Install Android 8.1 Oreo on Linux to run apps and games

Android X86 is a free and open source project that ports Google’s Android operating system from ARM to x86, allowing users to run Android on their desktop computers to enjoy all android features and applications and games.

Some time ago, the Android x86 project completed an x86 architecture port for android 8.1 Oreo. In this article, we’ll explain how to install it on your Linux system so you can use your Android apps and games anytime.

Install Android x86 8.1 Oreo on Linux

Prepare the environment

First, let’s download the Android x86 8.1 Oreo system image. You can download it from this page by clicking the ‘View’ button under the ‘Android-x86_64-8.1-R1.iso’ file.

We will use QEMU to run Android x86 on our Linux system. QEMU is an excellent emulator software that is also free and open source, and is available in all major Linux distribution repositories.

Install QEMU on Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Debian:

sudo apt-get install qemu qemu-kvm libvirt-bin
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Install QEMU on Fedora:

sudo dnf install qemu qemu-kvm
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For other distributions, simply search for “QEMu” and “QEMU-KVM” packages and install them.

After you install QEMU, we’ll need to run the following command to create the Android. img file, which is like some kind of disk space allocated to Android. All Android files and systems will be located in this image:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 android.img 15G
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What we mean here is that we want to allocate a maximum of 15GB of disk space for this Android, however, you can change it to any size you want (make sure it’s at least greater than 5GB).

Now, for the first time running android, run:

sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2048 -boot d -enable-kvm -smp 3 -net nic -net user -hda android.img -cdrom / home/mhsabbagh/android - x86_64-8.1 - r1. IsoCopy the code

Replace /home/mhsabbagh/ android-x86_64-8.1-R1. iso with the path to the file you downloaded from the Android x86 website. You can refer to this article for an explanation of the other options we are using here.

After you run the command above, the Android will launch:

Install the system

From this window, select “Advanced Options”, which will lead to the following menu, where you should select “Auto_installation” as follows:

After this, the installer will tell you if you want to continue, select “Yes” :

Next, the installer will proceed without your instructions:

Finally, you will receive this message indicating that you have successfully installed Android 8.1:

Now, close the QEMU window.

Start and use Android 8.1 Oreo

Now that Android is fully installed in your Android.img file, you should start it with the following QEMU command instead of the previous one:

sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2048 -boot d -enable-kvm -smp 3 -net nic -net user -hda android.img
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Note that all we did was remove the -cdrom option and its arguments. This tells QEMU that we no longer want to boot from the ISO file we downloaded, but instead, from this installed Android system.

You can now see android’s startup menu:

You will then enter the first preparation wizard, select your language and continue:

From here, select the “Set Up as New” option:

Android will then ask you if you want to log in to your current Google account. This step is optional, but it’s important so that you can use the Google Play Store later:

You will then need to accept the terms:

Now, you can select your current time zone:

You will be asked if you want to enable some data collection function. If I were you, I’d simply turn them all off, like this:

Finally, you will have two startup types to choose from, and I recommend you select the Launcher3 option and make it the default:

Then, you’ll see the android home screen working in full:

From now on, you can do whatever you want; You can use the built-in Android app, or you can browse your system Settings to adjust them to your liking. You can change the look and feel of your system, or you can run Chrome as in the example:

You can start installing a few apps from the Google Play Store, like WhatsApp and others, for your own use:

You can now do whatever you want with your system. A: congratulations!

How can I easily run Android 8.1 Oreo in the future

We don’t want to always have to open a terminal window and write those long QEMU commands to run Android. Instead, we want to run it with a single click when we need it.

To do this, we’ll create a new file named Android.desktop under /usr/share/applications using the following command:

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/android.desktop
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Paste the following into it (right click and paste) :

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Android 8.1
Comment=Run Android 8.1 Oreo on Linux using QEMU
Icon=phone
Exec=bash -c 'pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2048 -boot d -enable-kvm -smp 3 -net nic -net user -hda /home/mhsabbagh/android.img'
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GTK;
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Again, you have to use your local mirror system path to replace/home/mhsabbagh/android. The img. Then save the file (Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter).

Note that we need to use pkexec to run QEMU with root permission, because starting with newer versions, ordinary users are not allowed to access KVM technology through libvirt; That’s why it will ask you to enter the root password each time.

You will now see the Android icon in the App menu. You can simply click on the icon anytime you want to use Android and the QEMU program will launch:

conclusion

We show you how to install and run Android 8.1 Oreo on your Linux system. From now on, you’ll be able to do Android-based tasks much more easily without other apps like Blutsticks and the like. Here, you have a fully functioning Android operating system that you can do with as much as you want, and if something goes wrong, you can simply kill the image and re-run the installer again at any time.

Have you tried Android x86 before? How was your experience?

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Via: fosspost.org/tutorials/i…

By m. anny Sabbagh (lujun9972

This article is originally compiled by LCTT and released in Linux China