Android x86 LiveCD now available, lets you run Android on your desktop

Sure, the whole world and Steve Ballmer might be buzzing about Chrome OS, but a dedicated duo of hackers has been hard at work porting Google's other operating system to x86, and they've just released an .02 version of their Android LiveCD build. That means you're now free to boot and run the 'droid from your optical drive, install it in a virtual machine, install it for real on your old laptop, whatever -- just don't get upset if it bugs out on you. Anyone gonna do some 'sploring?

[Via DownloadSquad]

[alexz Posted Jul 15th 2009 3:39PM]

I'm sure you can get qemu or vmware to run as a client.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2009 1:43PM]

People be patient, most if not allof you are running this under a virtual machine - so when you get the splash...its simply loading. Have patience, 20-40 secs later....you will get the battery error screen. From there its full usable and no extra strings attach. And by fully usable I mean as a beta.....not full android compilation. Its pretty useless as Chrome OS was announced, but we have some time (over year and some change) to play around for what is to come, and the capabilites. The project is great - and creating a liveCD so basic users can use it under VM was perfect idea to showcase. Sad Engadget picked up on this late - but glad its spreading. No news is late news,so I am glad its out there.

Best results are VMware and VirtualBox (Sun Microsystem) if you want to test this out virtually, both loads the LiveCD fine without any problems. If you run into a kernel panic error it is simply your ISO and check the MD5 to compare to your ISO and see if it is good. (some stated iso on the site is bad, I loaded one on torrents a while back that is circulating....faster download, no errors for majority who downloaded. It is a good way to get yourself familiar for things to come but its nothing more than a showcasing thus the beta tag, so please take it easy and don't blow too much steam about it. If it can be done, people will do it for the sake of it, and its been converted to x86 since the SDK first released.....the LiveCD is great so others can get a view - for the uncapable compilers it is a hell of an idea to let others not capable of compiling\creating themselves get a view of it easily.

Well enough for me, thought i would a lot more interest and maybe some howto questions, but its more ranting ("i can't get this to work"). List our problem, will see if I can help as best as I can. But practive patience people....its not going to load in 2 secs in VM.....shit the SDK emulator takes a shitload to even load so why people think this is instant on is rather weird....anyways - retry it out, great project.

[alexz Posted Jul 15th 2009 4:52PM]

Tried that. .. went and watched a tv show, came back.. and it's still on splashscreen.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 16th 2009 3:23AM]

Do you mind listing your configuration and booting method for the LiveCD?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2009 10:51AM]

Yeah, it's great. I wasted a day messing with getting it setup in VirtualBox only to find out that you can't install any apps. There is no app store installed and you can't install anything via the browser either because there is no SD card present even if you setup a hard drive in the VM. You can't add apps to the desktop or move them either. You can't add music or videos because, guess what, you don't have an SD card installed. BTW, the "menu" key on the keyboard gives you the menu. I had to comb the forums for that one. It's a nice proof of concept but not ready to to be "used" by anybody. Just wait for v0.3 which supposedly will address some of the SD card issues. My take, until you get the SD card issue resolved, don't bother with the rest.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2009 12:27PM]

just brilliant- as if android wasn't boring enough on a phone, now i want it on my desktop? pass.

[HereAndNow Posted Jul 15th 2009 4:10PM]

Clearly, you haven't see an HTC Hero demo. HTC has done some awesome stuff, with the Android UI.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2009 10:02PM]

wow.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 26th 2009 4:11AM]

will it work on a iphone? I use a mobile applications from http://www.azoft.com/mobile-application-development.htm

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 20th 2009 10:06PM]

The Android-x86 project is glad to announce a new daily build 20090916 for public testing.
A live cd iso and usb image are available from the site:

http://www.android-x86.org/download
http://code.google.com/p/android-x86/downloads/list

Build 20090916 is Android 1.6 (Donut) based. In addition to the features
available in previous release, the new build contains

* Ethernet status tracker. You can configure ethernet to DHCP or static IP via GUI.
* Proxy Setting.
* Adjustable Alarm Clock volume.
* Video Player.
* OpenIntents File Manager.
* AndAppStore client for application installation.
* RockOn For Android.
* Better mouse cursor.
* More sample applications.
* A lot of bug fixes. Wifi is more stable. Application download works.

As Google just released the Android SDK 1.6, Android-x86 build 20090916 may be
the first available platform for the developers to test new features of Android 1.6
(except the emulator).

Please send the reports to the Android-x86 discussion group.
http://groups.google.com/group/android-x86

PS. Android-x86 project is a different project than live-android.