Short Bytes: Anbox is a container-based approach for booting a complete Android system on a Linux distro. This allows one to run Android apps easily on a distro without any emulation. Anbox is in Alpha stage, so one should expect few crashes and instability. Currently, Anbox is supported by Ubuntu 16.04 and later.
Have you ever tried running Android app on your Linux desktop? There are some ways to do so using different emulators that offer compromised performance and isolate the entire Android app from your operating system. But, what if I tell you about an application that runs Android apps on a PC natively?
Anbox–Android in a box–is one such open source project that doesn’t need emulation to run Android apps; it treats the apps as if they are some desktop programs. But, how does Anbox achieve this?
On their website, the Anbox developers write that Anbox puts the “Android operating system into a container, abstracts hardware access and integrates core system services into a GNU Linux system.”
As Anbox is a complete Android system, which runs on the same kernel as the host OS, any app can be used. It uses Android 7.0’s freeform mode, so the apps can be moved around and resized.
For using Anbox, your Linux distribution must support snaps. While all distributions aren’t offering support for snaps at the moment, big players like Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, Debian, etc. offer the support.
Here’s Anbox in action:
At the moment, only Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or later is officially supported by Anbox. To install it on your system, open Terminal and run the following command:
sudo snap install --classic anbox-installer && anbox-installer
At the moment, Anbox is still in pre-alpha stage and you should expect some instability and crashes. As Anbox is an open source project, feel free to access its code on GitHub.
Did you find Anbox–Android in a box–interesting? Do share your views with us.
