termux-packages VS proot

usbredirect, USB drives/disks, Termux, termux-usb, QEMU, and Alpine Linux in action in April 2024 on an Android 11 phone that is not rooted --> Update-6, Update-7, Update-8, Update-9, Update-10 at https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/19635

"USB Network Redirection protocol description version 0.7 (19 May 2014)": https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/spice/usbredir/-/blob/main/do... (gitlab.freedesktop.org/spice/usbredir/-/blob/main/docs/usb-redirection-protocol.md)

"How to use Spice "Open remote computing"" Hans de Goede "@ T-DOSE 2011, Eindhoven": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fC3GOTHOY (www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fC3GOTHOY)

Phone (not rooted) running Android 11 and Termux doing superuser/root operations on a USB flash drive connected to the phone, for example "cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda1" and "mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/v1" --> Update-6 through Update-8 and "Connecting a USB device to QEMU using termux, termux-usb, usbredirect" at https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/19635 (see also Update-9, Update-10, Update-11).

Done on a phone that is not rooted running Termux, termux-usb, usbredirect, and QEMU --> "cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda1" and "cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1 v1" and "mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/v1" and "mount /dev/mapper/v1 /root/1" where "/dev/sda1" is a partition on a USB flash drive ("dev/sda") plugged in the phone: https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/19635 (github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/19635'cryptsetup)

Yes. Even without enabling root, you can install Termux[1] and have a full Linux cli environment with ssh.

> don't understand not more people want to access their DCIM folder via sshfs

I agree. I sync my camera folder with Syncthing[1], so as soon as I take a photo it is available on my laptop.

1: https://termux.dev/

As usual don't forget that Android/Linux isn't GNU/Linux,

https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis

https://android.googlesource.com/platform/bionic/+/master/an...

With this, I was able to cross compile lone for x86_64 from within the Termux environment of my aarch64 smartphone. All I had to do was obtain the Linux user space API headers for x86_64.

I made a Termux package request for multiplatform Linux UAPI headers specifically so I could cross compile lone but unfortunately it was rejected.

https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/16069

I wonder how far you could get with the git client in termux. I got vim running at one point.

[1] https://termux.dev/

[2] https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-main/pool/main/g/git/

Crystal can be installed with just pkg install crystal. If you have Docker, you could also clone the build environment and try building Crystal locally with scripts/run-docker.sh scripts/build-package.sh -I -a aarch64 crystal.

I suspect some component was upgraded (glib?) and it use some functions that are not handled well by proot. Report issue to https://github.com/termux/proot/issues in order to have chances get it solved for yourself and others with this "black screen" problem.

I needed to look at your comment for 10 minutes before I got what you mean. So you want containers that run on any POSIX operating systems?

You can do this with ptrace() which is in POSIX, but its going to be slow for i/o heavy applications. Unfortunately POSIX doesn't provide anything else (seccomp would already be a step up). See also proot[1], gVisor[2] and User Mode Linux[3] which all use ptrace().

[1] https://github.com/termux/proot

[2] https://gvisor.dev/docs/architecture_guide/platforms/#implem...

[3] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.9/virt/uml/user_mode_linu...

Documentation does not exist. Just like in best traditions of open source software typically maintained by one person. Look the proot source code instead. Here is the link to extension source code: https://github.com/termux/proot/blob/master/src/extension/link2symlink/link2symlink.c

You'll probably want to do that inside of a proot environment.

Now regarding proot: it can't have higher privileges than your Termux shell session, despite the user "root" which may possibly appear. It was told many times here on Reddit, Termux GitHub and even Wiki (https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot) that PRoot does not give extra privileges and root user is fake.

I understand the sentiment, but I disagree. From the last time I checked, the big compromise with GNU/Linux phones is still the lack of social media and messaging apps and appstore ecosystem. Android, with root, is every bit as much a computer as a Pinephone and Librem 5, but the opposite isn't true. Termux has PRoot, a user-space implementation of chroot allowing a full distro install. I personally don't have any problem depending on Google, I have a problem with things being locked away with no alternative. Given the option, I will happily accept the risks and void my warray to root.

https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/PRoot