Android-x86 Project – Run Android on Your PC

Android-x86 Project – Run Android on Your PC(android-x86.org)

140 points by cblte 10 years ago | 45 comments

ypcx 10 years ago |

If you are one of those die-hard Linux fans who, like me, have been eagerly expecting each new Linux video driver release from AMD and/or nVidia, to be able to finally show our employer and everyone else that we can use Linux as our main machine, then these times are like living in a dream. (I don't really care that this Linux is labelled "Android" and has a Java "GUI", and I like many of the design decisions, e.g. for creating Apps.)

Needless to say, while the old proverbial "elephant in the room" (in the form of absolutely needing Microsoft Office on your Linux machine, or another Windows-only program) has been defeated[1], the new elephant in the room seems to be the necessity to be able to create native iOS apps on your machine, which is only practically possible on a true Mac system. I wonder if this is something that we tackle along the way as well.

[1]It is not entirely clear to me whether the Microsoft Office "tax" went away more because of the advent of Google Docs, or because people started to migrate their tasks to specialized web apps.

smitherfield 10 years ago | |

Personally, I've been scratching my head for a while at why Google is so dead-set on their "Chromebook" idea when they would have a great chance at killing off Microsoft for good if they put in some effort to create a great desktop version of Android.

nextos 10 years ago | | |

I got the impression is an internal thing of Google. ChromeOS seems to have won many political battles there.

As a Linux fan I prefer they stick to ChromeOS. It's just a custom Gentoo. Many of their devices support Coreboot, which makes them excellent machines to run my favorite Linux distro.

listic 10 years ago |

Doesn't Android itself support x86? There are phones [1] and tablets [2] base on Intel chips, after all, and they run Android.

[1] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/smartphones/smartphon...

[2] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tablets/shop-tablets....

yohui 10 years ago | |

Intel officially supports Android on x86 (for development, not daily use) via Android-IA: https://01.org/android-ia

They used to have an FAQ which acknowledged the unofficial Android-x86 project: https://web.archive.org/web/20140331192152/https://01.org/an...

ChuckMcM 10 years ago | |

Yes, I use Android on x86 every day on my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro tablet. That said, sometimes Apps get bent by the underlying architecture difference. The only one that really hurt was 1Password but the folks at Agilebits fixed that reasonably quickly. There seems to be some additional "optimizing" stages in installs which has me suspecting they do an ARM->x86 translation for some binaries but I haven't had time to dig deeper.

niedzielski 10 years ago | |

Android-x86 is _designed_ to run on PCs and in VirtualBox (no OpenGL ES support). It's been around for a while. I believe Console OS[0] drew some inspiration from it.

[0] http://consoleos.com/

srikz 10 years ago |

ConsoleOS[1], a similar solution, got successfully funded on Kickstarter[2] last year.

[1]: http://consoleos.com [2]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmv/console-os-dual-boo...

codemogul 10 years ago | |

Or Remix, "the first true android PC" which just finished its run at Kickstarter 2 days ago. I went in for 1 for testing, they deliver in Oct 2015: http://www.jide.com/en/mini https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1123481999/remix-mini-t...

srikz 10 years ago | | |

Yes, I got to know about it from a comment below. The price point is super tempting! How much of their software customisations are currently implemented in the os (anyone using their ultratablet or nex9 rom?)

But, I think both ConsoleOS and Remix have their place (if at all this space picks up). One is trying to leverage the desktop hardware to run more powerful Android apps and the other is interested in using cheap and affordable hardware (lower end arm chips) to give an experience / solution as close to a desktop as possible

johnchristopher 10 years ago |

Note that the project focuses on eee-pc. Latest 4.4 release still works on mine but the landscape/portrait mode is unnerving at time.

It's way faster than any ARM flagship tablet of the day though, except for HD video. I don't think it's brings enough on the table when compared to a `real' desktop OS such as Windows or Debian because it's not designed for keyboard at all.

seanzieapples 10 years ago |

This seemed pointless to me until I saw that they tested on this platform:

"ASUS Eee PCs/Laptops"

This reminded me that I have a 5 year old Eee laptop that I haven't used in years and throwing Android on there could be a fun weekend-afternoon project.

ianlevesque 10 years ago |

I thought mainline Android had x86 support? What am I missing?

dogma1138 10 years ago | |

This is the AOSP version for x86, there are commercial builds for x86 like there are builds for any other platform but if you want to have your own android is you gotta build it from the AOSP source which might lack quite a few things such as drivers for example.

augustl 10 years ago |

Perhaps Android in a VM will replace wine for running unported stuff on a Linux desktop.

mtgx 10 years ago | |

If only Google considered Android for its desktop OS. It could be something like this (or better, if they are actually serious about it):

http://www.jide.com/en/remixos

But as long as Google and now Sundar Pichai consider ChromeOS to be the one and only Google desktop OS ever, unfortunately that won't happen. Of course such a desktop OS would also have to be more like Android Wear than "AOSP" - as in only Google would ever control the interface and only Google would be in charge of updates.

bobajeff 10 years ago | | |

That's really pretty. I like it.

I suspect Google actually wants Android to be more like Chrome OS. But they know Android's too important and popular to risk by outright replacing it with Chrome OS. That's why they are slowing mixing them together.

