Android-x86 Project – Run Android on Your PC (opens in new tab)

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.

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....

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...

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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