News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by muxator on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:06PM (#24982815)
Just a few days ago I thought about using termux-api to do a quick poc for a monitoring application. Namely, I wanted to send an SMS when an event occurred.

Termux-api used to offer this [0], but apparently some time ago google decided to make it impossible:

> Usage of this API is no longer allowed by Google and we had to disable it to prevent delisting of Termux:API application from the Google Play.

It's my device, my SMS plan over a (supposedly) open source system. But it's the vendor's platform, and a huge part of it is proprietary (the play services).

This is the windows monopoly all over again, but in our pockets and with deep analytics backed in.

OK sorry, this ended being a rant. Is there an escape hatch? When will we have a credible free software mobile operating system?

[0] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux-sms-send

Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by _underfl0w_ on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:17PM (#24982932)
Termux:API is available on F-Droid. Maybe the functionality exists in that version?
Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by muxator on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:42PM (#24983189)
I fear not. My termux is installed from f-droid.
Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by trynewideas on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @03:47PM (#24983800)
It was removed from termux-api in 0.32: https://github.com/termux/termux-api/compare/v0.31...v0.32

Discussed in termux-api issue #257: https://github.com/termux/termux-api/issues/257

Unless you build it yourself with the functionality restored, you can't use it. Termux maintainers are just that dedicated to targeting Google Play first.

Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by lytedev on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:09PM (#24982853)
You can buy Linux phones right now!
Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by arminiusreturns on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @05:26PM (#24984734)
Any thoughts on the best options for those of us wanting one? It seems pretty much to be Pinephone or Librem 5, are there others? Both are preorder only. Anything generally available?
Re:Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environm... by opan on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @05:52PM (#24984975)
PinePhones have periodic batches, not sure if that's considered a pre-order exactly.

Check out the devices[0] list on the postmarketOS wiki to see which Android phones and other things have support. In general none of them will work as well as the PinePhone, because Pine isn't fighting this sort of thing the way most manufacturers are, but it could be a fun thing to look into if you own anything already supported. You could also port it to a device not yet on the list if you're up for it.

[0] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices