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Detailed installation guide for Android-x86. Setting up VirtualBox to install Android on a computer

I want you to exult in how easy it is to setup KitKat in VirtualBox.
Click the blue New button in Virtualbox, name the new VM Droid, change the Type to Linux and change the version to Linux 2.6 / 3.x.
Crank the Memory up to 1024MB and click Create.
Android KitKat 4.4 in VirtualBox

On the Create Virtual Hard Drive screen, change the File Size to 6 GB, leave the Hard drive file type at VDI but change the Storage on physical hard drive to Fixed size.

Create Virtual Hard Drive in VirtualBox for KitKat
Now back in the image list, double click your tasty KitKat build. You should see a Select start-up disk window poof onto the screen.

Click the tiny manila folder icon to find the Android .ISO file you downloaded earlier and then hit the Start button. VirtualBox choose your Virtual Optical Drive

VirtualBox attempts to boot off the ISO and immediately displays the Android-x86 Live & Installation CD test screen.
Keep hitting the arrow keys until you select the Installation option – then hit Enter.
Android-x86 Installation KitKat

The first thing we need to do is Create a new Partition.

Think of a partition as an isolated section of your hard disk. In this case, we’re going to set aside the entire virtual hard disk to Android but we need to create it first.

Select Create/modify partitions and keep moving.

Create/Modify partitions

This next screen may look daunting at first but it’s pretty straight forward when you think about it. The top section shows various drive facts such as:

Drive name: /dev/sda
Size: 6,442MB (6 Gigs)

The middle section shows that there are currently no partitions.

Hit the right arrow key to highlight the option along the bottom the screen, then press Enter.

Create a new KitKat partition in Virtualbox

Press enter again to make it a Primary Partition.

To be honest, I don’t think it matters if you pick the Logical Partition; however, the Primary partition makes the most sense to me so go with that.

If you’re curious about the differences between Primary and Logical partitions, just think of a Primary partition like a container which can comprise one or more logical partitions.

KitKat Virtualbox Primary Partition

Press enter again to confirm the size. Here I’m confirming the 6440.39 MB partition size.

Android 4.4 Kitkat Primary Partition Size Confirmation

Alright, now we need to make the partition bootable so make sure is highlighted below and press Enter. Make KitKat Virtualbox partition bootable

When you press enter it places the word “Boot” under the column called Flags between Name and Part Type. Now – keep pressing the right arrow key until you highlight .

Go for it, you’ve got this my friend.

VirtualBox KitKat Bootable Write in VirtualBox

Hit enter and you’ll see a confirmation warning about destroying all the data on your disk. Remember, this is your virtual disk not your real disk.

In other words, we’re about to nuke the Guest OS hard drive which is currently empty so this is perfectly safe and necessary. Type yes and hit Enter.

Erase KitKat data on bootable partition

When it finishes it’ll take you back to the previous screen. Just keep hitting the right arrow until you highlight .

Press enter so we can finish up. You should find yourself back in the Choose Partition screen; however, this time you should see your newly created Partition in the list.

Since we now have a place to park the KitKat installation we can start installing it. Select sda1 Linux and hit Enter. Choose Partition in VirtualBox for KitKat

Change the filesystem to ext3 and press Enter.

The other filesystems are for different purposes. ext2 is better suited for removable media such as USB flash drives and memory cards; however, the main advantage of ext3 is that it offers journaling.

Journaling file system s are ideal because they track file system changes in a log called a journal. This means that journaling file systems can recover faster from crashes and are less likely to get corrupted.

You definitely want this.

Choose Virtualbox Android Filesystem as ext3

You'll get a warning about losing all your data. This is fine because we have no data in the Guest OS.

Choose Yes and continue.

Virtualbox confirm format from sda1 to ext3

Install GRUB and hit Yes.

GRUB will give us the flexibility to boot up different Linux installations at startup.

