LowLevelIDE

A pocket Linux IDE for Android — terminal, code editor, and a real toolchain. Root optional.

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LowLevelIDE combines a Termux-grade terminal emulator, a CodeMirror editor, and a sandboxed Alpine Linux userland into a single Material 3 app. Compile C with gcc, script in Python, build Rust and Go, manage source with git — all on-device. With root it opens up to /proc/kmsg, insmod, /sys/class/gpio and raw sockets; without root it runs a real Linux filesystem through a PRoot chroot.

Highlights

• Terminal — full ANSI/VT100, multi-session tabs, a soft-keyboard extra-keys row (Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Alt, arrows), and a foreground service so sessions survive activity recreation.
• Editor — CodeMirror 5 with multi-tab editing, find/replace, jump-to-line, bracket matching, 20+ language modes, six selectable colour schemes, soft word-wrap, and a build-and-run hook.
• Toolchain — Alpine minirootfs with apk, so gcc, python3, git, rust, go, and friends are one install away.
• Three execution modes — direct, PRoot chroot, or root su, chosen automatically and overridable in Settings.
• File browser — tree view, create/rename/delete, copy-path, Storage Access Framework import, and a quick Git menu (status, add, commit, log, pull, push) that drives the terminal.
• Polished UX — drawer navigation, light/dark/system themes, resizable editor/terminal split, a first-run onboarding wizard, and an in-app crash reporter with one-tap share.

What's new in 2.1

Area	Upgrade
Build	Bundled gradle-wrapper.jar — clones build out of the box; Termux libs pinned to JitPack (zero-config).
Editor	Six colour schemes (Material Darker, Dracula, Monokai, Ayu Dark, Eclipse, IntelliJ) + soft word-wrap toggle.
Terminal	Six colour palettes (GitHub Dark, Solarized, Dracula, Gruvbox, Nord, Light) with full 16-colour ANSI tables.
Files	SAF importer to pull in files from anywhere on the device; in-browser Git action menu.
Reliability	Global crash handler that persists reports and shares them via FileProvider.
Branding	New adaptive launcher icon (with Android 13 themed-icon monochrome layer) and teal/emerald Material 3 palette.
CI	GitHub Actions builds the debug APK and runs lint on every push.

Architecture

MainActivity (DrawerLayout + toolbar + 3 panes)
├── EditorFragment       WebView hosting CodeMirror — multi-tab, find, themes, build/run
├── TerminalFragment     TerminalView + tab strip + ExtraKeysView + palette engine
├── FileBrowserFragment  RecyclerView tree, context menu, SAF import, Git menu
├── SettingsFragment     DataStore-backed prefs (theme, fonts, schemes, root/proot, crash logs)
└── AboutFragment

PtyService (foreground)
└── TerminalSessionManager
    └── TerminalSessionProvider
        ├── root mode    su -c <bootstrap>/bin/bash
        ├── proot mode   proot -r <bootstrap> -0 -b /proc -b /dev …
        └── direct mode  /system/bin/sh with augmented PATH/LD_LIBRARY_PATH

OnboardingActivity (first launch only)
├── BootstrapInstaller   extracts Alpine rootfs (Apache Commons Compress)
├── BootstrapDownloader  auto-fetches alpine-minirootfs from the Alpine CDN
├── PRootInstaller       auto-fetches a static proot binary
└── CodeMirrorInstaller  auto-fetches CodeMirror v5 (lib + addons + modes + themes)

util/CrashHandler        global uncaught-exception capture → <filesDir>/crash/*.log

Build

git clone https://github.com/scartheseller72-max/LowLevelIDE.git
cd LowLevelIDE
cp local.properties.example local.properties   # then point sdk.dir at your Android SDK
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug
adb install app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-universal-debug.apk

The Gradle wrapper JAR is committed, so the build works without Android Studio. First launch runs a 3-page onboarding wizard that downloads ~5 MB of dependencies (Alpine + PRoot + CodeMirror); subsequent launches skip it. To ship fully offline, drop the same files into app/src/main/assets/bootstrap/ and app/src/main/assets/editor/ — the installers check there before hitting the network.

Capability matrix

Feature	Direct	PRoot	Root
GCC / Python / Rust / Go	yes	yes	yes
apk add (network required)	yes	yes	yes
chroot to /	no	yes	yes
Read own /proc/<pid>/…	yes	yes	yes
Read /proc/kmsg	no	no	yes
insmod / rmmod	no	no	yes
/sys/class/gpio write	no	no	yes
Raw sockets	no	no	yes
Symlinks survive reboot	partial	partial	yes

Customization

• Editor colour scheme & word-wrap — Settings → Appearance.
• Terminal palette & font — Settings → Terminal.
• Execution mode — Settings → Terminal toggles for root preference and PRoot.
• Crash reports — Settings → Developer → view and share the latest report.

Termux library resolution

The terminal stack resolves from JitPack (declared in settings.gradle.kts), so no extra setup is needed:

implementation("com.github.termux.termux-app:terminal-view:v0.118.0")
implementation("com.github.termux.termux-app:terminal-emulator:v0.118.0")

Prefer to vendor the source instead? Add the upstream repo as a submodule:

git submodule add https://github.com/termux/termux-app vendor/termux-app

then include :terminal-view / :terminal-emulator in settings.gradle.kts and swap the dependency coordinates for project(":terminal-view") / project(":terminal-emulator").

Roadmap

• LSP integration for completion beyond mode-based highlighting.
• Live debugger UI on top of gdbserver.
• Native Git GUI (CLI already works).
• Editor and terminal palette previews in Settings.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md and the Code of Conduct first, and report security issues per SECURITY.md.

License & redistribution

Component	License
LowLevelIDE	GPL-3.0
Termux terminal libs	GPL-3.0
CodeMirror 5	MIT
Apache Commons Compress	Apache-2.0
OkHttp	Apache-2.0
AndroidX / Material 3	Apache-2.0
Alpine Linux rootfs	various FOSS
PRoot	GPL-2.0

Because the Termux libraries are GPLv3, the distributed APK is licensed under GPL-3.0. See LICENSE. To ship under another licence, replace the Termux dependencies with an alternative terminal stack.