I had too many issues with code-server and vscodium and such when it came to proprietary extensions unfortunately, and my actual dev machine is in the cloud so I rely on the Remote Dev extension. Has to be real VSCode.
I like that you can create a PWA from a standard code-server deployment too, and that works quite nice on DeX (proper immersive-mode full screen), but for me that has been too limiting because I cannot remap my brain away from my vim keybindings, and some stuff just doesn't work in a browser context. The browser will take over certain things (like ESC for getting out of full screen or alt+tab for navigating across browser tabs rather than VSCode tabs, etc).
As a rule of thumb now, any software that's complicated enough to require tabs, I try to run native arm64 builds for (VSCode, Obsidian, browser) and everything else I can get away with kiosk-mode browser windows masquerading as apps (email, calendar, feed reader, chat).
My termux session runs permanently in the background out of laziness (though this does noticeably shorten your battery life, but it's been mostly manageable) so all I need to do is start AVNC.
There are a lot of little configurations and quality of life things that I tweaked over the past year or so of doing this; happy to write all those up somewhere if you're interested.
You can use Andronix to install Linux and a window manager onto you phone. You then use a VNC app to connect to that (local) Linux container and you'll have a fully working Linux phone. Works pretty well, though I had to jump to a few hoops as not all distro's worked on my Fold 3.
DEX starts automatically when you plug HDMI into your (Samsung) phone. You then start the Andronix Linux container thing from DEX and you have a fully working Linux distro, right from your pocket. Pretty magical.
What I do, is use remote VSCode to connect to my dev server, so I don't need to run anything locally, because speed wasn't great for me. But if you set it up as I did, you can work from anywhere and you don't need a laptop.
My only concern is the memory management -- vscode (and its extensions) is not super friendly in its memory usage, and on a phone/tablet the RAM could easily run out, even if swap is enabled.
Only thing I'm still missing is a way to build Android applications from inside Termux. We can write software for normal computers from inside themselves. Conversely, phones have always been these consumer machines, only running software produced for them and with no ability to program themselves. Feels like it's the only remaining barrier in the way of Android phones becoming truly general purpose computers.
I opened an issue on their repository about packaging the Android development tools:
https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/issues/17701
Someone linked a discussion where someone got it to work. I haven't had any luck setting this up though.
I wouldn't even try it on a budget device, but high end Androids should run this more than well enough.
I searched a bit but saw some conflicting info and most of it was quite old. It seemed like people don't recommend doing it is possible.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allakore.s...
I've have recently started using vmConsole too (which is based on qemu instead) as I needed docker. Also great.
Edit: Nevermind it is there. Super Awesome
It's basically self-hosted VS Code in a browser. I can switch from my desktop to my laptop, even to my phone, and pick up right where I left off with uncommitted changes, long running processes, etc. Additionally, I get the full resources of my server and don't have to worry about it running down my battery or causing the fans to spin up on my laptop.
Valid only while you have a (good) internet connection.
But your point still stands anytime I'm away from home.
I'm curious how much tweaking you needed to do to get this to work - I'd love to see this with https://cursor.sh (vscodium based) as the editor
The only issue I've run into so far is signing into my Microsoft Azure and GitHub account since it doesn't seem to be able to load a web browser by default from this VS code instance?
If you could include instructions for any browser that will work with with-in this app on the mobile architecture or even better like you said include it in the app install setup process.
Let me know when either are done and I'll un-install and re-install to test.
I’m curious if the android version supports this extension?
When I got out of jail all I had was smartphones I would borrow from friends and the only way I could end up developing sanely was to open a terminal to a Linux box and just use nano instead, which meant no IDE with auto-complete, syntax lookups, formatting and most importantly, debugging.
But using linux terminal as devbox doesnt mean you dont have access to modern auto-complete syntax lookups formating etc, there are vim/neovim/emacs with any kind of configurations for all of it, and it can be preconfigured by others with projects like https://github.com/AstroNvim/AstroNvim or https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs
So if you know anyone in the same kind of situation, you can advise them to use that.
What seems crazy to me seems to work for others. I assume many of them are constrained by what they can afford.
On a related note, when is pkvm supposed to be available outside pixel devices? Getting a proper linux or windows VM on one of the bigger samsung tablets + keyboard just might replace my laptop (yeah, remote stuff works, but offline on device would be much more convenient, e.g. on trains).