Install Grub in Virtualbox for KitKat

Now hit Yes to install the /system directory as read-write.

Install /system directory as Read Write in Android KitKat Virtualbox

We're on the home stretch now baby!

Installing Android 4.4 Kitkat in Virtualbox Yay!

When you hit the finish line, in the VirtualBox menu bar, click Devices, go to CD/DVD Devices and choose Remove disk from virtual drive.

You might get a terrifying error about unmounting the disk. Don’t worry, just click Force unmount and choose Run Android-x86!

Run Android x86!

If it doesn’t start up right or it freezes, press Ctrl + r to manually restart the virtual machine.

In a few seconds it should boot up the GRUB loader. Just leave it alone for a few seconds and it’ll finish starting up.

VirtualBox GNU GRUB loader for KitKat

Now you can set it up just like a new tablet

Android welcome screen

By the way, if the mouse doesn’t work you may need to click Disable Mouse Integration from the Machine menu in the upper left corner of the Virtualbox window. This will keep the mouse gliding over the VirtualBox menu instead of getting trapped inside it.

On the Select Wi-Fi screen just click Skip. Virtualbox will use your host computers network card for data connectivity.

Select WiFi Network KitKat

And that's it!

Now you can download Google apps, setup Gmail and have a ball without fear of destroying a precious tablet.

Android 4.4 KitKat home screen

ancient article, working...

Detailed installation guide for Android-x86
Development for Android*
The emulator that comes with the Android SDK is not very fast.
The main idea is to use VirtualBox + Android X86 to overcome performance problems.

What we need:
Eclipse + Android SDK development environment here,
as well as VirtualBox.

Below the cut there are a lot of pictures and the installation process, as well as some useful tips.

Create a Virtual Machine:
Name: Android-2.2-Generic
Operating system: Linux
Version: Linux 2.6
Memory: 512 MB
Hard disk: 3GB

In Machine Settings:

Properties->Network
Adapter 1 - NAT (in a virtual machine it will be visible as eth0, for the Internet).
Adapter 2 - Virtual host adapter (will be visible in the virtual machine as eth1, for ADB management).

Connect the image to the virtual machine.
And so let’s check the parameters of the car.

Starting the virtual machine

Control is made by arrows left, right, up, down

Step by step how to install Linux:

In the bootloader, select the menu item
1. Installation - Install Android-x86 to harddisk
We create sections.
2. Create/Modify partitions
Select -> -> Size (in MB) 3216 press
Choose
Select confirm recording changes yes
Exit
Selecting a partition for installation
3. Select partitions to install Android-X86

File system selection
4. Please select a filesystem to format sda1

Confirm formatting Yes
Installing the GRUB boot loader
5. Do you want install boot loader GRUB?
Confirm Yes
You want to make /system read-write
6. Do you want to install /system directory as read-write?
Confirm Yes

This image contains many examples of Snake, NotePad from Eclipse it will not be possible to install your own, at the very bottom of the article there is a utility to solve this problem.
The installation process is complete
7. Android-x86 is installed successfully.
Create an SD card

size 2000 MB
disable CD-ROM

Reboot the system
Reboot

Hotkeys:

esc, right mouse button Back
menu button between right ctrl and alt, missing on some laptops
alt+f1, alt+f7 switch between consoles
alt+cursor left, alt + cursor right
f6 Mode selection, airplane mode, shutdown
, overload
win home key

If your mouse cursor does not work.
Go to Machine->Disable mouse integration host + i (default host key is right ctrl).

Unlock the screen by pulling the arrow up

Network Settings
By default, the emulator cannot work with two network adapters- no problem. We need internet + internal address for debugging.
Let's go to launch applications

Selecting an application
Settings -> Configure Ethernet
Set eth0 dhcp and select save.

Reboot the Emulator.
When the machine boots, switch to the text console alt+f1

Magical order
root@android:/ #
#netcfg
# netcfg eth1 down
# netcfg eth1 dhcp
*action "dhcp" failed (invalid argument)*
*without this command the address was not allocated at all*
# netcfg eth1 up
#netcfg
Everything looks something like this.

