I installed a full Linux desktop on my Android phone and it’s buttery smooth

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I’ve been messing around with Android for years, but seeing the processor that’s used in small Linux boxes running Android kept nagging me with a question: what if I install a full Linux desktop on my Android phone?

Android has taken some steps in this direction and there’s now a new, built-in Linux terminal on Android. However, it’s still in early development and not quite as useful as a full desktop environment. So I decided to install a full Linux desktop on my Android, and it performs better than I expected.

What’s actually running on your phone?

You’re not replacing Android, you’re piggybacking on it

Image taken by Yadullah Abidi | No attribution required.

First, let’s set some expectations. You’re not dual-booting, you’re not flashing a ROM, and you’re not rooting your phone. Modern Android phones already ship with a Linux kernel under the hood, and tools like Termux combined with proot-distro can install a full Debian or Ubuntu distro on top of that. You add Termux X11 to the mix, which adds a real X server on Android, you’re in business.

On supported devices, you can use the native Linux virtual machine that Android 16 exposes through the Android Virtualization Framework. This gives you an actual Debian VM with its own kernel and hardware isolation. As impressive as that is, it’s limited to a small set of phones (mostly Pixels) at the moment, while the Termux method will…

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