Reading the repo
Reading the repo
How to install on Linux
A free, open-source Android keyboard with a GBoard-style layout, on-device suggestions, and a real incognito mode. No ads, no accounts, no analytics, and zero Android permissions — the app cannot touch the internet even if it wanted to.
Saved setup from 3 min ago
Will it work on Linux?
Runs on any Android 8.0+ phone or tablet (API 26, ~97% of devices) — Samsung, Xiaomi, Pixel, OnePlus, Oppo, Huawei and everything else. No Google services required, pure Kotlin with no native code, works on every CPU architecture.
Both builds are checked against this rather than assumed. aapt dump badging
on either release APK reports sdkVersion:'26', all four screen buckets, no
native-code line (so no ABI restriction) and no uses-feature (so no
hardware requirement — no camera, no telephony, nothing that would filter a
device out). Lint runs with NewApi at error severity on both flavors, so an
API newer than 26 cannot reach a release without a version guard. The online
build's extra features degrade rather than crash: an app that will not accept
a GIF is detected before the picker opens, and sticker thumbnails deliberately
avoid a format that only decodes from API 28.
Then run bash setup.sh. It stops at the first error and is safe to run again. Servers and tests aren't started; it lists them at the end. Read it first.
Compare yours with the README's “Device compatibility” list above before installing anything.
git clone https://github.com/An0nym010/rimboard.git cd rimboard
JDK
sudo apt install openjdk-21-jdk # Debian/Ubuntu
./gradlew build -x test
./gradlew run
Every release carries both builds, on the
Releases page. Download one
APK and open it — that is the whole process. It works from the phone itself; no
computer, no adb, no account.
| | |
|---|---|
| RimBoard-<version>-offline.apk | Start here. No INTERNET permission at all. |
| RimBoard-<version>-online.apk | Only if you want translation or GIF search. |
Android will ask you to allow installing from your browser or files app the first time; that prompt is Android's, not RimBoard's. Then:
Settings → System → Languages & input → On-screen keyboard → Manage
keyboards, turn RimBoard on, and pick it with the keyboard-switch key. The
exact path differs a little by manufacturer. Android warns you that a keyboard
"may be able to collect all the text you type" — it says that about every
keyboard, because it is true of every keyboard. What RimBoard does with it is
the rest of this README, and the offline build is the one where
you do not have to take that on trust.
Not on the Play Store. Sideloading is the only distribution.
Release APKs are signed with the project's key. To confirm one is genuinely that build rather than something re-signed:
apksigner verify --print-certs RimBoard-<version>-offline.apk
The SHA-256 of the certificate is printed in the build log of the run that produced the release, so the two can be compared. A build signed with the Android debug key — the one every SDK ships, which anyone can forge — is refused by CI on a tagged build for exactly this reason.
An offline APK can be checked for the thing it claims outright:
aapt dump permissions RimBoard-<version>-offline.apk
It should list VIBRATE, READ_CONTACTS and READ_USER_DICTIONARY, and
nothing else. See Proving it for what each is for and what
bounds it.
Upgrading: Android refuses to replace an app in place if the signing key changed, so if you installed a build signed with the debug key you will have to uninstall before installing a properly signed one. Export your learned words first — Settings → Backup — because uninstalling deletes them.
No reports for Linux yet.
Opens a chat with this manual already filled in, for Linux. It uses your own account; gitmanual sends nothing.