View, Control your Android and use its Apps

[mikeslr]

Thanks, jesudia, for the tip, viewtopic.php?p=53699#p53699

"Vysor lets you view and control your Android on your computer. Easy peasy." It's available from the Chrome Webstore, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... imgjbffefm. jesudia uses it with Microsoft-Edge under Bionicpup32. I've checked its availability for portable Iron64. So, apparently, it can be used with any 'Chromium clone'.

There's a video at the above link. Apparently, you connect your Android to your PC via a USB-Cable.

As jesudia says, it's very interesting. I've maintained Windows primarily with the idea of making use of Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 to dictate long documents. Dragon 13 can be purchased, if you can get it. Nuance has changed its marketing strategy: Version 15 is a monthly rental.
There are several free voice-to-text android apps. I would not have thought of this solution but for jesudia's persistence.

[user1234]

You can also use scrcpy. It can be installed finely through PPM in fossapup or any pup near than it, as already discussed in that post. (Just an echo of the post)

[mikeslr]

Regarding Scrcpy, see p310don's recipe here for detailed instructions, viewtopic.php?p=53713#p53713

[user1111]

An appeal for me is that combined with vnc server on the laptop with usb attached phone (so mains to the laptop also charges the phone) and scrcpy opens up the ability to vnc into the laptop and use scrcpy to answer a call made by me to that phone, along with setting it to hands free, full volume i.e. aged mum on the floor and being able to talk (her hands free) whilst I'm on the way to assist. We live close, but separately and I have a sound monitor setup so I can overlay that sound stream below what else I might be watching/listening to, so might be alerted if she had fallen and was calling for help and (as is often the case - despite repeated requesting for her to always do so) hadn't got her alarm pendant about her (forgetful/dementia).

[dancytron]

Thanks, jesudia, for the tip, viewtopic.php?p=53699#p53699

"Vysor lets you view and control your Android on your computer. Easy peasy." It's available from the Chrome Webstore, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... imgjbffefm. jesudia uses it with Microsoft-Edge under Bionicpup32. I've checked its availability for portable Iron64. So, apparently, it can be used with any 'Chromium clone'.

There's a video at the above link. Apparently, you connect your Android to your PC via a USB-Cable.

As jesudia says, it's very interesting. I've maintained Windows primarily with the idea of making use of Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 to dictate long documents. Dragon 13 now sells for $231, https://www.amazon.com/Nuance-Dragon-K6 ... B00LX4BYV6 if you can get it. Nuance has changed its marketing strategy: Version 15 is a monthly rental. https://www.nuance.com/dragon.html

There are several free voice-to-text android apps. I would not have thought of this solution but for jesudia's persistence.

I've used Vysor in the past, but as a Elements app, not a chrome addon.

I posted about it.

http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.p ... b0a9#p9857

[user1111]

I found the cpu quite heavy for scrcpy, reducing the bandwidth helped a lot without too much loss of resolution

scrcpy -b2M -m800 --max-fps 15

I got thrown by rsa keys constantly being prompted to be accepted. Turns out that adb stores its keys in ~/.android and not ~/.ssh. I wasn't preserving those between reboots so kept getting a prompt on the phone to accept the (new each reboot) keys. With that folder preserved across reboots then after the first time you tick the always accept from this device tickbox on the phone when prompted then scrcpy subsequently connects without prompting about acceptance/keys.

[mouldy]

I successfully tried scrcpy. First time I didnt mind using that browser on phone. Big enough to read text and dont have to poke my finger at it or use that horrible screen keyboard. Makes typing texts much easier. I could actually play that little Spider solitaire game I downloaded on whim some time back. Need magnifying glass to play it on tiny phone touch screen, barely see the numbers on the card deck. Sure I havent begun to figure out all its options/benefits.

[wiak]

I successfully tried scrcpy. First time I didnt mind using that browser on phone. Big enough to read text and dont have to poke my finger at it or use that horrible screen keyboard. Makes typing texts much easier. I could actually play that little Spider solitaire game I downloaded on whim some time back. Need magnifying glass to play it on tiny phone touch screen, barely see the numbers on the card deck. Sure I havent begun to figure out all its options/benefits.

