Breadstick documentation

How to run a real Debian desktop on your phone or tablet, what it can do, and where its edges are.

Breadstick runs a real Debian system on your Android device. Not a remote desktop, not an emulator, and not a stripped-down shell: actual Linux applications, running on your device's own processor, drawn as native windows.

These pages cover how to use it and, just as important, what it cannot do. The limits page is the one to read before you plan a workflow around it.

What it actually is

An Android app hosts an X server in its own process. A Debian system runs beside it, unprivileged, through a container. Each Linux window is handed to Android as a real window, so your Linux applications sit in the task switcher next to your Android ones and behave the way the rest of the system does.

Nothing is streamed from a server. Turn off the network and everything except downloading new software still works.

What makes it different

A modern Android tablet has a desktop class processor, more memory than most laptops shipped with a few years ago, a keyboard, and a monitor output. What it has never had is desktop software. Breadstick is what closes that gap.

It is built for people who want more out of hardware they already own: developers, system administrators, engineers, students, tinkerers, and anyone who has looked at what is in their bag and thought it should be capable of more than it is allowed to do. If you have ever wanted your tablet to be the machine you work on rather than the one you read on, this is that.

And getting there is one app install. Breadstick comes from Google Play like any other app. There is no PC involved, no bootloader to unlock, no flashing, no custom recovery, no adb, no warranty to void, and nothing to undo later. You install it, it sets up a Debian system on first launch, and you have a Linux machine. If you decide it is not for you, you uninstall it and your device is exactly as it was.

Concretely, on a device you already carry:

• Write, compile and run code, in a real editor, with real extensions
• Keep projects in git, and run the toolchain the project actually expects
• Run a database, a web server, or a build locally, and reach them from the browser beside them
• Leave something running and SSH back into it from a laptop
• Use the same command line tools you use everywhere else, because they are the same tools

None of that is a phone sized imitation of a desktop program. It is the desktop program, running on your device's own processor.

Most other ways of running Linux on Android give you one scrolling screen, or a shell, or a virtual machine that needs root. Breadstick gives you:

• Real windows. Every Linux application is its own Android window, resizable and snappable.
• A real package manager. apt install works, from Debian's archive and from ours.
• An app install. It comes from Google Play. No PC, no flashing, no unlocking, nothing to undo.
• No root. Nothing is unlocked, nothing is patched, and your Android install is untouched.
• A system that updates itself. New Breadstick releases arrive through apt, not a new download.

It does have real limits, and they are worth knowing before you commit to it. They are all on one page.

Where to start

If you have just installed it, read Getting started. If you are deciding whether it fits your work, read What Breadstick cannot do first.