144
Are phones with 3gb of ram considered "old" already?
Yes
We've had octo-core CPUs in phones for 13 years....
Is it possible to have a no-graphical session ? Boot on tmux directly for example ? That's could be great!
I would imagine so.
Very cool ! Finally something to do with my old phones lying around
(but who commits their .DS_Store file tho ? 🙈)
I'm convinced Mac users just become blind to the file. I see it all over repos at work.
It's hidden even if you have "show hidden files" enabled in Finder. No way to disable it, it's idiotic.
Because adding to the .gitignore would threaten their existence.
rookie mistake 🤣
This doesn't look like another alpine vm. But maybe I misread the install script. I see it uses apt so some sort of Debian base? If so, no root, GPU accelerated, not virtualized, Linux on Android is quite the accomplishment.
You never needed a VM to run Linux apps on Android. Android can run Linux apps because it is already a Linux operating system. This is like referring to a docker container as "running Linux on Debian" or whatever.
It's an installer for Termux packages. You can do the same thing manually in Termux shell, if you know the names of packages you are installing.
And yes, Termux uses Debian apt package manager.
Thanks, that was definitely the missing piece in my understanding.
Just to put it out here. Termux has proot-distro that allows you to run qite a few distros as containers. Technically not a VM afaik. I find it useful, because it is sometimes simpler to wipe that instead of reinstalling Termux.
What I ask myself here is why I should have unused phones lying around in the first place?
If I somehow think constantly wasting money on a new model just because there is a new number written on its packaging is worth it, I would not actually think in terms of reusing old hardware.
If I am however thinking about using hardware instead of just throwing it away while still functional why wouldn't I use a phone as anyone else as a phone?
There isn't only one reason for that to happen. I have two old smartphones around. Both are no longer usable with any worthwhile mobile service in Canada. The first (and oldest - originally mine before becoming a hand-me-down to a relative) went out of use after the elderly person who was using it had it active for a year or two but then stopped bothering with it due to his illness keeping him at home and preference for larger screens in general. The other I'd still be using (still use it for some things!) if I could. I have always used my computers, phones, etc. as long as I could get away with but for #2, I had to get a newer (but used) phone to keep service after the end of 3G in Canada. The new phone is definitely nicer in some ways but I wouldn't have changed phones if I had a choice. 🤷🏾♀️
Could be a number of things. Battery life has significantly decreased. Can't run recent Android versions, no longer getting security updates, or even software not running because the Android version is no longer supported. I've had 3 phones in the last 15 years or so (still on the 3rd) and I still have the other two and they run, but not for long without being plugged in.
i usually end up with crappy hand me downs or broken phones with an easy fix.
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
144 points (97.4% liked)
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