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I just ordered a Nexus 9 and will be using it to program. Has anyone tried to run Terminal IDE on Nexus 9 or any other devices using Android 5.0 Lollipop?

Floern
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Rob
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The "links" browser included with Terminal IDE ran fine on my Nexus 5 under KitKat, but it crashes with the PIE error mentioned under Lollipop. Other than that, Terminal IDE has performed flawlessly for me, for about a year now. Sorry--forgot to add: Terminal IDE under Lollipop is "stopped" if started with the Android keyboard, or Android keyboard option is toggled. It will resume running if the Terminal IDE keyboard option is toggled.

wyrdowl
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  • Slightly off topic but are you able to log into terminalide with ssh on kitkat? I used to be able to but can't since the upgrade. It is the problem described here: https://code.google.com/p/terminal-ide/issues/detail?id=117 – Holloway Jan 02 '15 at 20:20
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7175 recompiled all the Terminal IDE binaries statically, so they don't give the PIE error on Android 5+. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=57292384&postcount=68 (dec 2014)

7175 recommends downloading the apk from the following dropbox, then unzipping (an apk is a zip) and copying across just the binaries you need (instead of sideloading the whole apk). https://www.dropbox.com/s/h2d23ecbrt2akeu/terminalide-2.02-binary-mod-signed.apk?dl=0

I downloaded this, and its vim worked on my old 4.2.2 Android phone - but I haven't actually tried it on an Android 5+ phone! (I don't have one; I'm researching my upgrade path).

At lease one stackoverflow user uses it: Rejecting re-init on previously failed class error when loading a Class with dalvikvm

A question within an answer: Anyone know how to confirm these binaries are safe? Especially ssh - downloading a "secure" shell binary from an anonymous user defeats the purpose!

The background of the post seems 100% legit, and has 467 "thanks" (wait, that's for all 7175's posts; this particular one only got 2 "thanks"...) - presumably people who downloaded it, and found no problem. But the site seems dodgey (http://forum.xda-developers.com), with lots of ads and security warnings. Maybe they are recent, after these older posts, and xda used to be good?

Terminal IDE appeals to people who don't want to root their phones - who probably don't want to sideload apps, or download anonymous binaries off the internet. I think the Play store does some rudimentary verification, and the more people who use it, the more likely problems are found. So it would be reassuring if spartacusrex could release this on the Play store as an upgrade - or, 7175 release a new fork.... or someone else release one. Forking is one of the strengths of open source!

BTW: I feel really bad doubting 7175's kind and great work, but sadly, security is a real issue. :(

Community
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hyperpallium
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  • The app is not officially compatible with Android Lollipop but there are work-arounds to use it like the above one, you can try to solve any problems you face with the above MOD provided, I have been using it for a long time and I don't have any security issue. The app doesn't use single byte of Internet data unless I try to do so. – Harshiv May 12 '16 at 12:25
  • Thanks @Harshiv I ended up trying Terminal IDE on lollipop, and found problems with java projects (don't recall if it was `javac`, `dx` and/or `java`). There could well be workarounds for this, but I found termux worked fine, and was about 4x faster. – hyperpallium May 12 '16 at 12:56
  • Are JDK tools available in Termux ?, it has much more tools available so This should be the first choice for @Rob. As for errors, both javac and dx script from terminal IDE required `/system/lib/libjavacrypto.so` , Termux has `JACK` tool available but I have yet to test it. – Harshiv May 12 '16 at 15:35
  • not the JDK, but ecj (eclipse java compiler), dx and java wrapper. There's jack, but I haben't tried it. All later versions, so e.g. `git diff` has `--color-words`; broader e.g. has perl so `git add -p` works; more complete e.g. has git help and manpages; patched for domain name lookup e.g. so wget works without needing `jping`. The terminal itself is also better, e.g. can cut/copy by touch; paste with a hardware keyboard. I love Terminal IDE, but termux is a worthy successor. I had problems with libjavacrypto.so on termux too, fixed it with -Djava.library.path=/system/lib Work for T.IDE too? – hyperpallium May 13 '16 at 05:48
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    Djava... method doesn't work on T.IDE, I gave termux a try but it feels uneasy bcoz I can't find .vimrc or .bashrc, and you need to configure everything unlike T.IDE, I suppose I will stick to it for a while. – Harshiv May 13 '16 at 12:44
  • Yeah, it lacks that nice introductory focus of tIDE. I've also found lots of minor config problems - e.g. once you make/copy across your ~/.bashrc, it still isn't invoked by default; syntax error in `dx` script; vim help not setup. These should get better over time... but the focus of the project mightn't change. – hyperpallium May 14 '16 at 06:32
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No, but termux seems like a good Terminal IDE replacement for Lollipop - and under active development. Has vim, ssh, git, gcc etc and a version of apt-get.

[It only works in Android 5+, so I haven't tried it yet myself.]

hyperpallium
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Edit: It looks like it's not working on all new devices, maybe a target SDK version incompatibility? Terminal IDE should work at least on some other devices since it uses statically compiled binaries to run different parts of it. Statically compiled binaries are PIE(position independent executable) safe which is a requirement in lollipop. I've been running it on a lollipop build with my Galaxy Nexus no problem.

EDIT2: Also there are a few binaries that are dynamically linked and are not PIE, so those won't work.

jan
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    So I got a nexus 9 and as soon as I downloaded Terminal IDE and tried to install it I got an error. – Rob Nov 19 '14 at 01:33
  • That's weird. I've been running it on my Galaxy Nexus with a lollipop build. I would email Spartacus Rex about it (http://www.spartacusrex.com/contact.htm), the creator of Terminal IDE. See if you can pull a "logcat" via adb or run "dmesg > /sdcard/log" to send in an email. I'm sure he'd take a look at it. – jan Nov 19 '14 at 02:27
  • I emailed him but he didn't seem to want to help me. Plus I installed the Terminal IDE on the Nexus 9 right after opening it. Also I tried installing it on a Nexus 9 on display at Best Buy and got the same exact error. So, maybe Nexus 9 is incompatible? – Rob Nov 20 '14 at 04:14
  • Sorry about that man. Yeah it's weird I've had no problem on lollipop with any terminal apps besides linuxdeploy(still using non-PIE binaries as of 20nov2014). I am using non-official lollipop rom though which is almost 100% lollipop but does have some compatibility mods. Damn I wish I had a recommendation for a different app, but terminal ide is kind of unique. You could recreate everything in terminal ide for jack palevich's android terminal emulator, but it would take some work. Hope you can figure something out. – jan Nov 21 '14 at 05:15
  • Yeah i can't get it working in a nexus 5 with lollipop. Certain things worked, at first it wouldn't start then i changed the starting/default keyboard to hacker's keyboard (a separate app) and it started. But i can't get git to push and vim doesn't work either. This sucks!!! – Russ Wheeler Nov 22 '14 at 11:59
  • Yeah the vim and git binaries are actually dynamic and aren't PIE. Totally forgot about those. I'm gonna try compiling some static ones myself or with the -fPIE linking flag. – jan Nov 22 '14 at 21:15
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You have lot of options now: * Termux * GnuRoot apps * UserLAnd * KBox

Of course, it should be possible to build a great filesystem yourself with fakechroot, fakeroot or proot. Or a non-root package manager.

I remember seeing a project named like 'Gentoo prefix for Android non-root' on Sourceforge. I don't know if it is still at alpha stage...