I Turned a Broken Phone Into Linux PC (Here’s How)

I turned a broken Android phone into a fully working Linux PC — and surprisingly, it actually works.

In this video, I take an old Samsung Galaxy S8 with a damaged body and transform it into a usable desktop environment using Termux and a lightweight Linux setup. By connecting it to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, it becomes a functional system capable of coding, browsing, multitasking, and running real projects.

This is not emulation — Android already runs on a Linux kernel, and we’re simply building a desktop environment on top of it.

Setup Script/Repo: https://github.com/orailnoor/termux-linux-setup

I tested everything:
• VS Code with a real Python + Flask project
• AI coding using Claude
• Full desktop browsing (Firefox)
• YouTube playback (with limitations)
• Multitasking with multiple apps
• File access between Android and Linux

Even without perfect performance, this setup is surprisingly usable — especially considering this is a 2017 phone with just 4GB RAM.

If your phone …