Submitted 3 weeks ago by Canuck@sh.itjust.works to technology@lemmy.world
https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_translation_layer
I was searching for YouTube clients on my Plasma Bigscreen Linux TV Box, and found NewPipe, a popular Android YouTube frontend. Turns out this tool is how they moved it over.
Great solution alongside projects like Waydroid, as you can post individual apps to Flathub or other Linux storefronts, rather than needing to install a whole ROM to get your Android apps to appear in your Linux app tray.
This would be a game changer, like how Steam brought games to Linux, that could bring mobile apps to Linux.
I wish Linux mobile becomes a real option soon
Steam could make this happen faster if more of their user base requested the ability to play (x86 compatible) Android games on their Deck.
The Android dev kit includes a copy of QEMU that’s set up to emulate ARM with a selection of popular screen sizes and revisions of the OS, so that you can test your app on a variety of ‘potential phones’ before you upload it to the marketplace. Snapdragons are amazingly performant CPUs for how gently they sip at the battery, but they’re not that strong in the big scheme of things - any random x86 processor should be able to emulate them while using fifty times the power. A Steam deck ought to be able to do it; the request will then be ‘we’d like to play Android games better’, which to me is a much more reasonable ask.
You can just open an apk file with this tool; apps don’t need to be integrated with it. It’s just that the implementation is far from complete and most apps will not work (correctly) right now.
Oh good to know! If you’ve tried it with any specific apps this way, would love to hear which ones work well and in what ways.
There are some wiki pages about that, feel free to extend them if you’re missing anything:
Just to point out a potential misunderstanding: NewPipe devs did not use ATL to move it over, the developers of ATL chose NewPipe as the first app and extend the tool around getting more features of NewPipe to work
This is the way.
I’ve been following this since the initial Newpipe Linux flatpak release. I find it more exciting than Waydroid even though Waydroid is way more functional today
I enjoy learning about this topic - I’m kinda tired of iOS/android os.
Linux mobile is the way Lets goo.
my Plasma Bigscreen Linux TV Box
Nice! What distro are you on? Or did you compile it yourself?
FYI, as well if you’re looking for a good remote for a GNU/Linux TV box (or Android, Windows, etc), this remote is the best one I’ve tried from Amazon.
Have you been able to make voice search/input work in your setup? If so, how?
This?
I’m currently using a Raspberry Pi with their Debian based OS. It is on Bookworm, but there are major improvements to Plasma Bigscreen on QT6. They didn’t make the updates before it was removed for Trixie, and Trixie is still in beta for Raspberry Pi, so doing an in place upgrade for the OS and compiling Plasma Big screen for it to see the improvements.
I want to see how difficult it is to drop in OVOS/Neon modules to replace Mycroft ones.
How did you get Plasma Bigscreen? Last time I checked it said that it was “still in development” and the website didn’t provide any builds.
If you run something like Debian Bookworm, or based on it, you can apt install plasma-bigscreen to run the older version. New version you likely need to compile depending on your distro
There’s some good potential here for sure. I use a project called Sober to run Roblox on my Linux PC, which runs the Android version. It works incredibly well.
what about waydroid? I’m thinking of installing chimera linux with phosh as a de, and for the apps I was thinking mostly linux programs and maybe some android apps with waydroid, but I’ll also try this!
I tried it a few times, did not work for me, I’ve had android emus on windows work fine, I’m pretty sure I followed the setup correctly, but I couldn’t get apps to launch.
Oh dang this might be just what i need !
tate@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
With Google attempting to further lockdown, the time is ripe for Linux Mobile. Projects like this can help make it a viable alternative.
Thank you so much to everyone working on this!
Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Was just gonna say this. I’m currently using GrapheneOS and am concerned about how long my pixel 8a will last with Google being such assholes. But if this app can solve the issue of not having android, then I’d definitely switch to a Linux phone (with further research of course).
Luffy879@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Graphene is working with a major phone Maker and will be releasing a Graphene compatible phone in 1-2 years
MalReynolds@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
You should be fine on gOS for 6 yrs+, which is how long google promised to keep up with security updates. The device tree (think hardware drivers), which is what google removed with pixel 10 is what is causing grief, is already there for lower pixels. Unless, of course, google comes up with some new fuckery to invalidate the usability of the security updates (pray I don't alter the deal further...)
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s really more like the Android apocalypse is looming. We have 11 months and some change before android phones get locked down like Apple.
iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m afraid with how insecure mobile networks are, modem manufacturers will never dare to open or document their mobile drivers to Linux. And we’ll continue to be stuck in this perfectly controlled and planned scenario.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Ideally, the cellular modem just looks like a network device and usb sound card to the OS. Jail it as much as possible.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
also networks. on my network i can’t use volte or 5g with a google pixel 5 because they did not “certify” that.
They “certify” a handful of samsung + the iphones, no fairphone and they would absolutely never “certify” stuff like the pinephone, if they could i think they would even blacklist their whole IMEI range
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It would likely increase adoption of the OS on people’s computers too.
tate@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
I would so love to have my phone and laptop run the same operating system. Would simplify so many things.