Run Android 6.0 Marshmallow on Your PC With Android-x86 6.0

This week saw the first stable release of Android-x86 6.0 (marshmallow-x86) -- and a new version of Remix OS for PC, a PC-optimized version of Android. Slashdot reader prisoninmate quotes Softpedia: Android-x86 6.0 has been in the works since early this year, and it received a total of two RC (Release Candidate) builds during its entire development cycle, one in June and another in August. After joining the Remix OS team, Chih-Wei Huang now has all the reasons to update and improve its Android-x86 system for the latest Android releases. Therefore, as you might have guessed already, Android-x86 6.0 is the first stable version of the project to be based on Google's Linux kernel-based Android 6.0 Marshmallow mobile operating system, and includes the most recent AOSP (Android Open Source Project) security updates too.

Under the hood, Android-x86 6.0 is using the long-term supported Linux 4.4.20 kernel with an updated graphics stack based on Mesa 12.0.2 3D Graphics Library, and offers support for Samsung's F2FS file system for SSD drives, better Wi-Fi support after resume and suspend, and initial HDMI audio support.

Re:

[guruevi]

Embedded boards (minnowboard), Intel compute sticks, tablets... anywhere you don't want a General Purpose OS or you don't want to interact with the machine or perhaps an odd app.

Re:

[110010001000]

Android is a General Purpose OS at this point. Embedded Android is a terrible choice...for anything.

Re:

[guruevi]

I meant a full blown general purpose desktop OS. Android is good enough for cursory Internet browsing and email and certain games as well as a single application system (e.g. a kiosk). For anything else, Android is a terrible choice with a useless UI.

Android x86 fills the niche where you need/want the Android software but you need a bit more powerful hardware (windowed 1080p playback, image/video composition). Most ARM devices on the market are absolutely terrible at doing anything high resolution beyond st

Re:

[Feral Nerd]

What's the point? Really!

Well Duh! To leave no stone unturned in the ongoing quest to make Linux's year on the desktop a reality.

Re:

[bogaboga]

Yeah, right! Now going on decade #3!

Re:

[Kjella]

Yeah, right! Now going on decade #3!

And I think Linux the kernel has been ready for at least half that time... With so much being rewritten for the web and for mobile, the time seems ripe. Somebody (hello, Google) just have to push it out of the current catch-22 and say it's the next big thing. Android came pretty much out of nowhere and took the mobile market, I think they could to the same to the desktop market. But they don't believe that, not yet...

Re:

[MoarSauce123]

There are several neat games that are only available on Android and that I like to play on my PC with a big monitor. The somewhat outdated Android hardware that I have does not have HDMI output...and to be blunt, 7" screens suck. Way too small.

Re:

[unixisc]

For people trying to escape Windows 10 but not confident about Linux or BSD due to CLI issues, this would be an alternative. Although it partly hinges on how dependent it is on the PC being touchscreen - don't want a Windows 8 like fiasco again

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

I can't fathom this being any easier for a noob than (for instance) Xubuntu / Linux Mint XFCE edition, unless someone has literally grown up knowing only tablets and has never used Windows or OS X in their life. As you imply, the fact that many apps require or assume various gestures (some of which use more than one finger) means that a mouse-driven experience will be less than seamless.

That said, it's an interesting option for old netbooks and I'm particularly curious to see if it will perform well in V

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

The person I was replying to said "CLI issues", not "software library", and he was claiming that this x86 Android port would be a superior alternative (vs. desktop Linux) for someone seeking to avoid Windows 10. I don't really know what Android looks like these days, but I'm assuming it's not exactly a drop-in replacement for x86 Windows 10. It's not better vs. worse so much as apples and oranges.

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

Does it have the drivers to support typical desktop peripherals? Are Android's versions of full-featured IDEs, Office Suites, web browsers, photo editors, etc. on par with Debian's?

