Termux

Termux puts a Linux terminal on an Android phone. Instead of tapping through menus, you type commands: it includes bash and zsh shells, text editors such as nano and vim, ssh for reaching servers, compilers including gcc and clang, a Python console, and version-control tools such as git and subversion. The idea is straightforward — the phone already runs Linux underneath, and Termux gives you a way to use it directly.

On first start, Termux downloads a small base system. After that, you add what you need with the apt package manager, the same tool used on Debian and Ubuntu. That keeps the starting install small and lets you build up only the tools you actually use. Built-in help is available by long-pressing anywhere in the terminal and opening the Help menu, and there is online help on the project’s wiki.

This is a command-line tool, so it suits people who are comfortable typing commands and reading terminal output. There is no desktop-style graphical environment here, and most of what you do happens in text. The download is large — 108.60 MiB — because the single package carries native support for arm64, 32-bit ARM, and both x86 variants. It needs Android 7.0 or newer. The version listed here is the F-Droid build of Termux 0.118.3, built and signed by F-Droid.