[Feature]: Some kind of script to package up an app as its own APK, to get around the Android execve restrictions?

[EternityForest]

Feature description

Not being able to update the API level seems like somewhat of a big problem.

With the faster internet speeds and larger storage these days, wouldn't it be possible to just bundle all the binaries you want into one fixed APK, and just update the whole thing periodically, so you never have to run any binaries that aren't in the APK itself?

Maybe you could have some way to run an install script inside a qemu on a PC, then take that whole filesystem and make it into an APK?

That way, you could even upload a bundle like that right to the play store, and there would be no undue load on the Termux repo servers.

I think Home Assistant has been tried successfully already, having an easy script to package apps would make a lot of self-hosted/opensource things far more accessible, if they could run on stock Android devices.

Additional information

I'm not sure anything has this so far, but the concept and use case is pretty much the same as what Docker and all the other Linux container solutions are supposed to do.

[tareksander]

I think that idea was brought up in #2155, but I can't find the comment right now, it's a long thread.

[sylirre]

This was already discussed in #1072, #2155 and our developer channel on Gitter (Matrix). Don't create separate issues for that, especially with duplicate suggestions. And we rather would like to see at least proof-of-concept instead of abstract suggestions - in case if someone really wants to make Termux W^X compliant. For now this is a low-prio task for us.

In-apk packaging works, but has own significant issues that worse than inability to publish on Play Store. Moreover Play Store has limits on publishing APK file and bundles such as file size. Typical Termux installations has size of much more than 100 - 500 megabytes and often reach 1.5 - 5 GB.

I also should remind that we no longer have access to Termux account on Google Play, as the only person who manage that account no longer participate in project development or in any other way contact with us. Therefore Google Play is deprecated and not being viewed as distribution option.

then take that whole filesystem and make it into an APK?

Termux doesn't use file system images. It is not a system emulator or virtual machine.

Btw there is android-10 branch and https://github.com/termux/termux-packaging with all stuff for in-apk packaging. But after experimenting we found that such approach would not be suitable for Termux.

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The current our choice is leave thing as-is to keep the usability of Termux on current level. In-APK packaging is a step towards making it worse.

[patham9]

I'm glad this got closed as it is an extremely short-sighted idea. If Termux is supposed to provide a Linux environment on your phone, then it is also expected by users to be able to write, compile, and run created binaries directly on your phone, and without any strange workarounds like using wasm, which cause unacceptable slowdowns.
Let's hope Android will stay sane and not turn into iOS-like cr*p!