I'm not saying it's utterly impossible to use it as a desktop replacement; I'm saying that the idea it would be better than an XFCE LTS release for a noob is a strange one. Even if this port were utterly flawless and addressed all UI concerns (for apps that assume multitouch instead of mouse input), it seems unlikely that Goo

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

Also, I don't know if you're the same person who's replied to me three times but "the point", as you say, has been rather different with every response. Is it avoiding CLI, is it the software library, or is it having a windowed desktop gui? And are we talking about a Win10 alternative or aren't we?

My response is that CLI isn't necessary at all with Mint and the windowed desktop gui surely isn't going to be *better* than all modern desktop linux GUIs. That leaves only the second point on a differing softw

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

Android has games that are 60GB to download and use all of the latest graphics tech? Since when? Did I miss out on something where someone managed to build a graphics card that requires very little power or cooling? It guess it's possible I missed out on some major development; I grew completely bored with the limitations of tablets about 3-5 years ago.

People have ported Eclipse and Visual Studio and all that crap to Android? And it's exactly the same, feature for feature, as the x86 version? The glibc

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

Your arguments are becoming more and more disingenuous. Yes I understand that low power mobile GPUs are an active area of development; that doesn't mean that they are even remotely comparable to current mid-high end desktop GPUs. (If you really want to bark up that tree, please post some benchmarks.) Yes, I understand and have already conceded that Android has more games. Go find the nearest serious Windows gamer and try to argue that makes it a better gaming platform. I find it amusing that you think that

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

I probably gave you too much room to hide in that wall of text so as a reminder:

1. The original topic here is about an alternative to Windows 10 for general desktop usage, implicitly for someone who has traditional desktop needs and previous desktop usage.

2. The topic is NOT about the perfect desktop OS for someone who is in love with their tablet and has never used a desktop computer before.

3. There every reason to suspect that many Android applications will be very cumbersome to use with a mo

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

I recently commented offhand, but without reservation, that in the medium-far future some descendant of iOS is likely to be one of the most common desktops in the world. The same goes for Android. I freely admit that the allure of the walled garden is too strong (and the general public is far too lazy) for it to not ultimately prevail.

My "bias" here is against small piddling closed-sourced projects. They do not tend to last very long and there tends to be all kinds of rough edges and for those reasons

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

First, did he mention tracking in the first place? Second, is it really so difficult to customize vanilla Android to not do the things you don't want it to do?

Re:

[Kartu]

Well, say you have 2 in 1 notebook and what to use it as an ANDROID tablet. (because there are so much more apps available)

Not open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Jide will not give you the source code for Remix OS if you ask.

These guys want to capitalize on open source, but aren't willing to empower you to do anything new based on their work. Screw 'em.

the fruits of permissive Open Source

[Shane_Optima]

Quick, somebody get the GPL-bashers in here to remind us all about how this is so much better, how we all have so much more freedom ever since Google embarked on their "no GPL in userspace" crusade!

I understand the corporate guys are justing doing what they're told, but I can never understand why the volunteer devs contribute thousands of hours of their life to a permissive-licensed projects. Do the BSD guys feel a great swelling of pride in their chests when they think back to how their tireless work lai

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Quick, somebody get the GPL-bashers in here to remind us all about how this is so much better, how we all have so much more freedom ever since Google embarked on their "no GPL in userspace" crusade!

Well, given the way cellular manufacturers work, had Android been GPL'd, it would be like the other GPL'd cellphone OSes out there. You know the 3 or 4 of them that were around when iOS was out?

Instead, you have the freedom to pick an iOS phone, or an Android phone. Is that better than just an iOS phone only?

The

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

Pretending that the issue was the license and not the corporate backing is ridiculous. Parts of Android ARE GPL (namely, the kernel.) And early on, more of it was GPL... it's my understanding that other GPL components were slowly phased out.

