- Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the first non-Pixel phone to support Google’s Linux Terminal app, but the feature is curiously missing from the Z Fold 7.
- The app requires a non-protected virtual machine, which the Z Flip 7’s Exynos chip supports but the Z Fold 7’s Snapdragon chip currently does not.
- The Terminal app runs a Linux VM and is part of Android 16, but it probably won’t be available on many other devices.
Back in March, Google rolled out a major update to its Pixel devices that added a new Linux Terminal app. This app lets you run full-fledged Linux programs in a virtual machine, a handy feature given that many tools for power users and developers aren’t natively available on Android. While it was initially unclear when the Terminal app would arrive on other Android devices, we’ve discovered that Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the first non-Pixel phone to support it. Curiously, however, the phone’s larger and more expensive sibling, the Galaxy Z Fold 7, does not.
The Terminal app downloads and boots a modified version of Debian, a popular Linux distribution, within a virtual machine. This virtual machine is powered by the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF), the operating system’s subsystem for creating and managing VMs. Although Google introduced AVF in 2022 with Android 13, the Terminal app itself only debuted with the second quarterly release of Android 15. Since OEMs like Samsung typically build their software on major annual OS versions, though, the Terminal app will effectively be an Android 16 feature for their devices.