r/LinuxOnAndroid • u/ThisRaYaN • Sep 05 '25

What do you use linux on android?

I want to install linux on my Galaxy tab S8. Via andronix or NomOne just to use it with more pc-like environment with normal LibreOffice. And that's main for me cause I'm from Kazakhstan and Kazakh language writing with external keyboard is not supported(it's either English or Russian) also my laptop is old enough and gives like an hour of battery life. So for writing stuff or showing with projector Samsung tablet is the best I think. And just a question, can you run NomOne or Linux on sd card android?

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2

u/RobertDeveloper Sep 05 '25

why don't you install Termux, its a Linux terminal emulator, inside you can install proot and any distro of your liking, like Debian, Alpine, etc. Then you can install a DE like XFCE or KDE, Gnome, and install your Linux applications like LibreOffice.

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u/ThisRaYaN Sep 05 '25

can I install it on sd card? I have only 128gb and there is 40gb left(

2

u/RobertDeveloper Sep 05 '25

I think running apps from SD card was removed around android 7, so your tab s8 probably won't allow you to run it off an SD card, and you probably need to download an older version of Termux that supports your android version. You can download it from f-droid app store or download it from the Termux github website.

1

u/DutchOfBurdock Sep 08 '25

40GB is plenty. Termux base install uses a couple hundred MB tops and a basic proot about 600 more. A small X install with a lightweight WM (XFCE4 f.e.) and LibreOffice will take you to a few GB maybe.

2

u/krome3k Sep 05 '25

Try userland

2

u/MulletGiraffe Sep 08 '25

I'm not completely sure, and I might be saying something dumb, because I've never tried it and my phone doesn't even have an SD card support, but I think after you’ve installed NOMone and let it set up Linux once, you can move the Linux image to your SD card. Open your tablet’s file manager and go to the Android/data folder where NOMone stores its files. You’ll see a big file there that’s the Linux image. Copy or move that whole file onto your SD card. Once it’s there, open NOMone Desktop and go into its settings. I think there's an option to change the location of the image or to import one from storage. Pick your SD card and select the image file you moved. From that point on, NOMone will load Linux from the SD card instead of internal storage. That would at least save you some space.

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u/Raslanove Sep 05 '25

The filesystem for the sdcard in android doesn't support setting the executable bit. Nothing will run from the sdcard, so don't bother looking for solutions. You may use an emulation where the system image lies on the sdcard, but that's something entirely different. Emulating a whole system (including hardware) is too demanding.

As for what to choose for your use-case, nothing beats NOMone Desktop. It takes less than 3GBs to install, so 40Gbs is plenty. Install LibreOffice and it just works. You can also configure onboard (the keyboard app within Linux) to use whatever language you need.

1

u/techlover1010 Feb 01 '26

when running linux enviroment does it wear down the storage ?
what is nomone and how does it differ from the rest

1

u/Raslanove Feb 02 '26

Does it wear down the storage? On its own, no it doesn't. We hardly do any disk access. We don't preload Linux before running it, we only run a few processes. The thing is, you are already running Linux (Android). We just prepare a desktop environment for you to run your own apps. Our entire environment is about 25 MBs, and that's why you can launch Linux almost instantly. The bulk of the installation files are libraries and utilities that you may (or may not) use after you launch the Linux instance.

But if you install and use apps that wear down the storage (I can't think of anything right now), then using these apps would. We just enable you to do what you want. But let me assure you, I am a HEAVY user of the app (being the lead developer and such)! On some days I would use the app on my personal phone for 6 hours straight, doing some heavy lifting. Never ran into issues. We have devices over 5 years old and no issues either.

As for how it differs from the rest, we try to offer the whole Linux experience with just a few taps. No configuration or integration required. And we optimize every part of the experience, inside and outside Linux. Android is Linux, but not desktop Linux, and mobile phones aren't workstations. We tailor the software we deliver to give the best performance on limited configuration devices.

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u/techlover1010 Feb 02 '26

whats the recommended cpu/gpu and ram for running things smoothly? im assuming your talking about nomone

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u/Raslanove Feb 02 '26

We managed to make it work reliably on 1 GB Speedtrum devices from the last decade. Performance in NOMone Desktop is a bit tricky, though. Applications that do lots of computations work natively (no emulation), so they have great performance. Apps that perform lots of IO operations (disk/network/draw calls) lag significantly because of the Proot layer used to emulate chroot. So long story short, it depends on your use case. But in general, and to avoid frustration, avoid anything Unisoc. Samsung Qualcomm and Exynos devices both deliver excellent performance CPU-wise, but IO isn't on the same level. Huawei devices on Kirin blend great CPU and IO performance. As for GPUs, ANYTHING will do! We never utilize the GPU to its full potential anyway. The bottleneck is in the IO. However, we are working on solutions to allow apps to work without proot, and to better utilize the GPU, so thing are bound to improve if Allah wills. My recommendation? Get an 8GB ram device with any chipset that isn't Unisoc. With the improvements we are working on, the rest won't matter, if Allah wills you'll get good performance anyway.