Installing Linux under PRoot

DISCLAIMER: The information provided here is about running THIRD-PARTY software. The Another Term copyright holder and contributors are NOT responsible for any results of use or misuse of it.
Use it on your own risk!

Preface

Technically any Linux distribution can be used: debootstrap utility to prepare a Debian rootfs for example; though I see no reason to ignore already prebuilt rootfses (see below).

Note: Yes, Termux has its own “minimal base distribution” but I see no reason to mess with it as long as linuxcontainers.org already provides us with a very good prebuilt rootfses that could be installed just by copy-paste of a short quick install snippet (see next section):

• Alpine if you need it small: ≈15MB with openssh-client added (as of version 3.9);
• Debian or CentOS if you need it comfortable with a big software repository.

One more note: Please, don’t hesitate to open new issues (there is no template just write as you wish) if something doesn’t work as expected. Things are changing and new 3rd-party distributions could trigger some old god-forsaken bugs (mostly in PRoot).

Android 10 note

See here.

Making it quick: linuxcontainers.org to the rescue

Their images are licensed under: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

List of the images: Page / Index file

PRoot version used: https://github.com/green-green-avk/proot

Install script source: https://github.com/green-green-avk/AnotherTerm-scripts/blob/master/install-linuxcontainers.sh

Install script usage:

sh ./install-linuxcontainers.sh [-a] [-d] [-e] [--] <distro> <release> [<target_subdir_name>]

  -a -- non-interactive mode
  -d -- do not use minitar and PRoot from a plugin if present
  -e -- fail if no minitar or PRoot from a plugin are present

Environment variables:
  REG_USER - user account name;
  FAV_SHELL - preferable shell;
  PROOT - proot location;
  PROOT_USERLAND - proot userland flavor location;
  ESSENTIALS_PKG - Application ID of a minitar and PRoot plugin to check.

Run without arguments to see defaults.

Directory tree:

• $DATA_DIR
  • root — auxiliary tools dir
  • proots
    • <install-dir-1>
    • …
    • <install-dir-n>
      • root — rootfs
        • .proot.meta — PRoot meta data (will be refactored in future)
        • bin
          • _termsh — PRoot binding of termsh ($LIB_DIR/libtermsh.so)
          • termsh — script that executes _termsh with LD_* variables unset
          • …
        • etc
          • proot
            • run — run script
            • run.cfg — run script configuration
            • run.rc — executed right before PRoot to finally set its environment variables (optional)
            • …
          • …
        • …
      • tmp — PRoot tmp dir
      • run — symlink to the run script

$TERMSH is set to termsh.

If you want to access the application’s private directory (where all your PRoot rootfses with their metadata are located) from your PRooted environment, see /etc/proot/run.cfg.

PRoot run script source: https://github.com/green-green-avk/AnotherTerm-scripts/blob/master/assets/run-tpl

Uninstall:

rm -rf "$DATA_DIR/proots/<target_subdir_name>"

Steps

1. If you have Android 10 or higher, look for additional steps and explanation here.
2. Create a “Local Terminal” favorite with the “Favorite management” permission enabled and run it. A terminal screen will appear.
3. Select a distribution and version in the form below and copy-paste the code snippet to the termial and run.
4. ???
5. PROFIT

Note: Very old Androids can have an issue with downloading from GitHub by termsh.

Copy-paste snippets for download and install:

with chooser:

( S=repo-linuxcontainers.sh ; "$TERMSH" copy -f -fu "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/green-green-avk/AnotherTerm-scripts/master/$S" -tp . && chmod 755 $S && sh ./$S )

or:

[Alpine key map settings] (for its specific mapping of Shift-F*)

Other prebuilt Linux rootfses list

• PRoot list: https://proot-me.github.io/#downloads
• Alpine: https://www.alpinelinux.org/downloads/
• UserLAnd:
  • Debian: https://github.com/CypherpunkArmory/UserLAnd-Assets-Debian/tree/master/assets
  • And many others: https://github.com/CypherpunkArmory?tab=repositories