In November 2024, Google began to develop a native Linux terminal application for the Android system, allowing users to execute Linux commands on the Android system, but it is specifically run through the Debian virtual machine. You may be curious, isn't Android itself a Linux system? Why run it through a virtual machine? The reason is simple. It is naturally impossible for Google to allow users to directly execute Linux commands on the Android system to perform various operations, let alone directly provide root permissions.
The new Linux terminal application needs to install the Debian system after being enabled. This system runs in a virtualized environment and is isolated from the Android system itself, providing users with root permissions to perform various operations.
For example, users can install other Linux applications directly through the new terminal application (only at the virtual machine level), connect to other servers through SSH, or quickly download files remotely through the terminal.
This new application is pushed to Pixel series devices through the 2025-03 feature update, allowing professional users, developers, and security researchers to perform more operations with the new terminal application, but it is unclear whether other brands of Android devices will also provide this terminal.
Developers using Pixel series devices can update to the latest version, then go to Settings, About Phone, and click the version number 7 times in quick succession to open developer options.
After opening the developer options, manually enable the Linux development environment. After enabling it, this new terminal application will appear on the desktop. When entering for the first time, you need to download a Debian system of about 500MB to configure the virtual machine.
Developers can also allocate space to Linux virtual machines by adjusting the disk size, and can also adjust port settings to allow Linux virtual machines to communicate with the outside world. In the future, Google will optimize terminal applications to bring hardware acceleration and a complete graphics environment, allowing users to run Linux software.