Remember the eth1 address; it will be needed for adb.

Steps to set up a network with the console, unfortunately, must be done every time you start the emulator again.

Now on the computer go to the folder where the Android-SDK is located, on your system there may be a different folder
C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools\
We use the adb command eth1 address, mine was 192.168.56.101

The output will be similar:
C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb connect 192.168.56.101
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
connected to 192.168.56.101:5555

Let's run Eclipse.

An example of a working application.

What to do if I want to install NotePad, Snake and other examples
can be supplied this utility SystemApp_Remover_4_19.ap.

The installation process will look something like this.
C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb install c:\temp\SystemApp_Remover_4.19.apk

Then remove from the list system applications what Eclipse conflicts with

p/s Switching video modes.
In the Boot Menu press e
Another menu will appear
kernel /android-2.2/kernel /quiet root ....
Press e again and add vga=ask at the end of the line separated by a space
To boot, press enter b, and then select the desired mode from the list.

p/p/s This is my first post on Habré, don’t judge strictly.

  • Forward >

Sooner or later, you may want to install the Android operating system on your personal computer. This may be necessary when developing, testing or debugging all kinds of Android applications. I need an operating room Android system I needed it on my computer to test the BiP Android application from lifecell. In today's article I will tell you how to prepare the environment VirtualBox virtualization to install Android on it.

For information! It is not necessary to install Android on a personal computer in the VirtualBox virtualization environment. The installation can be done in the same way as it is done Windows installation, to a real hard drive. I decided to conduct experiments with the Android system on a virtual machine, because I think this is a more flexible solution.

First of all, install the virtualization software product Oracle VM VirtualBox, after downloading it from the developer’s website. I'm using version 4.3, although at the time of writing this article there is already version 5.0.

There shouldn't be any problems with the installation; VirtualBox installs like a regular Windows application.

After installation, launch the application via a shortcut on the desktop.

Now we need to configure and create a virtual machine on which we will install Android.

At the time of this writing, I had already created two virtual Windows machines, we do not pay attention to this and create a new machine using the button “ Create».

Virtual machine name: Android
Select the type: Linux
Version: Linux 2.6/3.x (32 bit)
Click " Forward».

Selecting the volume RAM, 512 MB is enough, click “ Forward».

Create a new virtual hard disk, click " Create».

Leave the default type " VDI" and click " Forward».

Select " Dynamic virtual hard disk" and click " Forward».

We indicate the name of the virtual disk, in the example it is “ Android_PC" By default, the hard disk will be created on the drive " WITH:", in a special VirtualBox folder. If you need to place it on another physical medium, you need to use the icon pointed to by the arrow and select a new path.
You also need to select the size of the virtual disk with the slider, set the size at least 8 GB.
Click " Create».

If everything was done correctly, the virtual machine will appear in the VirtualBox manager. We still need to make some settings, so click on the “ Tune».

Go to the section " Carriers" Here we need to specify the drive from which we will install our Android. Select " Controller: IDE» - « Empty"and click on the icon optical disk. Select " Select optical disk image...».
As an image we choose Android image, which is designed for installation on a PC. We first download the image and place it in a convenient place on the disk.

The list will include USB flash drive, connected to a real computer, in my case it is " JetFlash..." Select the flash drive and it will be added to “ USB device filters».

Now you can click " OK", the settings are completed. In the second part we will install Android on a computer in the VirtualBox environment.

