Use a phone as a computer: run desktop Linux software with iPad + Android Termux

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 21:00:00 +0800

iPad is too limited, Android is too tiny. So why not combine then together?

Use Android + Termux Proot Debian + KasmVNC + Safari on the iPad to build a mobile working environment that runs desktop software.

What the iPad cannot do, let the Android phone do!

Use the Android phone as a computer through Termux Proot, run Linux desktop software, and control it through the iPad.

The iPad remotes into the Linux container on Android for operation. What the iPad cannot do, let the Android phone do!

Joplin organizing notes

Visual Studio Code launching pygame

Do not understand what the title means? This is the usage scenario I want:

1. Motivation
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My current mobile work setup is an Android phone paired with an iPad. Although they are different ecosystems, with the help of free software such as LocalSend, the two get along quite pleasantly. Thanks to the large battery of the Android phone, it seems I can share a hotspot to the iPad for 6 hours without running out of power.

All of this is to run desktop software on the iPad. Some software is very smart on the desktop version, but becomes idiotic after being ported to mobile. This is true for both free software and proprietary software.

Take the note-taking software Joplin, for example. Joplin on the iPad is only an enlarged iPhone version, with overly crude functionality, and many desktop features have not been ported, such as the note relationship graph. When dealing with notes, it always feels shackled, and many things have to be handled on a computer. So I started thinking about how to run desktop Joplin.

Sell the iPad and switch to a Surface? I have thought about it, but I do not want to cut off my toes to fit the shoes, so I took out Termux on the Android phone. Termux can run a Linux desktop environment container without root, and it can be accessed by the iPad through VNC.

I previously shared methods for mirroring Android to a large screen with Scrcpy and Rustdesk, but I do not need the entire Android screen! Linux alone is enough. Run the VNC server headlessly; as long as Android has enough RAM, it will not be easily killed in the background, so the Android phone can still be used while Linux programs are running.

The iPad’s network is shared from Android, so the local connection latency for the remote desktop is low. The iPad becomes the screen for Android’s Linux container.

If I could choose, the Android phone should be replaced with a Raspberry Pi. I have written about using a Raspberry Pi with an iPad, after all, its I/O is more complete, and the Raspberry Pi’s size is also suitable for carrying around. But if the phone has a large battery and a powerful processor, why not use what is already there? For example, my Sony Xperia 10 V has only one third of the performance of an iPad Air 6, but it does not heat up when sharing a hotspot and has extremely long battery life, so let’s squeeze it a bit and run Linux on it!

KasmVNC on Ivon's Blog

Use a phone as a computer: run desktop Linux software with iPad + Android Termux

1. Motivation #

1. Motivation
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