Android hacks

1 Emulating Android

Android in a Box — Run Android applications on any GNU/Linux operating system.

2 File transfer over USB

Usually, this means “file transfer over MTP,” which is the native/default USB protocol for filesystem access. AFAICT this is OK on Windows and surprisingly tedious on macOS. Linux is usually OK, but sometimes modern devices don’t work with the OS.

Mac users have the Google native app File Transfer, but it’s awful. Maybe try instead: Ganesh Rathinavel’s OpenMTP (source).

If you are looking at transferring books because your tablet is an e-reader, you can use Calibre which has in-built connectivity.

But shouldn’t FUSE allow this to just work as part of the normal desktop Finder experience? Archlinux thinks so.

On Linux, simple-mtpfs does the job. simple-mtpfs is provided in homebrew. Installation and usage are terse to the point of being sullen:

simple-mtpfs mountpoint

doesn’t give errors or much feedback. And in fact, if something goes wrong, it can fail silently in confusing ways (the folders exist but always show empty).

Try

simple-mtpfs -v -f tmp

to run it in the foreground with verbose feedback, which seems to work fine.

This app also worked on macOS in the past, but I am not sure if it does anymore because of the ongoing quagmire that is macFUSE.

To mount macOS style,

sudo simple-mtpfs -o allow_other,rw -v /Volumes/mountpoint

Contra the manual, on macOS the usual unmount command works for me:

umount mountpoint

Or just quit.

Alternative: go-mtpfs works great for me, although I had to manually install via lots ofd complicated steps:

sudo apt install golang-go
sudo apt install libusb1-devel
mkdir /tmp/go
export GOPATH=/tmp/go
go get github.com/hanwen/go-mtpfs
mkdir xoom
go-mtpfs xoom &
cp -a ~/Music/Some-Album xoom/Music/
fusermount -u xoom

3 Alternative distros

You don’t need to run Google’s Android distro.

I ran in to these alternatives:

• LineageOS
• GrapheneOS
• /e/ (operating system)

That seemed baffling, so I asked perplexity to give me a summary of the SOTA in alternative Android distros. Below is a comparison table of leading privacy-focused Android operating systems: GrapheneOS, /e/OS, LineageOS, CalyxOS, DivestOS, and CopperheadOS. These are the most widely recommended alternatives for users seeking enhanced privacy and security on their mobile devices.

4 Alternative app repositories