NewPipe on Linux, Using Android_translation_layer

[yjftsjthsd-h]

I feel like the interesting part is mostly https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_transla... which is probably an alternative to waydroid, but maybe more like WINE so it doesn't need the binder kernel module?

EDIT to add: I also think packaging up an application plus the compatibility layer using flatpak[0] is a really nice idea; it lets you 1. make those apps available in a way that nearly appears native, 2. lets you get users/testers on your compat layer easily, while 3. scoping it to a single app at a time to make it easier to do things like "well we've got this one app working, but how do we tell people that without them expecting other things to work that aren't implemented yet?". Excellent symbiosis:)

[0] Strictly speaking there shouldn't be anything requiring flatpak here... I think there's no technical blocker preventing you making a debian package for the ATL and another for NewPipe and sticking them in a repo/PPA that people could add. But I do somewhat feel that flatpak lends itself to this usecase.

[sigh_again]

Trying to reimplement Android without Binder is a doomed plan. Everything about Android is so intrinsically linked to having Binder available that you're just going to end up piling hacks on hacks to have anything working. At this point, an x86 Android image will be better and more reliable. Somewhat just as fast.

Services ? Binder. Intents (even internal ones) ? Binder. Play Services / microG which 90% of apps use ? Binder. Permissions ? Binder.

[Cloudef]

The project seems to be built on top of my android2gnulinux project from way back. Nice to see someone picking up the pieces and making it more functional.

https://github.com/Cloudef/android2gnulinux

[charlieboardman]

I have been hoping for compatibility layer + application flatpaks for a while so it’s nice to see someone doing it. My dream is to have a bunch of flatpaks for the Microsoft office suite

[irunmyownemail]

I don't use flatpak, snap or appimage so it's good that it doesn't need flatpak or similar.

[bubblesnort]

It's conceptually similar to wine, but rather a reimplementation of the reference Android, which is AOSP.

See https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_transla...

[pantalaimon]

What’s wrong with binder?

The problem with Waydroid is that you need to boot up a whole Android system, which is not great for app startup time.

[NoahKAndrews]

Definitely. I'd never heard of this one before; I'd love to read a full comparison between the two.

[clfdev]

If you have a device running postmarketOS or Alpine Linux you can try this out yourself with other Android apps. Just "sudo apk add android-translation-layer" and then run

$ android-translation-layer some-app.apk

I tried a few (F-Droid, Spotify, Megalodon) but they all failed with various issues, looks like there's a lot of API surface still not covered. Hopefully a lot of it is fairly easy to add now that the foundational work has been done!

[txtsd]

I'm going to try and get android_translation_layer building on Arch and then we can have a third distro to add to the list!

[antics9]

Why would one want NewPipe on desktop when there's https://freetubeapp.io/

[ravenstine]

Perhaps because one is accustomed to the NewPipe experience and would prefer consistency across devices?

Never heard of Freetube, but it looks pretty snazzy.

[Timber-6539]

Freetube is terribly unoptimized. Even though it supports hw video playback, I decided to skip it as it had too much CPU overhead.

[3np]

You know you could drop a recommendation without being so damn submissive of OP. Let a thousand alternative clients bloom.

[mixmastamyk]

Doesn’t work well on Wayland unfortunately. Don’t know if this one does but worth a shot.

[yownie]

no "fast-foward through silence" feature

[yownie]

in one phrase "skip silences" feature!

[KetoManx64]

Very cool stuff! I wonder if you can switch out the newpipe app for the Tubular (https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular) fork which has SponsorBlock and ReturnYoutubeDislike built into it.

[yownie]

He can't but you probably can.

[varbhat]

https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_transla...

https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_transla...

I wonder how well this approach works over anbox/waydroid's approach.

[gbraad]

Waydroid needs to run a full OS; this is just a single application; the first approach allows you to integrate well with other apps you might use. Though for ATL, when you open in a browser, it will open your actual desktop browse. Downloading will happen to your chosen folder on the desktop. It feels more like APKs for a desktop; like Google's "ARC Welder" without using the browser as the runtime.

[gbraad]

I have finally been able to install it and have to say I am really impressed how well this works. Sure, you can not really 'fullscreen'? There are some glitches; margins. But mostly it just works. It is so much more efficient than starting up Waydroid... I am even considering trying this with some of my other go-to applications.

Note; FreeTube is also a good client. Though at three times the size due to Electron, I like NewPipe more. It feels way more snappy to use.

[brnt]

I see tons of glitches: cant load settings, loading a vid may work or not, and the gui gets glitchy regardless.

Pity, I love Newpipe on my phone.

[jansommer]

Great news! I'm fiddling way too much with a Surface Go 2, and a translation layer for Android is perfect when all you have is a touchscreen, very little ram, an incredibly slow eMMC, and a battery that'll last 8 hours if you're lucky.

Especially because there aren't many Linux apps that are touch friendly. Everything kirigami/touch friendly apps in KDE is very much work in progress and are barely good enough for daily usage. Electron apps are no-go because they don't work with a virtual keyboard. Flutter apps are useless because they don't support high dpi on Linux. Gnome has bad support for fractional scaling, issues in some menus for touchscreens, and the space for fonts in the launcher doesn't scale making them display as "Firef..." on a high dpi. I am running Debian Bookworm by the way.

So I wasn't happy to see that android_translation_layer uses Gtk, but I think scaling is improved in Gtk4. Looking forward to try it out either way.

[whoisthemachine]

Exciting. I'd love to see AppImage [0] builds of applications produced with this library.

[0] https://appimage.org/

[reify]

for me freetube in the arch repo works great

https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube

[ugjka]

I think it is in the AUR not arch official repos

[mbeex]

Mmmh, I'm using it on Android for some time now, installed as F-Droid app. Problem is, there is some friction regarding Countermeasures of YT and a new version adjusting to them. Often, I'm unable to use the alternative Client on Android for months until this is fixed. Will this be a problem on Linux too?

[m3Lith]

The problem is that F-Droid takes time to review new releases, when they're already available from other (direct) sources.

I have discovered Obtainium[1] not too long ago. Allows you to install and update apps from pretty much any source you want (e.g., directly from GitHub releases, as in NewPipe's case).

[1] https://obtainium.imranr.dev/

[pixelN]

have a look at NewPipe's own fdroid repo: https://newpipe.net/FAQ/tutorials/install-add-fdroid-repo/

[sureglymop]

This is amazing! Have been using Newpipe for years because of its ability to group subscribed channels into different feeds.

[throwaway81523]

On the desktop, youtube in the browser is tolerable with ublock origin, so I use it in preference to youtube because of the ability to show search results most recent first. Newpipe (maybe due to technical obstacles, idk) doesn't do that and it makes things harder.

[dazld]

Semi related, there is a Minecraft Bedrock Launcher that ports the Minecraft for Android app to *nix.

https://flathub.org/apps/io.mrarm.mcpelauncher

[omeid2]

On this topic, similar to Wine, there is also Darling which brings Darwin to Linux.

https://github.com/darlinghq/darling

[yownie]

I've wanted this for several years now solely for the "fast-forward through silences" feature that newpipe has.

[ninalanyon]

3.6 GB installed! This is why I dislike Flatpak.

[Thorrez]

The page says "Installed Size ~60.95 MiB". Is that inaccurate?

[yownie]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!