First of all, you need to download an image of an android assembled for x86 architecture. Follow the link http://www.android-x86.org/download and download android-x86-4.0-RC2-eeepc.iso or later.
Create a virtual machine in VirtualBox. You can download VirtualBox here https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Creating a virtual machine

Creating a virtual machine:

  • Name - any
  • OS type - Linux
  • Version - Ubuntu
  • Next
  • Number of RAM - 512 MB
  • Next

Creating a virtual hard drive:

  • Check the box next to “boot disk”
  • Set the combobox to “Create a new hard drive”
  • Next
  • Place the combo box in the VDI (VirtualBox Image) position;
  • Next
  • Place the combo box in the “Dynamic virtual disk” position;
  • Next
  • The location of the virtual hard disk can be left unchanged and left at its default value.
  • Hard drive size - minimum required 330 MB, can be set to more
  • Next
  • Create
  • Create

After you have created a virtual machine, you need to open its properties. To do this, click right click mouse over the car and select “Properties”.
Then go to the “Display” settings and set the following settings:

  • Check the boxes next to “Enable 3D acceleration” and “Enable 2D video acceleration”

Then go to the “Network” settings and change the following settings:

  • Connection type - NAT
  • Click additionally
  • Adapter type - PCnet-FAST III (Am79C973)

That's all, click OK

Android installation

When you first start the virtual machine, you must specify the disk image from which we will install Android.
Set the image of the downloaded android:

  • In the first menu, click Next
  • In the next menu you need to specify the downloaded android image
  • Next
  • Continue

The virtual machine boots from the image and if everything went well, the bootloader menu is displayed.
In this menu we are interested in the item: “Installation - Install Android-x86 to harddisk”, select it and press enter.

After which a menu appears to select the partition on which Android will be installed.
Currently we do not have any partitions on the hard drive, so we need to create them.
To do this, select the “Create/Modify partitions” item, then use the up/down arrows to select an unallocated area on the hard drive.
After we have selected it using the left/right arrows, select “New”, then select “Primary”.
After which you need to indicate the size of the partition to be created using numbers (By default, it suggests creating a partition with the size of the entire hard drive, I agree with it). After we have entered the size, press enter.
Now the created partition must be made bootable. To do this, use the arrows to select the created partition, then select the “Bootable” item and press enter. After this, we will see that this section has the “Boot” flag. Now the main section has been created. Now you need to write the markup to your hard drive. To do this, use the arrows to select the “Write” item and press enter. After which we are warned that by applying all the changes we may lose all the information on the hard drive, we are not interested in this, so we type the word “yes” (without quotes) and press enter. Then, once the changes have been applied, select the “Quit” item and press enter.

Now we see a section appearing in our menu. Select it and press enter. Then select format partition as file system“ext3” and press enter. Then we are asked for formatting confirmation, we click yes. After which we are asked if you want to install the GRUB boot loader, we click yes. Then we are asked to make the /system directory writable and readable, we select yes and press enter. After which the installation begins. Once the installation is complete, a menu appears with a choice of further actions. We select “Reboot” and press enter.

After the virtual machine begins to reboot, we need to extract the disk image with Android, otherwise the system will boot from it again. To do this, go to “Devices” - “Optical disk drives” - “Remove disk from drive”. If the system still managed to boot from the disk, it’s okay, just reboot the virtual machine.

After the system has booted, we need to select “Turn off mouse integration” in the “Machine” menu. After which the android asks us what language to use and so on. We go through this series of questions and move on to the next stage.

Android setup

The next step is setting up a network connection.
To do this, after the android has loaded, press Alt+F1 and type.

It turns out that many people do not have the opportunity to purchase a smartphone running on the Android OS. However, in some cases it is unlikely to be possible without a mobile platform. We are talking about a variety of services and portals that involve the use of the Android OS for secure authorization and many other features.

For example, the computer games service Steam (a platform for selling computer developments) is recommended to be used together with mobile application, which allows you not only to quickly carry out all operations, and even without the need for access to a PC, but also allows you to ensure the highest possible data security today. The situation is such that without a smartphone now it’s really not entirely comfortable, especially if a person regularly uses various modern services.

