Google Says It's Not on Termux. It Is. Here's How to Install It.

Search "install Zed on Termux" and you'll get a pile of answers that boil down to "not supported." Same for Ghostty. Same for DBeaver. Same for half the tools I maintain.

They're wrong, and it's not entirely Google's fault.

Official install docs list Linux, macOS and Windows. Termux isn't on that list, so a search engine reading those pages concludes it doesn't exist. Meanwhile the real answer is sitting in a package repository that search engines don't index as readable pages. Zed's own docs point people to Repology for a current list of third-party packages, which tells you where the truth lives.

So here's the short version of how to install things, written for people who got told "not available" and gave up.

Step 0: make sure your Termux isn't the problem

Half of the "package not found" reports I see come from the wrong Termux build.

The official sources are F-Droid and the GitHub releases of termux/termux-app. The Google Play build is deprecated: it doesn't get updates and ships outdated repository URLs. If you installed Termux from the Play Store, nothing below will work properly, and no amount of googling will fix it.

Two rules when you switch:

• Don't mix sources. Termux and every plugin (Termux:API, Termux:Styling, Termux:Widget and so on) have to come from the same place, because the signatures differ.
• Uninstall everything first, and back up anything you care about. The Termux wiki has a backup guide.

Step 1: update before you search

A stale package index is the second most common cause of "Unable to locate package."

pkg update && pkg upgrade

If updates fail or the mirror looks dead, switch mirrors with the tool Termux ships for exactly this:

termux-change-repo

Step 2: check whether the package exists

Don't ask Google. Ask the package manager.

pkg search ghostty
pkg list-all | grep -i dbeaver
pkg show bun

If pkg search comes back empty for something that should exist, you probably haven't enabled the right repository. That's the next step.

Step 3: enable x11-repo for anything with a window

Termux splits GUI software into a separate repository that isn't turned on by default. Everything with a graphical interface lives there: Zed, Ghostty, DBeaver, Thonny, Bruno, CopyQ, Albert, and Playwright.

pkg install x11-repo
pkg update

That's the trick. A huge number of "not available" answers are really "you haven't enabled x11-repo yet."

Step 4: install the command line tools

These are in the main repository. No extra setup:

# JS and Go tooling
pkg install bun pnpm golangci-lint gosec govulncheck goreleaser sqlc

# database clients
pkg install pgcli mycli litecli iredis mongosh

# HTTP and load testing
pkg install httpie hurl k6 oha hey

# cloud CLIs
pkg install azure-cli oci-cli doctl

# git and Rust tooling
pkg install jujutsu bacon git-cliff cargo-audit

Install what you need, not the whole list. A phone has limited storage, and some of these are large.

If a command isn't found after installing, check where the files went:

dpkg -L <package-name> | grep bin/

Step 5: GUI apps need a display

Graphical packages need something to draw on. I already wrote up that setup, from the Termux:X11 app to a full XFCE desktop, in Turn Your Android Into a Full Desktop, No Root Needed. Do that once. After that, a GUI app is just another package:

pkg install dbeaver zed ghostty bruno

These are big. On a phone with limited storage, install them one at a time.

Step 6: Playwright

Browser automation on a phone sounds ridiculous until you need it. Both packages live in x11-repo:

pkg install playwright python-playwright

The Python package is patched to use the system driver instead of the one bundled in the wheel, so don't pip install playwright over the top of it. You'll replace the working setup with the one that doesn't run.

When it still doesn't work

What you see	What it usually means
Unable to locate package	x11-repo isn't enabled, your index is stale, or the package isn't built for your architecture. Run pkg update, then check uname -m.
Bad system call	Android's seccomp filter killed a syscall the program tried. This is a packaging bug, not something you did wrong. Open an issue.
App closes on its own after a while	Android is killing background processes. Newer Android versions are aggressive about it. Search for "Termux phantom process killer" and apply the fix for your Android version.
Package installs but the command is missing	The binary has a different name than the package. Use dpkg -L as shown above.
Everything is weird and old	You're on the Play Store build. See Step 0.

On architecture: run uname -m if a package refuses to install. Most modern phones report aarch64. Not every package is built for every architecture, so something can exist on one device and not on another.

Help fix the search results

Search engines learn from pages. If you got something running, write about it, post the commands, and mention Termux in the title. That's the fastest way to push the "not available" answers down.

If you're an upstream maintainer, adding one line to your install docs saying "Termux: pkg install yourtool" does more than any SEO trick I know.

Everything I maintain is listed on Repology. If a package fails for you, or you want something packaged that isn't there yet, find me on GitHub and open an issue.