We have already seen some projects based on Android OS to run the AOSP source on your PC alongside Windows just like the popular Remix OS that was recently updated to version 2.0 supporting the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Similarly, the Android x86 project lets you run the Android OS on the x86 platform. Even though the Remix OS based on the same Android x86 project, their firmware has not been updated yet to latest AOSP 6.0 source. Hence, as an initial release, the Android x86 team has now ported the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow firmware to x86 machines, supporting both the Legacy BIOS and newer UEFI boot options. The Android-x86 project’s new release is based on the newer Android 6.0-rc1 release. This is the first stable release for the 6.0 (marshmallow-x86) platform and finally comes out of Beta. The prebuilt images are now available for download on the developer website for 32-bit and 64-bit machines.
The project was formerly known as “patch hosting for android x86 support” and later they partnered with Remix OS to make a commercial release. Android x86 is an open source community project and hence, anyone can install this firmware on their PC. The development team quotes:
A few months after we created the project, we found out that we could do much more than just hosting patches. So we decide to create our code base to provide support on different x86 platforms, and set up a git server to host it.
What comes with Android x86 6.0-rc1 (marshmallow-x86) release?
The 6.0-rc1 release is based on the latest Android Marshmallow-MR2 release (6.0.1_r46). The key features include:
- Supports both 32-bit and 64-bit kernel and userspace.
- Update kernel to 4.4.12.
- Support OpenGL ES 3.x hardware acceleration for Intel/AMD(radeon/radeonsi)/Nvidia(nouveau) chipsets, as well as VMware and QEMU(virgl).
- Support OpenGL ES 3.0 via software rendering for other GPUs or no GPU devices.
- Support secure booting from UEFI and installing to UEFI disk.
- Be able to install to ext4/ntfs/fat32 filesystems via a text based GUI installer.
- Upgrading from older android-x86 release is improved. Older release using ext2/ext3 filesystem will be converted to ext4 for better reliability.
- Support Multi-touch, Audio, Wifi, Bluetooth, Sensors, Camera, and Ethernet (DHCP only).
- Auto-mount external USB drive and sd card.
- Support foreign archs (arm / arm64) via the native bridge mechanism. (Settings -> Apps Compatibility)
How to Install Android 6.0 Marshmallow on Your PC with Android x86 Project?
Android x86 will port Android open source project to x86 platform like your desktop or laptop running Windows, Linux, etc. Universal images for most x86 platforms are now available viz, 32-bit x86 ISO and the other is the 64-bit x86_64 ISO. Both can be boot from legacy BIOS and newer UEFI firmware. You can choose one of them depends on your devices. You can check out the files from the Android x86 instruction page here.
Files are:
- 32-bit: android-x86-6.0-rc1.iso
- 64-bit: android-x86_64-6.0-rc1.iso
Once you download the files you can dump it into USB drive to create a bootable usb stick with the UNetbootin. Once done, head over to this page for installation. If you are confused, just head over to the Android x86 instruction page and see the instructions there on how to run Android 6.0 Marshmallow on PC. As Android x86 Marshmallow build is now available, we may soon expect it to be released for Remix OS. Follow, share and like Android Sage on social media. For queries, comment down below or leave a message in the forums.