Fortunately, that's enough already for a long time The VirtualBox program is available to all users, allowing you to run a virtual mobile system right on your own personal computer. It must be said right away that this is not the most practical idea, since almost all the capabilities implemented on the “Green Robot” are optimized for touch mobile devices.

Features and running Android in VirtualBox

It’s worth saying right away that VirtualBox is not the most advanced software, so you need to keep in mind that full spectrum There will be no opportunities available to smartphone owners here.

Despite this, the very necessary minimum is present here.

Ultimately, after starting the virtual machine, the OS will be isolated from other systems, thereby giving the user access to an independent system on which applications can be installed and the file system can be fully used.

It's also worth noting that many people use a virtual machine to test their system. For example, if a new version of the Android OS is released, you can test it via a PC. You can also study many other aspects of the system, including running multiple virtual machines at once and making certain comparisons of functionality.

Installing VirtualBox for Android

  • First of all, you need to go through your browser to the download page and download the Oracle VM Virtualbox installation package to your PC. Next, the program is launched as an administrator. It is also important to note that the launch should be carried out exclusively through your account.


  • Immediately when you start the installation, you will see a warning that indicates that there will be a brief network outage during installation. In the event that work is in network environment is not implemented, there simply shouldn’t be any problems. Thus, click “Yes” and go to next point installations.


  • Now, based on Oracle VM VirtualBox, you need to install Android OS. To do this, you need to launch the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, through which you can set the path to the distribution. It could be a CD or just current hard drive.


  • When you first launch the utility, the program will offer to create a new virtual machine. It is worth keeping in mind that along with creation, a directory with virtual machine files will appear on the PC’s hard drive (most often the path is as follows: C:\Users\User\VirtualBox VMs\). Of course, if necessary, you can easily change the file storage path.


  • Next, the program will ask you to select the operating system required for installation. To install Green Robot, you must select Linux. As for choosing the OS version, it is best to select Oracle (32bit).


  • Having passed, the program will then ask you to allocate resources for optimal operation of the virtual machine. Most often it is suggested to choose 512 MB of RAM. In addition, next comes the choice of hard drive space (about 12 GB). It is worth keeping in mind that the choice of these parameters largely depends on what capabilities we need to use the mobile system. For example, if quite advanced games and applications are being tested, then much more RAM will be required than 512 MB.


  • It is worth keeping in mind that the hard disk of the virtual system will be a file of a special format in the Windows file system. Accordingly, the disk itself can be either dynamic or fixed. A dynamic disk means that the entire allocated amount of memory is used, and can be expanded further as needed. A fixed disk is faster, but it also takes up a lot of free space.


  • The first time you start the virtual machine, the program will suggest a boot device. By default, this is the physical drive where the file should be located (android-x86-4.4-r2.iso or something like that). When you click the “Continue” button, the installation of the system will begin. On home screen will need to create logical partitions virtual disk, after which partitions will be available, for one of which you will need to select the “Write” option. You will also need to allow the installation of grub, after which simply press “Enter”.


  • Next, a menu familiar to many Android smartphone users appears, allowing you to install a mobile system. After this, you can configure the virtual system more flexibly and make it more convenient for active use.


New version released in March 2016 Android 7 Nougat Not all mobile devices were able to be received. Many old and budget gadgets were left behind, the manufacturers of which did not consider it necessary to worry about adapting the updated platform for these devices. Market of modern mobile technologies cruel: want the latest version Android– buy a new smartphone or tablet.


Well, or take a risk and install custom firmware. Is it worth the risk, or more precisely, for what, in fact, to risk it - all this can be found out by establishing Android 7.1 to a virtual machine. The virtual environment, of course, will not provide the full sensations as if testing were carried out on a real physical gadget. Nevertheless, it will be possible to get an idea of ​​some basic functional innovations. Below we will look at how to install Android 7.1 Nougat to a virtual machine.