OpenMoko is a red herring. If Android didn't exist then I'm pretty damn sure something like Maemo/Meego (a GPL phone project sponsored by Nokia and Intel, although parts of it was LGPL or permissive to allow for some proprietary customization it wasn't all of userspac

Re:

[Shane_Optima]

I sometimes wonder if the GPL shouldn't have a "free renaming" clause, since most of the anti-GPL people I meet seem to hate it on purely guttural, emotional "IT'S A VIRUSSSSSS!" grounds. So let's change the license--you're allowed to rename it to whatever you want so that you can feel like a special snowflake. And maybe even you're allowed to insert as many reasonable new attribution clauses or other new clauses that don't affect reuse by other people. Sure. I don't care. That's not the point.

The poin

Re:

[guruevi]

A) they have to give you the source code to any GPL-based software they sell/distribute to you. That would include the Linux kernel at least, not sure about anything else within Android.
B) in GPL you don't have to give the source code to entities that have not purchased your product or that you have not distributed to. The people you do give/sell it to are not obligated to release it to the public either.

The Apache license (Android) does allow you to distribute binaries without source code, whether or not t

Re:

[drolli]

And what is https://github.com/android-x86... [github.com]?

Play store

[SeriousTube]

Can I run stuff from the play store?

Re:

[richy freeway]

I've tried Remix and yes, you can.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I run stuff from the play store?

Yes. I got all my favorite apps running under RemixOS. E.g. I am watching Netflix on my RemixOS virtual machine.

Re:

[MoarSauce123]

Can also try Mobdro and cancel the cable subscription. :)

Re:

[samwichse]

Can I run stuff with 3d acceleration? Like games?

Isn't ANdroid terrible for most applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a tablet running CyanogenMod. That is supposed to be a good Android distro with root etc easily available. Perhaps Android is better than iOS, I couldn't say, but my experience is that compared to say Maemo5(despite the browser getting old and 256M of ram?! on the N900) Android is non-multitasking toilet of an OS, and the apps and utilities available outside of Fdroid are worse than a joke with everyone grabbing for in-app purchases.
Why would I want that OS on a PC?

Re:

[Stormwatch]

compared to say Maemo5

Nokia was so far ahead of everyone else, it's not even funny.

Re:

[iampiti]

I haven't used Maemo but yes, Android is not a general purpose OS. I've yet to find a reason that we don't have "proper" OS on smartphones apart that the fact that the manufacturers don't want us to.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded flamebait? In my experience it's a pretty accurate assessment. Every build of Android x86 I've tried since 4.2 or thereabouts has failed to boot on AMD hardware, either in a VM or on bare-metal. It's been reported as a problem over the years without being fixed, and some versions even do the same thing on an intel laptop, though it's definitely more likely to work on that system. I've also had problems with some releases being so broken that, once booted, important processes would cra

Re:

[Zontar The Mindless]

If you're posting AC, you're not showing that you've ever joined anything.

Moreover, this isn't about Slashdot, it's about *you*. And at 5AM on a Sunday when I can't sleep, I don't want to read about you, sorry. Piss off.

I like RemixOS

[OneHundredAndTen]

I have tried RemixOS. For simple chores (read email, surf the net, watching videos) I prefer it over the desktop offerings that Red Hat and Ubuntu are pushing. For serious work, I prefer far simpler desktops, like XFCE and LXDE. Gnome, KDE and Unity are trying to be everything for everybody, and the only thing that they are achieving is to alienate almost everybody. It is, in this light, that I am happy that Linux on the desktop is going nowhere - if the atrocities that these guys are pushing were the only

Re:

[MoarSauce123]

So do all other OS and we still use them and in some cases even pay a lot of money for them.

Re:

[unixisc]

What vulns does Marshmallow have? The very flexible control over what is your primary and what is your secondary storage?

Okay.....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Okay, maybe this is a dumb question, but what runs on Android-x86? I haven't heard much about this, but it sounds interesting.

