The project developers Android x86, in which an independent community is developing the Android platform port for the x86 architecture, They have released a pre-build version based on the Android 9 platform. This preview release includes fixes and additions that improve Android's performance on the x86 architecture.
For those who still do not know about the project I can tell you that Android-x86 is an unofficial initiative to the mobile operating system Android of Google to run on devices with x86 processors from AMD and Intel, instead of ARM RISC chips.
The project started as a series of patches to the Android source code so that it could run on various netbooks and ultra-PCs, particularly the ASUS Eee PC.
And with the passage of time, the project has generated followers and gained great popularity with which it has a small community of users.
Main new features of Android x86 9 Pie
Of the specific innovations of this compilation, the Mesa 19.0.8 application support to support OpenGL ES 3.x with hardware graphics acceleration for Intel, AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, as well as for virtual machines QEMU (virgl).
The 64-bit and 32-bit builds of this preview version of Android 9 arrive with the Linux kernel 4.19 and user space components.
For their part, the developers worked on the ability to boot to UEFI systems and the ability to install to disk when using UEFI.
As well as the hardware accelerated codec support for Intel HD and G45 graphics chips, support for bootloader themes in GRUB-EFI, support for multi-touch, sound cards, Wifi, Bluetooth, sensors, cameras and Ethernet (DHCP configuration).
And support for multimode FreeForm to provide simultaneous work with multiple applications. Possibility of arbitrary positioning and scaling of windows on the screen.
Another major change from this build is the use of SwiftShader to render OpenGL ES 3.0 software for unsupported video subsystems.
In addition to being supplied an alternative interface for programs using the taskbar (running the taskbar) with a classic application menu, the ability to secure shortcuts to frequently used programs and the list showing recently launched applications.
Of the other changes that stand out we can find:
- The presence of an interactive installer that works in text mode.
- Automatic mounting of external USB drives and SD cards.
- The ForceDefaultOrientation option is enabled to manually configure the screen orientation on devices without an appropriate sensor.
- Programs designed for portrait mode can be displayed correctly on devices with a landscape screen without rotating the device.
- The ability to run applications built for the ARM platform in the x86 environment through the use of a special layer.
- Support for unofficial release updates.
- Experimental support for the Vulkan graphics API for the newer Intel and AMD GPUs.
- The ability to simulate a wireless adapter when working over Ethernet (for compatibility with WiFi-linked applications).
- Mouse support at startup on VirtualBox, QEMU, VMware, and Hyper-V virtual machines.
Known issues
- The Google Play service can sometimes crash on the 32-bit image.
- Suspend and resume does not work on some devices.
- The Nvidia (nouveau) GPU can hang at times.
- VMware 3D support is broken. (only non-accelerated mode works)
- Taking photos does not work if Vulkan is enabled.
Download and test Android x86 9 Pie
In order to download this system preview You can go directly to the official website of the project where you can find the system image in its download section.The link is this.
Android-x86 9 Universal Live Versions for x86 32-bit (719 Mb) and x86_64 (909 Mb) architectures suitable for use on standard laptops and tablets are ready for download.
You can save the image with the help of Etcher on a USB. What's more, rpm packages have been prepared to install the Android environment on Linux distributions.
Finally, if you want to know more about the details of the announcement of this first preliminary version, you can consult the following link.