I didn't understand this: "I'm all over on communications and it is
**all** done in my smartphone (the communicator)."  At first I thought
you were talking about a specific app, but maybe you just mean that
you communicate a lot through your phone.  So you need to use it for
email and stuff, which means typing a lot with the phone.  Have you
tried buying a portable bluetooth keyboard?  Example:

Closed size: 5.8" x 3.6" x 0.7", Open Size: 9.9" x 3.5" x 0.2"
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Keyboard-Portable-Keyboards-Smartphone/dp/B00WSL8FH4/

I don't know if that one is better than any of the others.  A few are
compared in a table -- scroll down to see it.

Mike


On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 11:47 AM, Steve Trapp <stevetrapp at comcast.net> wrote:
> I think my smartphone has a 5.1_inch display.
>
> I mostly use Android apps, of course, on my Samsung Galaxy S7. But I do run
> GNURoot-Debian for the following applications and don't use any andoid app for
> these:
> : ssh
> : scp
> : sftp
> : Reluctanly, I use it" for access to my comcast.net-sited "email". (It's
>   better than nothing when you didn't bring your laptop with you).
> [Note: add your favorite computers' IP addresses to GNURoot-path
> /etc/hosts--Android seems to not do DNS well--at least within GNURoot?!]
>
> So I use GNURoot for all file transfers to/from my {laptop, desktop} from/to my
> < allegedly smart >-phone, and SSH-ing.
>
> And that is mostly it. I can, however, put a few of my relative seldom used
> homebrewed C programs on it, if I find they're at all useful (and they can't
> do X11...). I just haven't got around to it yet.
>
> Plus, I'm planning on putting a bunch of data on the smarty-pants-phone
> so I have that data at my fingertips. Haven't got around to this, either, yet.
>
> Lastly, I can also ssh to my desktop (typically the laptop isn't "on" 24 hours
> but the desktop is) if I don't have my laptop with me, I can still get access
> to my desktop-Linux/GNU-Box for, say, a file or a line of information from a
> file.
>
> And, I have a crude app to get my POP3 email on my desktop to send the HTML
> version of the email to the phone so I can read it. I did this with mutt,
> and liberal use of nc (nc is netcat) in /bin/sh scripts.
>
> Of course all of this stinks, because the keyboard has to be so small.
> But it works well enough.
>
> I did once figure out how to make my Linux laptop act as a Bluetooth keyboard,
> but unfortunately I didn't write the procedure down. I am interested in trying
> it again soon, however, because of another problem, namely, I'm all over on
> communications and it is **all** done in my smartphone (the communicator).
> So a real keyboard would make it much easier to write messages, emails,
> even a GNURoot session.
>
> On Tue, Aug 01, 2017 at 12:45:29AM -0500, Mike Miller wrote:
>> Thanks for the info, Steve.  I'll be giving it a try, too.
>>
>> Yeah, a 1920x1080 smartphone could be hard on the eyes, to say the
>> least.  Maybe it's a little easier on a Fire HD 8.  Also, you can
>> usually change fonts and icon sizes in Linux, so that could help.
>>
>> I'm thinking of using VNCviewer on it.  Have any of you ever done that?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 6:15 PM, Iznogoud <iznogoud at nobelware.com> wrote:
>> > Oh man, it pains me to think of using a terminal on a smartphone for anything
>> > more than one command! My eyes would totally suck at this, as would my fingers.
>> >
>> > It did help to be able to SSH to my iphone and do some tweaking from a proper
>> > system when I had to.
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>> > tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>> > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>> _______________________________________________
>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>
> --
> Name: Steve Trapp
> Location: Just east of the Missippi River
> Email-address: stevetrapp<AT>comcast<DOT>net
> Homepage: comcast DROPPED ALL HOMEPAGES--Where do I put my PGP public key now?
> _______________________________________________
> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list