Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

I recently learned something that blew my mind; you can run a full desktop Linux environment on your phone.

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That’s a graphical environment via X11 with real window management and compositing, Firefox comfortably playing YouTube (including working audio), and a status bar with system stats. It launches in less than a second and feels snappy.

↫ Hold the Robot

In and of itself, this is a neat trick most of us are probably aware of. Running a full Linux distribution on an Android phone using chroot is an awesome party trick, but I doubt many people take this concept to its logical conclusion by connecting it up to a display, keyboard, and mouse, and use it as their mobile workstation. Well, the author of this article did, and he took it even one step further by replacing the display part of the logical conclusion with AR glasses.

The AR glasses in question were a pair of Xreal Air 2 Pro, which put a 120Hz 1080p display in front of your eyes using Sony micro-OLED panels. This will create the illusion of a 130″ screen with a 46° field of view, from a pair of glasses that honestly do not feel that much more massive than regular sunglasses or some of the thicker glasses frames some people like. I’m honestly kind of impressed this is possible these days.

Add in a keyboard and mouse, and you’ve got a mobile workstation that takes up very little space, especially since you’re carrying your phone with you at all times anyway. Of course, you have to be comfortable with using Linux – no Windows or macOS here – and the software side of the equation requires more setup and fiddling than I thought it would, but the end result is exactly like using a regular Linux desktop, but on your phone and a pair of AR glasses instead of on a laptop or desktop.

If I had the cash to throw around on fun side projects like this (you can help with that, actually, through Ko-Fi donations), I would totally order a pair of these Xreal glasses to try this out.