Can I turn my Tablet into a real work station? Apps are nice for small jobs, reading mail and bit of browsing. But for work…Office is a nice app and gives you all the standard Office tools like Word and Excel, lite versions of course, but working OK. But how about doing statistics with R? No R for Android so you need Linux environment. Installing Linux in a box in Android is possible with for example Linux Deploy app. However you need to root the machine. Generally I have no problem with that: I want full control on all machines. Rooting a machine has a consequence: losing the warrant. An secondly is a working root for this specific machine with that Android version available. And finally you run the risk in case of failure to turn you machine in a brick.
Termux
No rooting at the moment, but there is a nice solution available using Termux. Termux is an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment application that works directly with no rooting or setup required. A minimal base system is installed automatically, additional packages are available using the package manager. More on Termux, read the wiki: https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Main_Page .
How to do an install for R is finding an example or discussion on the web. Here is a nice one: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36968411/installing-r-on-android . I used the second option; the ‘ browser (jupyter) approach’.
The browser (jupyter) approach
Termux
• install termux (google play) (As termux didn't run jupyter-IRkernel, I had to install ubuntu)
• install ubuntu in termux (MFDGaming or Neo-Oli).
Installation steps for MFDGaming
1. Update termux: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
2. Install wget: apt-get install wget -yfor MFD
3. Install proot: apt-get install proot -y
4. Install git: apt-get install git -y
5. Go to HOME folder: cd ~
6. Download script: git clone https://github.com/MFDGaming/ubuntu-in-termux.git
7. Go to script folder: cd ubuntu-in-termux
8. Give execution permission: chmod +x ubuntu.sh
9. Run the script: ./ubuntu.sh -y
10. Now just start ubuntu: ./startubuntu.sh
• run this in ubuntu:
apt update && apt upgrade
apt-get install apt-transport-https software-properties-common
# add R repository
add-apt-repository 'deb https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu disco-cran35/'
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E298A3A825C0D65DFD57CBB651716619E084DAB9
apt update && apt upgrade
apt install nodejs
apt install npm # absence of this causes non-editable cells in jupyter
apt install gfortran
apt install liblapack-dev
apt install libopenblas-dev
# install R
apt install r-base-dev # or r-base or r-base-core
# install python package manager
apt-get install python3-pip
# install jupyter
pip3 install jupyterlab
# open R
R
• Inside R:
# Package necessary for jupyter
install.packages("IRkernel")
IRkernel::installspec()
q()
• In ubuntu, run the jupyter lab
jupyter lab --allow-root
# as you will see you have to paste something like this in your internet browser
http://127.0.0.1:8889/?token=1a0f9b3d472d155bb4d46df119b937646d6192f569c9d635
Well it takes some time, but in the end it works. The S7 ready for some data journalism analysis in R.
I have Ubuntu running in terminal mode and use the command line to for jobs. And R running in terminal mode as well. More on R: https://www.r-project.org/ .The R console has a steap learning curve, however Rstudio needs root access. An alternative to this whole operation is to install a Rstudio server on an other machine and then login from the tablet.
This script goes one step further: it installs a Jupyter notebook to run R or Python code. More on Jupyter: https://jupyter.org/documentation .
Here are some screenshots:
