[Kosmos]

Are you sick of BlueStacks? Do you want a more Android-like experience on your PC? Android has been successfully ported from ARM to the x86 platform for your casual use. You can utilize this Android environment completely, just like you can utilize any Linux or Windows OS with VirtualBox.

You will need the following:

• VirtualBox
  


• Android-x86 .iso (you can find one here: http://www.android-x86.org/download - latest version here)
  

[Kosmos]

Getting Started with VirtualBox:

• Open the VirtualBox program.
  


• Click on the New button and make sure it looks exactly like this:
  
  


• Click Next, and you will see this screen, change the Memory Size from 256MB to 512MB:
  
  


• Once you get to the hard drive screen, click on Create with this option selected:
  
  


• After that, choose your hard drive file type and hit Next:
  
  


• Create your virtual drive with a fixed size, then click Next:
  
  


• Replace 8GB with 5GB; the next screen should look exactly like this:
  
  


• Click on Create and let the bar finish loading, you should finally see this:
  
  


• Right-click Android-x86 and hit the Start button, as shown below:
  
  


• It will now ask you to select your start-up disk and you should see your .iso already selected. If not, click the folder with the arrow and search for your .iso and select it. Hit Start when finished.
  
  


• Next up, installation.
  

[Kosmos]

Partitioning:

• Select the last option (Installation) on the picture below and hit the Enter key on your keyboard:
  
  


• Next, we're going to want to create the partition for your new Android system. Hit the Enter key on the first option:
  
  


• Use your arrow keys to move over to the New button, and then hit the Enter key.
  
  


• Choose the first option, which is Primary and hit the Enter key:
  
  


• Press the Enter key once more to allow the partition to take up all space of the virtual disk that you made:
  
  


• Make sure to choose the Bootable option, hit the Enter key to make the partition a bootable partition so it looks like this:
  
  


• Move your arrow keys all the way to the right so that Write is highlighted, then hit the Enter key:
  
  


• After you hit the Enter key in the above picture, you must type Yes and hit the Enter key to confirm the writing changes:
  
  


• Once you are finished, navigate to the Quit option and hit the Enter key to get back to the Choose Partition screen:
  
  

[Kosmos]

Installing:

• Once you are back at the Choose Partition screen, you will see the partition you have just created at the top. Highlight it and hit the Enter key to install Android:
  
  


• Make sure you have selected the ext3 filesystem and then hit the Enter key:
  
  


• Hit the Yes button with the Enter key to format the partition:
  
  


• Hit the Yes button to install the GRUB bootloader:
  
  


• Then hit Yes to install /system directory as read-write:
  
  


• And here we are, onto the final steps.
  

[Kosmos]

Final Steps:

• After you have completed all of the above steps and the last step of installing, you can remove your disk (iso) from your virtual drive after you reboot your virtual machine.
  
  


• Android is going to boot up and take about 5-10 seconds at the boot logo before you arrive at this screen, which you can go through like a normal smartphone, but with your mouse:
  
  


• SKIP THE WI-FI SET-UP, Android-x86 uses your internet connection.
  


• Enjoy, and do not forget to disable mouse integration so you can see and use your mouse better! (to move your mouse out of the VirtualBox window, hit the right ctrl button)
  
  

[Kosmos]

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in this thread or send me a private message.

Sources:

• https://www.virtualbox.org/
  


• http://www.android-x86.org/
  


• https://code.google.com/p/android-x86/
  


• https://sites.google.com/a/android-x86.org/web/
  

[Kosmos]

Very nice tutorial. Good job Kosmos.

Thank you for your feedback, Abide. 👍

[Kosmos]

Very nice tutorial Kosmos, good job buddy.

Thank you Freddy.

Nice guide Kosmos, would be great if I had touch screen, but I don't. :'(

Thank you, zach. It would be much better if you had a touch screen, haha. You could buy a used touch screen netbook/chromebook and install the iso to the HDD completely, without the use of VirtualBox. It of course won't be as stable as ARM-based Android, but it'll do the job nicely for development, testing, and just messing around.

[Kosmos]

Seems like to much work 😊

I rather just use one of my many devices.
Spoiler (Click to View)
Once of them needs charging device wouldn't turn on :'(
Btw couldn't add one device had to use it to take the pic 😝

Oh shit. I wish I had the Nexus 7, or Nexus 5. They're nice devices, that's for sure. I see you've got Android L running.

[Kosmos]

It buggy, I set up a pin and know is perm locked 😖
It unlocks then just re-locks lol, silly Google.

I'm not sure how you'd be able to unlock it. 😠

Very nice guide, Kosmos. This looks very nice.

Thanks, Tommy boy.

Looks sexy. Seems to be very similar to installing a normal Linux distro.

I'll be trying this out come Saturday.

It is indeed very similar to installing a normal Linux distro. Be sure to choose Linux 2.6/3.X (32bit) when installing Android-x86. It can be confusing when you get to that very first step. Let me know how it goes!

[Kosmos]

Thanks, you two. If run into any troubles, let me know. This works great and I love how well it runs. :)

[Kosmos]

I'd personally rather run Genymotion. Simpler, faster, better. Download an already setup Virtual device containing Google Play services, and you're on your way.

I did not know about Genymotion, thank you for telling me about it. This is the official x86 port of Android's operating system, it is not an emulator. I'm sure the emulator is much faster, though. Does it have all Android features?