I've never understood why phones have become so popular (aside from as phones/cameras). My main activity online is to browse and that is a painful experience in my view on a phone (no matter how fancy and sometimes incredibly expensive the phone might be - e.g. Samsung S22 ultra... my goodness... what an almost embarrassingly expensive price!!!). A cheapish 8" or bigger tablet isn't too bad, though I do tend to miss Linux apps and hate the apps with adverts approach favoured by most of the Android universe - certainly on a larger screened tablet some of these termux/vnc-based linux installs work quite well, and better still if paired with a wee relatively cheap bluetooth keyboard). Yes, there is F-droid, but Linux proper always wins for me in terms of functionality and much greater comfort. Some would like to run Linux on their phones... I see no point really - phone is just a rubbish computing environment generally.

[spiritwild]

I tried this but I think theres an issue or bug with android 12. I can use anydesk to access the phone if needed.
I don't really use my phone and computer together other than texting notes to my phone once in a blue with sendmail. I back up photos using ftp and that's about the only time I connect the phone. oddly, I don't use social media apps on the pc at all. My job is to tweak and break the system and restore from backup. ..... consistantly.

This is a nice feature to have if youre vision is bad or you have big banana hands lol. I can't type a sentence
without hitting all the wrong keys on the phone.

[mouldy]

Yes, there is F-droid, but Linux proper always wins for me in terms of functionality and much greater comfort. Some would like to run Linux on their phones... I see no point really - phone is just a rubbish computing environment generally.

At least most F-droid apps dont have spyware and gotchas. The things people will give up in exchange for "free". And there is way to run linux on top of Android without rooting phone. I dont think its a great way and assume this doesnt work very well on low end phone... but https://f-droid.org/en/packages/exa.lnx.a/

I think for lot people the only internet access they have ever owned is their phone, so dont miss what you never had.

[rockedge]

I've been following this thread with interest since I probably would answer my cell phone or SMS texts more often and reliably if it was connected to one of my computers.

Plus it seems cool so I booted into KLV-Airedale and installed scrcpy in a terminal with:

Code: Select all

xbps-install -Sy scrcpy

I placed the phone into the ADB debug mode (developer's settings) and connected it to a USB port and launched scrcpy which worked immediately out of the box and suddenly there was my phone's display on my monitor!

Very easy to install and to run it seems with Void Linux based systems. Now to try it out on a Bionic64 and Fossapup64 which would be very cool indeed.

Screenshot_2022-04-17_10-35-57.png (354.36 KiB) Viewed 2482 times

[user1234]

Don't just get stuck to scrcpy, use sndcpy to send mobile audio to the laptop. It can be easily installed from its github site (click on the .zip download link). Make sure that your phone's settings allow apps to be installed via usb.

[mouldy]

Sure others have figured this out and its too simple to mention, but will anyway since most people posting screen shot show it as the little tall rectangle over to side of screen mimicking the phone screen as most people use it. Playing with scrcpy this morning and thinking this is wrong orientation. Well I had my phone screen locked in upright position. Set it to rotate and set the phone on its side. Ok mirror image on computer screen now matching. Then maximized the scrcpy screen on computer and bingo, full screen like you would see using desktop/laptop. Browser looks like it would in linux or windows. Now this Android Chrome browser besides being kinda old also is more limited than linux/windows version. No addons, fewer settings, etc. But its full size and you can pretty well treat it like you would normal version. Right click of mouse (anywhere) by way to take it back a page. Remember this was designed for touch screen not a mouse so never quite know how to interact via mouse.

I would imagine scrcpy is great if you just want to do mostly text interactions, in that way better than touch, but most Android apps are designed for touch. This would also be great workaround if cell phone company is anal about preventing tethering and tethering workarounds. I mean you are using the phone Android system and phone apps, but just in a much more convenient way for serious surfing or other uses. Oh will mention one little caveat, when typing, the phone puts up the screen keyboard. It has no idea you are using a real keyboard. Once in a while it will try to outguess you with its predictive service on what you are trying to type. I hate systems that try to outguess me on what I want to do.

