Warning
Due to recent KDE updates, Trierarch encounters KWin crashes. Developers are actively working to resolve these compatibility issues. If the situation remains unfixable, a transition to the Debian distribution is planned, as testing confirms that Debian’s stable KDE version remains functional on Trierarch.
中文 | English
Download: latest APK → GitHub Releases.
| KDE Plasma (Wayland) | VS Code (inside proot) |
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Trierarch is an Android app that runs an Arch Linux rootfs using a proot-style container, with a custom Wayland compositor (development and tuning focus on KDE Plasma (Wayland)). The goal is your own Arch + KDE Plasma 6 (Wayland) mobile desktop.
- If there is no usable rootfs under
data_dir/archat first launch, the app downloads and extracts the Arch Linux aarch64 rootfs from proot-distro (~156 MB). Network required.
Long-press the app icon to show shortcuts, then tap Terminal to enter the Arch shell inside proot.
In the proot Arch shell, update first, then install the desktop (example; adjust packages as you like):
pacman -Syu
pacman -S plasma-meta dolphin konsole- Floating menu orb — A draggable orb on screen; short tap opens a glass menu (Display, View Settings, Appearance, Keyboard, and related actions). Drag the orb to move it; position is remembered between sessions.
| Menu open (terminal / Wayland view) | Menu open (desktop session) |
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- Display — Long-press to edit the Display startup script; short-press to run it and start Plasma. If a Wayland client is already connected, the app does not run the script again.
Recommended script (session D-Bus via dbus-launch, then Plasma Wayland; redirect output so the script doesn’t block):
dbus-launch --exit-with-session startplasma-wayland > /dev/null 2>&1 &Audio note (PulseAudio): Trierarch runs a host PulseAudio daemon (AAudio sink) and exposes it to the proot desktop over a Unix socket. To avoid "silent but playing" cases caused by the default Null Output, Trierarch will auto-inject a small snippet into your saved Display startup script that waits for PulseAudio and runs pactl set-default-sink trierarch-out (idempotent; it won’t be inserted twice).
Even in a proot environment, it is good practice to run the desktop as a normal user, not as root. If you want to dig deeper, read ArchWiki Users and groups and Sudo; otherwise the short recipe below is enough.
Create a user and sudo (example user myuser):
pacman -S sudo
useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash myuser
passwd myuser
EDITOR=nano visudoIn the editor, you can either uncomment the line %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL so everyone in group wheel may use sudo, or leave that line as-is and add below it a dedicated rule, e.g. myuser ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL. Alternatively, add a file under /etc/sudoers.d/ (same syntax; use visudo -f /etc/sudoers.d/myuser to avoid syntax errors). Save and exit.
In the Display script editor (long-press Display), start Plasma as that user so files under /home/myuser belong to the session: first line switch to the account, Enter, second line the startup command. See the screenshot below.
Sessions (orb menu) lists terminal tabs—switch, add, or remove sessions.
Appearance (orb menu): customize the in-app Terminal look—fonts only for now. For further beautification or theming ideas, open an issue—reasonable suggestions welcome.
After you have set a Display startup script, you can tap the app icon normally to enter the desktop view; the app will inject and run the Display script automatically (idempotent when a desktop client is already connected).
The Terminal shortcut is for first-time setup (e.g. installing the desktop and terminal packages) or when you prefer the in-app native terminal—it’s optimized for smooth switching between the desktop and terminal views.
Trierarch currently supports cross-chip hardware acceleration (see renderer mode UNIVERSAL). More high-performance device-specific paths are still in development.
Open View Settings from the orb menu to tune the compositor and pointer behavior:
- Pointer / mouse mode — e.g. touchpad-style (relative) vs tablet-style (absolute).
- UI size vs clarity — Resolution and Scale can be combined: Resolution lowers output resolution to reduce compositing load and adjusts on-screen element size; Scale resizes via scaling without changing the backing resolution to keep text/UI sharp. There’s no single “correct” mix—tune until it fits your device and habits.
After Plasma is running, tap Display in the orb menu again to return to the terminal / Wayland view; open the orb menu → Display to go back to the desktop. The orb menu and Display work in both the shell view and on the desktop.
For topic guides (browser, IME, fonts, etc.) after you’re on the desktop, see trierarch-optimize/README.md (中文).
Strongly recommended: fix Baloo / virtual tags:/ issues common under proot (otherwise repeated pop-ups and wasted resources). Follow Baloo and tags:/ (中文).
For general Arch setup and troubleshooting, use ArchWiki and the Arch Linux Chinese Wiki. This app is proot + Wayland; some full-desktop assumptions (kernel, systemd sessions, …) may not apply.
The Keyboard item in the orb menu can invoke the soft keyboard.
In GTK apps you can enter non-ASCII characters (Chinese, emoji, special characters, etc.); input is completed automatically via the Ctrl+Shift+U path.
Qt apps often don’t support that path: type in a GTK app first (Mousepad), then copy/paste into Qt. The Android soft keyboard and Plasma clipboard are not integrated—copy/paste inside Linux using the mouse or shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V). You can use a full soft keyboard such as Unexpected Keyboard (GitHub).
To build from source, see README_DEV.md. Contributing & security: CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md; changes in CHANGELOG.md; releases: docs/RELEASING.md.
This section covers: thanks to upstreams, bundled terminal font licenses, and other in-tree code (see each tree’s COPYING / LICENSE).
| Thanks to |
|---|
PRoot; Android build and loader integration under trierarch-proot/ |
Termux: proot-distro (Arch rootfs), terminal-emulator (VT / screen buffer dependency), and the TerminalView code under com.termux.view derived from Termux |
Wayland, wayland-protocols; in-app compositor native code under trierarch-wayland/ |
libffi (Wayland stack), Rust, Kotlin, Android NDK / JNI; host native glue in trierarch-native/ |
| Jetpack Compose, Material 3, AndroidX, Kotlin Coroutines, and related Google open-source Android components |
| GNU/Linux userland, Arch Linux packages and docs (ArchWiki, etc.) |
| KDE, Plasma, and sibling free-software communities |
| AOSP and fonts such as Droid Sans Mono commonly shipped with the platform |
| Unexpected Keyboard (third-party keyboard cited in this README; install separately) |
| Upstream font projects listed under Bundled terminal fonts below |
In-app shell fonts: open Appearance from the floating orb menu. System monospace is not shipped under res/font/.
File (trierarch-app/app/src/main/res/font/) |
Upstream | License |
|---|---|---|
jetbrains_mono_regular.ttf |
JetBrains Mono | SIL OFL 1.1 |
ibm_plex_mono_regular.ttf |
IBM Plex Mono | SIL OFL 1.1 |
source_code_pro_regular.ttf |
Source Code Pro | SIL OFL 1.1 |
noto_sans_mono_regular.ttf |
Noto Sans Mono | SIL OFL 1.1 |
droid_sans_mono.ttf |
Droid Sans Mono (AOSP) | Apache License 2.0 |
JetBrains Mono (copyright excerpt from upstream):
Copyright 2020 The JetBrains Mono Project Authors (https://github.com/JetBrains/JetBrainsMono)
This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.
Other SIL fonts in the table are under OFL as well; full terms and notices are in each upstream repository. Complete license texts shipped with the app are in assets/licenses/FONT_LICENSES.txt (in-tree: trierarch-app/app/src/main/assets/licenses/FONT_LICENSES.txt).