1. Download the distribution

Download installation ISO -image Android 7.1 Let's go to the site of a famous project Android-x86.Org. On this project, enthusiasts post various kinds of assemblies completely free of charge. Android, adapted to work on physical PCs and laptops. This is approximately what is needed for virtual machines. Download links ISO -images are posted directly on the main page of the project. As of the date of writing this article, the latest build is custom firmware CyanogenMod 14.1. But our goal is to explore a clean platform, so we will download the latest stable build Android 7.1.

2. Create a virtual machine

Let's launch. On the home page of the hypervisor, click start of the operation to create a new virtual machine. Select the normal configuration type.

Specify the path to what was downloaded in the previous paragraph ISO -image.

Give the machine an arbitrary name.

At the stage of setting up a virtual hard disk, you don’t need to change anything special. By default, its optimal size is suggested in 20 GB. Unless you can choose to create a disk in one working file .

The machine has been created, now it is necessary to correct something in its equipment.

In the tab "Memory" set the size RAM For Android-cars 2048 MB. If on physical computer total 2 GB RAM, we are limited to a size of 1024 MB.

Switch to the tab. Here we activate the acceleration option 3D -graphics. For the screen, choose to use the node monitor settings.

Now in the finishing window we can press "Ready".

3. Preparing the disk and installing Android

The machine will start with ISO -image. In its menu you need to select installing Android on your hard drive.

First, let's prepare the disk. After all, a new virtual disk is connected to the new machine - without initialization, with unallocated space. To prepare the disk, we are offered a built-in installation process Android console utility for working with disk space. It is controlled by navigation keys, and selection is confirmed by pressing Enter. In the window console utility select and press Enter. Then select "No", thereby confirming the refusal to initialize the disk as GPT .

Let's get into the console environment for creating disk partitions. Here we confirm each choice made by pressing Enter.

And you need to choose the following sequentially:

"New";
"Primary";

"Bootable";
"Write."

Now enter the value on the keyboard "yes". And finally we exit the partition creation environment by selecting the item "Quit".

The result of our above actions was a newly formed partition on the disk - sda1. Select it and press Enter.

Let's format our section in ext4.

Then select three times "Yes" for, respectively, three requests:

Do we want to format the partition to the selected file system;
Do we want to install the Grub bootloader;
Do we want to make it possible to write data to disk?

We wait until all the necessary operations are carried out on the virtual disk and files are copied to it Android. Then we reboot the machine.

Launch Android will be the first item in the boot menu Grub, therefore, if the steps described above were done correctly, the operating system itself will start in the virtual machine window. And it will start at the stage of setting up our personal data. Select the Russian language, click and, following the settings wizard, go through all the necessary preparatory stages. In particular, if desired, we connect Google-account.

4. Subtleties of setting up virtual Android

For guest Android in the environment You cannot install guest OS add-ons the same way as is provided for guest desktop systems. As for the screen resolution, it will already be optimal - 1280x768. Files can be transferred using cloud storage. And if you need to implement a common clipboard, you can resort to software AirDroid. This is a communication system between mobile and desktop devices, providing both file transfer and a cloud clipboard. On Wednesday Android you need to install the client application AirDroid, and in the Windows environment – client program AirDroid. Either use web-project interface in a browser window.

In virtual Android 7.1 We may encounter a problem switching keyboard layouts. The English-language layout is present in the operating system by default, and the Russian-language layout is automatically added when you select the Russian language at the initial setup stage. When testing the operating system, in our case, the software option for switching layouts did not want to work with the Russian language.

The solution was found in the physical keyboard settings.

We replaced the pre-installed keyboard for the Russian language with one with a mark in brackets "Mac". After which everything worked successfully.

System hotkeys Android To switch layouts, there is a hardware button "Search", which is not found on a physical computer keyboard. The application can offer a solution to this issue Russian Keyboard. While involved in the keyboard settings, Russian Keyboard will begin to be responsible for input from the physical keyboard, in particular, it will ensure changing layouts using the hot keys Shift + Backspace.