My next experiment probably next month when I have fresh refill data on my phone will be to install Kindle for Android. My phone has Android6 so its for sure not going to be current version. Hopefully its one that Amazon still lets register. I hadnt bothered before cause frankly squinting my eyes to read not pleasant.

Is there a real point to this, probably not, if you have a computer able to run scrcpy, you have a computer that can run linux and just tether to use the cell data without the android interface. There are some Android apps that might be useful and some folk maybe have cell plan with strict NO TETHERING enforcement. This is a true end run since you are only using cell phone to do actual surfing. Just controlling it through computer with full size keyboard and screen. The whole idea of no tethering policy is that people that tether a computer use more data. Yea you bought the data, but they want people to use as little of it as possible. Its their silly "unlimited" marketing that is the problem. They oversold their ability to deliver.

[Clarity]

@mouldy and others, in my opinion, sharing a good accurate view of a phone's use on the desktop.

Chromebooks have mastered this interaction as they speed forward in the massive integration movement they are on with some GREAT solutions. SAMSUNG also has a fabulous solution to 'dock' their phones to a Win/MAC desktop.

My AIO's screen has lost its 'touch' and I am in the process to replace this 24" HP. It is out of warranty and I paid HP $50 (us) to diagnose the problem after an upgrade they instituted that caused the problem. Their resolution...."give us $500 and we'll replace your PC"!!!

Until then, I only have a 5 year-old touch-screen Chromebook which i am so happy with and will NOT change; AND an old HP touch-screen laptop from 2008 that I will try.

My questions to those who have tried the products shown in this thread

1. has ANYONE tried this on a touch-screen Linux/PUP?

2. will they work wirelessly on the Home's Wifi LAN?

This would work in concert with the upcoming Home interoperability that I am already preparing for.

@rockedge is years ahead of us with his work with PUPs and cameras.

[user1111]

I have termux installed on mine, and used pkg install to add other things such as tmux and ssh, so I can sshfs mount between the phone/laptop.

With the phone screen rotation and on its side it looks like this on my laptop

snap-scrcpy.png (97.43 KiB) Viewed 2384 times

For my main laptop session (Fatdog) I like multiple terminals being started at bootup, a full compliment of ctrl-alt-F1 through ctrl-alt-F10, leaving F11 and F12 available for graphical desktops (X).

i.e. /etc/inittab

::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
tty1::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty1
#tty2::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
#tty3::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
tty2::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty2
tty3::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty3
tty4::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty4
tty5::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty5
tty6::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty6
tty7::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty7
tty8::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty8
tty9::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty9
tty10::respawn:/sbin/getty -n -l /bin/autologin 38400 tty10

I boot Fatdog to with pfix=nox so it boots to cli and then start my contained X session on ctrl-alt-f11 that I use as my daily gui desktop (browser/libre office etc.) ... and now also run another X on ctrl-alt-F12 (by starting another X, and loading jwm into that for a tray/windows decorations)

X :3 &
DISPLAY=:3 jwm &

and then on ctrl-alt-F12 run scrcpy. So two separate X/gui sessions, one for my regular gui desktop (ctrl-alt F11), another (ctrl-alt-F12) for the phone

All of the others (ctrl-alt Fn) I use for alsamixer, alsa equaliser, htop, ssh into hashbang where I have tmux and a range of other terminal 'windows' (mutt for mail, weechat for irc, another for BBS'ing (telnet) ...etc.). I also kvm/qemu boot OpenBSD which is for my 'servers' (http, ssh ...etc.).

Ctrl-Alt F4 for instance is my ssh into hashbang where tmux is running with mutt, weechat windows (where that's also side a 'screen' with multiple windows.

tm.png (88.13 KiB) Viewed 2384 times

I find termux with sideways phone orientation and scrcpy maximised looks/works well, and nice being able to use the mouse/keyboard to flip to and type/read SMS's ..etc.