I’ll admit: this is way cooler than I expected it to be.
About a week and a half ago, I stumbled upon an app (UserLAnd) that claims to be able to install AND run Linux on an Android phone without needing to root the device. That last bit’s pretty important as I don’t want to compromise my phone’s security.
Given that I’m looking into developing a new website for my band, I figured that if things work, I’ll have a developmental system in the palm of my hands, without needing to rent a virtual machine. Bonus points if I could actually test-run the website on my device before deploying it.
My first couple of attempts didn’t turn out too well. Trying to run a desktop led to a few user interface problems, both on my Teracube 2e and my Lenovo Chromebook Duet. There were instances where everything would crash too.
The solution? Go hardcore and stick with just the terminal. I’m actually writing this up using the micro text editor.
It’s not exactly perfect. I don’t have access to my Google Keyboard Autocorrect function, which means I have to be careful with what I type. Oh, and woe upon you if you want to type out something long.
With that said, as I’m more of an iPad fan, UserLAnd is like a pretty solid Android companion to Working Copy for the Apple ecosystem. Both apps allow you to draft a post, which means a post only gets posted when you push it over to the main GitHub repository. As for the main advantage that UserLAnd also has?
You can actually update the code properly.
The best part? It’s all free. You can’t argue with that.