Google Android in Virtualbox
February 12th, 2009After reading this page about running Google Android in Virtualbox I thought it might be fun to have a go.
Just download the vdi file from the above site and create a new virtual machine. On booting I selected a video mode of 640x480x16 (use letter g) for best results. Note that you also have to enable the Serial Ports in Virtualbox otherwise it hangs at the grub menu. Apart from that it boots in a matter of seconds and looks really good.
Note that there’s no networking or mouse support right now but it’s still fun to play around with. Many thanks to the above site for sharing the vdi file for anyone to try.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Disclaimer: Work in progress!
VB has passed through two point releases since I uploaded the VDI, and the Serial Port issue seems to come and go. Never bothered me on Ubuntu for some reason.
You’re welcome, shoulders of giants etc ;)
April 30th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
is this a linux based OS?
May 2nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Ashlyn, yes it uses the Linux 2.6 kernel.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Has anyone tried this on VB Mac yet? I’m super curious to see how this would work. I was thinking about getting together with some friends and start developing for android anyway.
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Hi Bob,
I’m using VB on top of Windows XP.
Created the new Virtual machine using the above VDI.
In the Select Installation Media wizard – i pointed the Media source Image file to the .VDI file on my machine. (but file type selection shows *.iso, by default)
But it’s giving “FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted”
Pl help me how to make it work.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Shiv,
you should not set the vdi file to be the installation media, instead the vdi file is the actual harddisk for the machine.
Bob
May 13th, 2009 at 1:36 am
[...] Atualizações para o Android X86 Como compilar o Android para um arquitetura X86 Grupo do Android VDI do Android (Sem suporte a rede) Software Livre android, google, kernel, x86, [...]
May 13th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Hey man,
I hope you don’t mind i linked you in my block. I’m from Brazil, and i’m trying to build my own android. I linked you, like and example to Android VDI.
Regards,
Matheus Bratfisch
May 14th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Hi Bob,
THX for your work – did you get the network working?
Mhh and my softkeyboard fails on startup (NullpointerException)
Could you please advise?
THX a lot!
Cheers,
Mike
May 20th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Hi Mike,
if you get a NullpointerException on startup I can only assume that the kernel included with the vdi file does not support your keyboard. Unfortunately you’ll probably have to compile Android yourself (with a custom kernel) to fix this which is a much bigger task indeed, as you can see from my other posts on ‘Compiling Google Android’.
cheers,
Bob
July 5th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Hey there,
I’m on a mac and can’t get networking working. I’m wondering if you’ve overcome the networking issues or have another vdi?
It would be great to see the output from your compiling session as a txt file if you plan on building again.
I gave you some shouts out on this video:
http://video.seesmic.com/threads/0JliaChcgz
Thanks for posting!!
SidGabriel
July 7th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Hi Sid,
I did try to compile the Cupcake update a few months back but without success, well it compiled OK but I couldn’t get it to boot. I may give it a try again and if I do I’ll post the compile output for you.
thanks,
Bob
August 9th, 2009 at 12:47 am
If there’s no mouse support, how do you play around with it?
August 9th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Hi Vezquez,
I use the keyboard ;-)
Bob