Android 16: Force enable the Android Linux Terminal application on a Samsung S26 Ultra

Introduction

I purchased the Samsung S26 Ultra. I was hoping to able to play around with the Android Terminal application but it is hidden in One UI 8.5 for whatever reason, and that reasons I suspect is because non-protected VMs are not yet supported on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chip that powers the Samsung S26 Ultra.

Steps

1. Turn on Developer options. Google this, if you don’t know how to.
2. Enable USB debugging in Developer options.
3. Install adb.
4. Connect phone to device.
5. You might have to run adb reconnect at this point, once you’ve done that make sure that adb devices -l lists your device. You will most likely receive a prompt on your phone asking you trust this device.
6. Get a shell using adb shell.
7. Run adb shell pm enable com.android.virtualization.terminal or adb shell cmd package enable com.android.virtualization.terminal¹, you should see Package com.android.virtualization.terminal new state: enabled as the output.
8. Launch Terminal application and click install. Although this enables the Android Linux Terminal application, it still isn’t functional as can be seen from the screenshot below:

I guess we have to wait until Samsung/Qualcomm “fix” this. I’ve created a post, https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S26/Samsung-S26-Ultra-How-to-enable-non-protected-VMS-for-Android/m-p/3542388#M10731, over at Samsung’s forum. Hopefully we’ll hear from them shortly.