsh,irssi,tmux} 56 chsh -s zsh 57 ``` 58 59 Now exit termux using `exit` or Ctrl-D and when you restart you should be in a more comfortable environment. 60 61 There we go. A rather quick and simple run through of termux. All this information can be found on their [help page](https://termux.com/help.html). For more help or information contact me in the usual ways, or join the #termux IRC channel on freenode. 62