Dragon Software and Tech

Fun With Workflows

Back to Termux folks, for this segment, we will go over setting up your terminal for use. the very first thing you should do it type termux-setup-storage and hit enter. This will not erase or harm anything, it will simply setup the proper storage location and related permissions for all you do in termux. when doing this, the first run may also have the terminal ask some questions with a Y or N answer. just choose whatever it says the default answer is for now, but I think either answer is harmless. Now for the first command you should always type everyday before you do anything else.

pkg update && pkg upgrade

upon hitting enter you will likely see that some of your packages will be updated and or upgraded. This is important because trying to work with outdated packages can cause problems. every linux distribution has its own package manager, but when the right tools/packages/programs are added to your termux, other package managers will become available as well, and you may use whichever you prefer they are all means to the same end , installing, deleting, showing, finding, and getting lists of packages for you. A very popular one is apt(my favorite and is available immediately as well with this build of termux) to show you what the upgrade and update command looks like with apt,

apt update && apt upgrade

also it may be written as:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

but for now we will stick with the default package manger.
termux is designed to offer you help when needed. simply typing help and hitting enter will give you a list of basic commands. if you type pkg help you will get help about packages. more often though you will need to type a command or tool such at cat and follow it with a double dash then help, to learn all about the usage of that command or program. Go ahead and type cat --help and hit enter. you will see the usage for that command, and that command is how you will read README.md files in linux. If you type a command or something even close that you don't have installed, you may get a helpful hint from termux telling you the proper typing or in what package may be installed to make the command available.
To install a package, in this example ill use nano something usefull later.

pkg install nano

you may also abbreviate here

pkg ins nano

if you need help with what nano does

nano --help

if you would like to show all packages available right now

pkg list-all

if you do pkg list-all you may notice you cant scroll back to the very beginning due to termux scrollback limitations in place to keep itself running smooth. An easy way to counteract this issue is to use the less command with the | grep symbol. Try it if you like by typing

pkg list-all | less

Always note that punctuation, spacing , and capital/lowercase letters are very important here. if a file starts with a capital letter and you use lowercase or vice versa, all attempts at interaction will fail.

That is enough to explore a bit. install some packages, Google things to do in termux, download apps with ready made scripts to copy and paste, note what works note what doesn't try to figure out why..A universe has just opened to you! Many programs you can compile from source code or ones already compiled for you waiting for simple commands to install await you in github. If you feel excited to be here, you should probably go ahead and sign-up at github. You will be there alot.
Google is your best friend now, you can ask me questions but you will find terminal users more rarely then you should think you would. You can ask me anything but some quick google research will lead you to almost every question you might have. Stay Ethical and Godspeed
next lesson coming soon.. xXDragonSoftwareXx 🐉