notes by alifeee tagged installation (2) rss

setting up OwnTracks on my server # prev single next top

tags: owntracks, installation • 389 'words', 117 secs @ 200wpm full width

OwnTracks is a self-hostable service for tracking locations.

It's like an open-source, self-hostable version of Life360, Apple's Find My Friends, Google's Find My Device or many other apps which let you view the location history of yourself or others.

You can self-host it on a raspberry pi, a server, or otherwise a computer which is always-on and has access to the Internet (with a static IP).

I tried installing it on my server, and this is what I ran. Notably, it wiped my existing nginx configuration, so I suggested a clarification of that in the documentation and made sure to back my config up so I could restore it. Thankfully I was already doing that.

# install files
cd /usr/alifeee/
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/owntracks/quicksetup
mv quicksetup owntracks
cd /usr/alifeee/owntracks/

# edit configuration
cp configuration.yaml.example configuration.yaml
nano configuration.yaml

# back up nginx.conf
(cd /media/alifeee; sudo ./back-up.sh)

# set up
sudo ./bootstrap.sh

# reset nginx conf (it blanks it)
sudo chmod u+w /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sudo cp /media/alifeee/20250307T1749/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
# put this into config
echo '# for owntracks
  map $cookie_otrauth $mysite_hascookie {
    "vhwNkyPGPCvnMCiQRkCs" "off";
    default "My OwnTracks";
  }'

# get passwords
sudo tail /usr/local/owntracks/userdata/*.pass

Files are stores in /usr/local/owntracks. I can then visit https://owntracks.alifeee.net/, login, and see a setup. I downloaded the Android app and set it up by opening the file from my website with the app, and it set up pretty well!

Then, I went for a walk, and looked at the "frontend", which puts out a view like this, of my location history:

       ___
   ___/   \
  /      alifeee
  |
  /
 |
  \___
      \__

It's pretty neat! And self-hosted! Another service to join the maybe-too-many on my server…

I made an account on it for my friends and we plan to use it to keep track of each other in our hitchhiking adventure next week.

installing Waydroid, an Android emulator, on Linux # prev single next top

tags: linux, Android, installation • 645 'words', 194 secs @ 200wpm full width

I wanted to use Android on Linux, so I searched the web and found https://waydro.id/.

Instead of running in some kind of virtual machine, it seems to run Android slightly more natively on Linux (I really don't know how any of this works).

Here is a small adventure at trying to install it:

Official installation guide

Following steps from https://docs.waydro.id/usage/install-on-desktops#ubuntu-debian-and-derivatives (I'm on Pop!_OS which I think is based on Debian).

$ sudo apt install curl ca-certificates
$ curl -s https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash
$ sudo apt install waydroid
$ waydroid init
[11:27:05] Failed to load binder driver
[11:27:05] modprobe: FATAL: Module binder_linux not found in directory /lib/modules/6.13.0-061300-generic
[11:27:05] ERROR: Binder node "binder" for waydroid not found
[11:27:05] See also: https://github.com/waydroid

I don't really know what this error meant, but after searching, it seemed that Waydroid needed "wayland" and I was using X (which are both Desktop thingies which make pixels appear on the screen). I read things about Pop!_OS not having something necessary installed in the kernel, but I could use "DKMS", meaning Dynamic Kernel Module Support. So I tried installing what I'd found links to with:

git clone https://github.com/choff/anbox-modules
cd anbox-modules && ./INSTALL.sh

now when I ran waydroid init it worked, but then I got nothing. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing to "open" it now that it was "init"'d. So I deleted all I could with

$ sudo apt remove waydroid
$ sudo find / -type d -name "waydroid"
/var/lib/waydroid
$ rm -rf /var/lib/waydroid

…and found a helper script to do stuff for me.

Installation script

The script I found was https://github.com/n1lby73/waydroid-installer, which I ran with

git clone https://github.com/n1lby73/waydroid-installer
cd waydroid-installer
sudo bash install_script.sh

The script didn't complete, and complained about modules not installing, specifically that lxd-client could not be installed.

Looking at the script I saw it was trying to run apt install lxd-client but running that myself, it seemed that it didn't exist:

$ sudo apt install lxd-client
E: Unable to locate package lxd-client

After searching, it seems lxd-client provides a command lxc, so I looked for how to install lxc, and found it was possible via snap. I've not really used snap before and people have complained about it (about filesize and automatic updates), so I was wary to install it, but I did with:

$ sudo apt install snapd
$ sudo snap install lxd
$ lxc --version
5.21.3 LTS

I removed lxd-client from the install script and re-ran it, and it seemed to work OK. It said it installed a "Wayland" desktop option on my login page if I rebooted.

Opening waydroid

So I rebooted, and on the login screen selected "Pop on Wayland" (I'm still not fully sure what this X/Wayland thing is), and tried starting Waydroid.

Running…

waydroid session start

…and…

waydroid show-full-ui
waydroid app install org.fedorahosted.freeotp_46.apk
waydroid app install Firefox Fast & Private Browser_136.0.2_APKPure.apk

…installed some apps and filled one of my screens with a big Android display.

I found the APKs on either F-Droid, which just has them available for download (sweet) or by searching the web and downloading them from sketchy sites.

It seems to work well!

I suppose there's a lot you can do with Waydroid, if you want. I don't think I want.

In some ways, this is an example of the involved-nature of installing things on Linux.