With the latest release of android it now supports some Linux functionality. I got docker installed simply by following Docker’s docs.
Any thoughts or uses for a mobile homelab? What would be useful to have mobile?
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Lmao this is amazing. The future is now…
That’s cool! I’ve always had the idea of a small k3s cluster on old phones with postmarketOS. I guess it doesn’t work with older phones which don’t have the latest Android Version but given the homelab trend generally goes towards small, low power devices, this could continue the trend with super small and low power phones. Probably in 2 years when current gen phones rotate out of company leasing contracts?
Oh man that’d be super cool. An ARM cluster of androids would be awesome. Battery backups built in!
This is simultaneously cool and cursed af.
The day Docker works on Android, I’m settled.
latest release of android
Does that mean 15?
Yea kinda. Android is switching to quarterly releases, so my phone now says “Android 15” but this was QPR2 specifically
Thanks. My phone is on 14 and won’t get another update, oh well.
“Android 15” but this was QPR2 specifically
How can we bring that to a real world (read: cheap Chinese) phone?
Not sure, but if LineageOS supports it, that should be all you need
Debian is supposedly coming to android. That would be cool.
That’s Debian in the screenshot
Oh nice! I can’t see very well on phone.
Um, what does that even mean?
Edit: Looks like it runs a VM. So some overhead, but still cool.
Maybe your own adblocker, I thought about doing that myself, I use the public one from adguard on my phone (dns.aguard-dns.com) but having it on your own device would be pretty slick perhaps. But thinking about it more, Google wouldn’t just let you use an internal IP for the private DNS. I have tried it with my locally hosted adblocker and it rejects it.
Or you could set up a dashboard like Homepage or Dashy, or Flame or ? Ultimately, your imagination would do! :)
I do it. It has be DOT and you have to have a valid cert.
Unfortunately, from trying this myself, I don’t think you can forward port 53 to the Android host, so that won’t work (easily). It seems that privileged ports aren’t allowed to be forwarded.
these are the times when I get jealous, as an iOS user
I dont know how you can stand using iOS. Its just so unintuitive, theres no back button and I can’t even figure out copy/paste.
Copy paste is easy. You just tap on the, no wait you tap on the, fuck hold on. You tap, there we are, on the word and hold until it highlights. No wait hold on. Fuck. There we are. Ok now you tap on the highlighted word to copy, fuck wait Ah fuck it just type it again yourself
Haha my feelings exactly, I can work in Linux cli and program rust with ease, but I can’t copy and paste on an iPhone.
Get steam-headless running on there
Impressive! Can you please link the instructions you followed?
Some time ago I was hosting the full ARR suite, bitwarden, AdGuard etc, but it was usually a mess with direct installs. With docker it might be worth revisiting it.
My only advice, buy a usb-ETH dongle, it will make a huge difference in stability
https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/debian/#install-using-the-repository
That’s it lol. To turn on the terminal, it’s a developer option for now, and is very alpha, just search for Linux in settings after turning on dev mode
I can see my 5 year old android mobile struggling being a suitable self hosting machine… (Because of the battery).
But not gonna lie, having it working as a more advanced travel router connect to Tailscale sounds like a neat idea (which I think it is already possible? The other day I saw the client app that supports subnet routers? I just haven’t tried it, and it has a disclaimer that it drains the battery… So I didn’t end up doing that at that moment when I was away).
Oh nice! I’d love to run an ad blocker/dns/reverse proxy on something with a little more beef than the Pi zero I’ve got now.
Jellyfin and or Pi zero does not like streaming through the video.local address I’ve got setup, so i have to use IP address to get anything without stuttering.
The VM eats through the battery, that’s the only hangup I have with this. Otherwise that’s a fantastic idea.
If I trusted the battery tech more, I would use an old phone. But I’ve had one of those white plastic Mac books hooked up to power so long, the battery swelled out of its enclosure :/
Maybe there’s a way to disconnect the battery, or an app that switches off charging, so it drains enough to keep that from happening
There are root apps that can limit battery charge level. If you have an older phone that’s rootable, I would look into that.
How do we activate this feature? I have it enabled after going into the developer settings menu but nothing seems to happen, I see mentions of an app but idk what the app is. I am on grapheneOS though instead of normal android so there could be something with that here.
Oh nvm I figured it out, it just took a bit for me to realize there was a new terminal app on my phone
While this is very exciting, I just tried it, and the network connectivity seems to be broken. No IPv6.
Hmm I was messing with its networking. External vpns break stuff on GrapheneOS. Its internal IP was 192.168.0.2, and my network is different.
Yes, Linux is running in a VM, and the network interface is a virtualized veth interface connected to a host bridge. The host android system has IP address 192.168.0.1, and this network interface is called avf_tap_fixed (as seen from termux).
Any other tips for the VM and/or GrapheneOS compatibility? Ie: did you use a different profile? I run Debian throughout my house as is, but plan on integrating the VM for better integration but was a little hesitant to be an early adopter due to the potential nuances. (lemme know if you have a blog/gist/etc covering it too)
I used the owner profile. Idk much about it tbh, I have yet to do more in depth testing as my phone doesn’t have displayport functionality so I am a little discouraged to be an early adopter too. I couldn’t get SSH setup so typing a lot on the small keyboard wasn’t ideal.
I’d check Google/GOS docs for more info for now. I’ll bet there’ll be a lot in the coming years as fast as usecases
I can’t get it to have network connection while my phone is on cellular data. On wifi it’s fine.
I just checked, and I have connectivity while on cellular. Maybe (just wild speculation) your mobile network is IPv6-only? Android (not Linux) should list 192.0.0.4 as an IP address in that case.
It’s probably that. While on cellular my IP isn’t 192.0.0.4 (but it is in 10. space), but there’s probably some v6 somewhere in the way.
The change maker feature would be to arrive home and plug your phone in a dock station and have a desktop to use as a pc
This has been supported on Samsung devices for years - it was first added to the Galaxy S8 (2017). It’s called Samsung DeX. You can plug a phone or tablet into a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and it gives you a full screen experience.
They have docking stations, but you can also just use a USB C hub.
But then how would I look at my phone while using my Desktop.
I’ll need a dummy phone to doom scroll on.
I’ve been talking about this for years! I got the idea from razer but I’m imagining the laptop chassis adds a nice screen, enormous battery, better IO, and then it just uses the touch screen as the track pad.
It could be so cool
