Android has always been the perfect operating system for phones and tablets. It’s a stable OS that “just works”, perfect for doing stuff like browsing the web, watching a video streaming service, or…making calls. Yet this seemingly simple os has is capable of much more than you think, mainly due to it having behind it one of the most important pieces of software: the Linux Kernel .

The Linux kernel is the base of any Linux Operating system, like Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and Chrome OS (yes, that one too). It is used on building-sized supercomputers, and on that weird smart tv. Your favorite website is probably running on a Linux computer. Granted, the kernel that is featured on android is greatly modified, but you can still harness it’s power with a pretty neat app called Termux .

It is impressive how well Termux works as a Linux Terminal for Android. It even has a package manager for installing CLI programs, like OpenSSH, Lynx and Tmux, and also many of the programming languages’ compilers and interpreters. You can code and run Python code on Termux almost as well as on any Linux/Unix terminal. Plus a tablet or phone can be great for coding on the go. If you can code on a Linux terminal, you can code on Termux. But is it practical to code on Android device? I would say yes! Just get Termux and install your favorite CLI text editor, your compiler/interpreter and Git. I do hope you have a keyboard though.