Does it (can it) run all the usual Android apps that you'd normally run on an Android phone?

Is it a touch-optimized OS or a mouse & keyboard-centric OS, or a bit of both?

I see from the comments that it's maybe meant for kiosk-type applications, but could this be a general purpose OS for home use? (Assuming there are applications that would make it useful in such a setting.)

I know

Re:

[omtinez]

I highly encourage you to try Remix OS on a VM and to judge for yourself. I feel 50/50 about it. I'm still a little baffled about why Android can run OK in very low end phones yet making it work fast on x86 is apparently an impossible thing to do (Intel releases their own images of Android built for x86 that make use of all kinds of tricks to be emulated faster on their CPUs).

Re:

[omtinez]

In retrospect, if what you are interested in is mostly the applications, then you should definitely look at ChromeOS: https://chrome.googleblog.com/... [googleblog.com]

Re:

[wbr1]

Many cheap tablets including a lot of Asus kit are Atom CPU running android on an x86. Apps are java (or art or dalvik or whatever), they are not native apps but JIT compiled bytecode. So yes, apps will run on android on whatever platform, with few exceptions.

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Many cheap tablets including a lot of Asus kit are Atom CPU running android on an x86. Apps are java (or art or dalvik or whatever), they are not native apps but JIT compiled bytecode. So yes, apps will run on android on whatever platform, with few exceptions.

Interesting...so just to be clear, I could install Android-x86 and then download apps from an app store and run them as-is, more or less? No recompiling or code changes?

I mean, obviously my PC doesn't have some of the hardware for specific apps (like a compass or flashlight), but stuff messaging and other apps would run and function?

Re:

[wbr1]

Yes... Since you can root your instance of android you can even do things like spoof GPS and compass readings for app testing. This is also doable in the android development kit from google, but that is excruciatingly slow for day to day use.

There are a few apps that use low level CPU specific code. One example that comes to mind is MX player ( a video player). It will runn (being java) on and android hardware using a software decoder for audio/video. You can get hardware decoders for it but they are p

Re:

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's a grease-busting kitchen cleanser... AND a tasty fat-free dessert topping that you and the whole family can enjoy!

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Does it (can it) run all the usual Android apps that you'd normally run on an Android phone?

Not all of them. Only the ones which have been built for x86. Which is goddamned pathetic, really. Why use Java if you're not going to support the same binaries on all platforms? This is really my only problem with Android. Using Java was stupid because it was needless. We'd have been better off with Objective C.

Gotta say it ... system

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

As long as it doesn't come with systemD

You have to ask for the hardware support list

[drinkypoo]

I have just now done so. I would like to know what hardware is supported before I go diving in...

How about Marshmallow upgrades?

[unixisc]

I'd be more interested in upgrading my Verizon Ellipsis 10 - currently running Lollipop - to Marshmallow. Particularly if it means that I can put in a 256GB SD card, define it as the primary memory, and make the mere 16GB storage that it currently has the secondary memory

great but

[Simulant]

Still waiting on Android 6 for my Remix Mini. Why did I buy that again?

Also, I run Hyper-v. Remix OS Player wants me to disable it. How about you release a VHD?

Just what I was waiting for...

[guygo]

NOT! My desktop works just great, thanks. Instead of Android 6.0 for my desktop, how about Android 6.0 for my Galaxy S4 mini? Or does that just make too much sense...

Privacy

[fph il quozientatore]

Might contain less spyware than Windows 10 after all...

VirtualBox?

[dabrowsa]

Can you run this without rebooting under VirtualBox?

Why can't we have an android runtime for linux?

[norweeg]

Why can't we have the android runtime on Linux? Why does it always have to be bare-metal or VM only? I want the android runtime environment for Linux so I can run Android apps in a fashion similar to RemixOS side-by-side native Linux apps. You want Linux on desktop to happen? Bring it a metric fuckton of mainstream apps via the android app store!