setting up termux-x11

guide for setting termux-x11 for udroid GUI

Termux:X11 is the official Termux X server add-on for Android. It is a fully fledged X server and consists of two parts: the Termux:X11 Android app and its companion Termux package.

This guide covers the official termux/termux-x11 project used with a uDroid distribution.

1. How does it work?

The companion package starts the Termux:X11 server and creates the X11 socket. Linux graphical applications connect to that socket using the display address in the DISPLAY environment variable. The Android app displays the X server's output and handles Android-side input.

2. Requirements

• Termux from f-droid or termux-dev builds

• termux-x11 app from GitHub releases page *

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3. Setup Instructions

First, we need to set x11-repo and then to install termux-x11-nightly. These commands below do the job of installing both of them. execute these commands in termux-app ( copy, paste, then enter )

apt install x11-repo -y
apt install termux-x11-nightly -y

4. Starting termux-x11 app

Start the termux-x11 app and use this command in termux to start the x11 server

termux-x11 :0 &

:0 is the display number and & is used to stop termux-x11 from locking the terminal

5. Using termux-x11 with UDROID

udorid launch script takes care of mounting the termux-x11 default socket directory to the suites tmp directory, you just have to export the DISPLAY variable to the correct display address and run the application/Desktop environment to show the GUI in termux-x11

Login to your distro and try out these examples

Examples

Staring glxgears

export DISPLAY=:0
glxgears

Staring xfce4

export DISPLAY=:0
startxfce4

If XFCE starts but moving windows, opening menus, or scrolling feels slow, disable its compositor. See Smooth Termux:X11 desktop performance for the quick fix, touch-friendly scaling, and the reason this helps on Android.

Staring gnome

export DISPLAY=:0
export XDG_CURRENT_DIR=GNOME

# PATH GNOME issue with proot
for file in $(find /usr -type f -iname "*login1*"); do mv -v $file "$file.back"; done

service dbus start
gnome-shell --x11

Sometimes you may need further tweaks to make program run termux-x11

it may be options, environment variables and etc...

termux-x11 repo

GitHub - termux/termux-x11: Termux X-server add-on.GitHub