You work remotely, and your output just gets piped to your iOS device's terminal emulator.īlink shell is a popular paid open source SSH app. The advantage of using SSH is that your server can be running any distro with any software you like. For a long time now, it's been possible to use one of many SSH client apps on iOS to connect to a server running a Linux distro or BSD. One step up from downloading an app is configuring an SSH client. It even allows you to install Python packages with pip. It ships with Python 2.7, Python 3.7, Lua, C, Clang, and more.Īlong similar lines is a-Shell, described as a 'text-based user interface for a screen-based platform.' a-Shell is open source, in active development, grants access to the filesystem, and ships with Lua, Python, Tex, Vim, JavaScript, C, and C++, along with Clang and Clang++. This is a sandboxed open source command-line shell with 80+ commands bundled in a $0 app. One of the easiest ways to get started is with the iOS app LibTerm. I'll look at the simplest approach before exploring more challenging solutions. Free online course: RHEL Technical Overview.There are heavy restrictions on what you can do on the device with these apps, but they do get you some command-line functionality. This is the most limited option-it doesn't really let you run Linux, but you are running Linux tools. Run a virtualized system using Alpine Linux with iSH, which is open source, but must be installed using Apple's proprietary TestFlight appĪlternatively, there are two open source terminal emulator apps that provide open source tools within a restricted environment.Secure shell (SSH) into a Linux computer.You have two options for running a complete Linux system on iOS: Plugging my Kinesis Advantage split keyboard into my iPhone 6 makes for some strange optics, like a corp's cyberdeck from the classic role-playing game Shadowrun. I recommend connecting an external keyboard, either through Bluetooth or by using a camera connection kit adapter to connect a wired keyboard (my preference). Using the command line for programming on a phone or tablet's onscreen keyboard is not a lot of fun. I want the environment I'm accustomed to, as well as my standard development environment.

But I also want to use it to access the command line for applications and my suite of programs and scripts I can't seem to do without. I have a seven-year-old iPad 2 Mini that still works fine for reading e-books and other tasks. But if you're reading, you probably know the answer: Linux users want to be able to use any device, and they also want to use their own customizations. Did you know that you can run a Linux command line on your iOS device? You might be asking, 'why would I want to use text-based applications on my tiny iPhone?' OK, fair enough.

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