Chrome on Android is now integrated in the taskbar while they are pushing things like Web Manifests, Web Workers and Web Push Notifications. On the other hand it is now possible to run Android apps on Chrome OS via App Runtime for Chrome (ARC).

srikz 10 years ago | | |

Wow! This looks a lot like where Windows is heading. Including the tablet computer (ultratablet) they plan to sell.

Of course, I meant from visual and usability stand point. The ARM equivalent on Windows will be Continuum when it launches.

joelhaasnoot 10 years ago |

If this is what you want - Android on your PC, you might as well use Genymotion (https://www.genymotion.com/) - essentially a well packaged version that uses VirtualBox. Free for non-commercial use, $100/year for commercial use. Have new OS versions fast and easy to install Google apps/services on.

btzll 10 years ago | |

Genymotion's free edition has too many limitations. It's not just free for non-commercial usage. Some examples are: multi-touch and accelerometer, which are not supported in the free edition.

Comparison can be found here: https://www.genymotion.com/#!/store

joelhaasnoot 10 years ago | | |

Sure, if you develop some sort of special app or specific game, or want to play something specific it won't work. But for 90% of use cases, Genymotion will work better than barebones Android-x86.

izacus 10 years ago | | |

Those things won't work with this Android image either.

scintill76 10 years ago |

I've been thinking about trying something like this as my main system, with Linux chroot and possibly X11 server to fill in the gaps in apps. I like the idea of sandboxing everything like Android does. Some of the things that have held me back are lack of time to tinker and wondering if I would end up using a terminal emulator and GNU/Linux command line tools for everything, which sort of nullifies the sandbox. Maybe it's still worth it if, e.g., a browser compromise can't access the emails from my email client (which is possible on my current desktop with both running under the same uid and no special access controls.)

dyates 10 years ago | |

If you're interested in a system that sandboxes everything, take a look at Qubes OS.[1]

[1]: https://www.qubes-os.org/

LoSboccacc 10 years ago | |

if you want a secure sandboxed OS android is the wrong place to look

scintill76 10 years ago | | |

Well, I know it's not uber-secure, but if I wanted that I would set up SELinux or something. I'm looking for something I'm familiar with and will offer better sandboxing than I have now without much work. Why won't Android do that? Is it Android's permissions system for apps? I would revoke unneeded permissions. Do you know of unpatched sandbox escape bugs that would allow a compromised browser to upload other apps' data?

cblte 10 years ago |

I think it is in an early stage. My test inside a VirtualBox was not really satisfying. Slow and not really smooth. maybe on dedicated hardware it might run better.

rodgerd 10 years ago | |

I've run it on an old Centrino laptop. It runs quite well, all things considered (wireless and so on and so forth.

cblte 10 years ago | | |

sounds quite nice. I am still running around looking for my power supply for my old lifebook here. I have a MacbOk G4 and a PowerBook G4 lying around. Not quite sure if I can install it on those machines.

616c 10 years ago |

So they are still working on 4.4.3. I assume this is a daunting task, but are they always playing catch up?

I do not say that dismissively. It is mind-blowing to me that they can port this to x86 (whether or not the toolchain supports it at this stage) and iron everything out with every major and minor release.

I see no mention of Lollipop or Marshmallow, but I am really curious.

yohui 10 years ago | |

No, it's 4.4.4:

http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-4-4-r3

> The 4.4-r3 release is based on the Android 4.4.4_r2.0.1 (KTU84Q) release.

Their "What is new?" section on the front page says development on the Lollipop branch had started by 2014-11-06 (just two days after Google released the source) and that lollipop-x86 was updated to 5.1 on 2015-03-18.

I'm guessing part of the reason there isn't a stable Lollipop build yet is the switch from Dalvik to ART.

venomsnake 10 years ago | |

Yes the do play catch up. We don't want those pesky free (in what you can do with them) mobile devices on well understood platfoms to treaten the sweet vendor lock in gig we have at the moment with arm. Or the carrier subsidy model.

benbojangles 10 years ago |

I will be really happy when other Linux Distros can run APK files. I mean, really really happy. It would be like Christmas.

throwawayaway 10 years ago |

Is this faster than the android emulator set to use intel instructions?

rplnt 10 years ago |

But android is horrible, HORRIBLE, OS. Why would you want it on your PC. Only reason I can see is to run it in VM for development purposes. Should be faster than emulation.

fla 10 years ago | |

It's pretty good for a phone, but definately bad for a desktop.

By the way, x86 VMs for development have been there for many years. It runs way better than their ARM counter-parts of course.

bitmapbrother 10 years ago | |

And yet many more people would probably prefer it to that "horrible, HORRIBLE" Linux OS.

Considering the sad state of software available for Linux I wouldn't mind seeing a fully backed Google effort. And with multi-window support coming it could turn out to be a very good desktop OS.

Nexxxeh 10 years ago | |

>Why would you want it on your PC. (sic)

Apps. Netflix, Amazon Instant Video (which to be fair is fucking awful on Android), iPlayer, Chromecast stuff, Instagram, online banking apps etc.

seivan 10 years ago |

Would be cool if anyone tried this with Cocos2d-X :)

aosmith 10 years ago |

Great, let's introduce java-esq vulnerabilities to my desktop.

bitmapbrother 10 years ago | |

Not to worry, Linux has its fair share of vulnerabilities. Probably more so.

StavrosK 10 years ago | |

Because there are so many on the mobile, huh?

LoSboccacc 10 years ago | | |

it's not like android has been a paragon of os security