https://localdesktop.github.io/
Minus the itsfoss spam
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
180 points (97.9% liked)
Android
20991 readers
206 users here now
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
πUniversal Link: !android@lemdro.id
π‘Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
π¬Matrix Chat
π°Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
https://github.com/localdesktop/localdesktop
based on proot, seems like it has both x11 and wayland which is pretty neat. i guess this could be better than termux with termux-x11 in some ways.
βΉοΈ
Yeah, doesn't work on GrapheneOS either, bummer
Did you find any solution to this? Or issue to bump up?
There's also a native desktop mode for grapheneos now, you can activate it in dev options
Not what you want. And it only works on Pixel 8 and above
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/grapheneos-desktop-mode/28826
Nothing in android remotely compares to a full gnu/linux desktop
Yeah but dont expect feature parity with samsung's dex. Dex's a mile away in small quality of life features. Android's baked in desktop is so barebones I cannot fathom it took google 9 years to get this out. Its embarrasing.
I sold my samsung and moved to grapheneos, but I really miss dex. And gallery.
What about the gallery do you miss?
Simple cropping, drawing and blurring are something I now know I used nearly daily basis earlier. Tried to find a gallery viewer that had simple pixelize and cropping, couldnt find one.
Installed aves libre for pictures, and now using signal's inbuilt pixelize function.
I didn't, but I didn't look too hard. I wasn't really expecting it to work
Yup, same thing with pixel8pro and grapheneos
I can't find a list of supported devices, which is disappointing
It should run on most modern android smartphones.
Not running on my Sony 1 VI with Android 16
Well it didn't on that guy's
GrapheneOS is not regular android. It disables JIT and hardens many settings. So, things like proot and others can be finicky to work. Everyone else should be fine unless its an old phone or some chinese phone with certain broken features or restrictions.
Not working on One UI either it seems? That said some people have mentioned it working so I'm not sure what's the cause here.
Well it doesnt seem to work on an s25. Pretty sure its oneui's fault tho
Although the usage of (x)wayland is novel, there have already beem projects which do something similar before.
Termux can run a linux container in a proot, which you can then connect to via an app like vnc to get graphics.
There exist several options to automate this setup, such as anlinux. There is also the proprietary andronix, which used to be open source but now it looks like tgere repos aren't being updated.
It's bad reporting to frame this as a novel app, when it's not. The novel thing is the way this app does xwayland rendered by a native wayland compositor (instead of remote desktop softeare or other solutions), which is really cool though.
This seems great?!
So with this, you can do pretty much anything in any Linux distro minus any sudo related commands?
~~This looks to be running a full virtual machine via the Android Virtualization Framework in the same way as the new "Terminal" app in AOSP, so~~ you have full root control over it.
Edit: I was wrong about the backend, per below it uses proot instead
No, the repo says it uses proot. There is no virtualization done.
You're right, thanks!
While this is much easier to setup than running Termux, this really doesn't seem to be working well for me. I keep having this problem where it stops excepting mouse input for seemingly no reason. I know it's not frozen because my keyboard still works but I can't use it for more than a few seconds before mouse inputs stop working. I don't have this problem with Termux, I have other problems with it but that's a different story.