Android is a great mobile operating system because it is flexible, fast, and full of features. Also, since this is an open-source operating system, you can use it to make your own apps and show off your creativity. But it can be hard to Install Android on Virtualbox.
With Virtual Box, you can test apps you made or just mess around with how Android works. Virtual Box is software that lets you run different kinds of operating systems on the same computer. Using it, you can divide a single system into different environments that work on their own.
Virtual Box works as a hypervisor and makes a Virtual Machine (VM) where you can install different types of OS. You can run apps that are made for those OS, so they are functional and work well. When setting up the VM, you can choose how many CPU cores, RAM, and disk space it will get. With this feature, Virtual Box can run on a low-end PC.
Install Android on VirtualBox
- Launch VirtualBox, click the New icon, name the VM “Android”, change the Machine Folder to a folder located in the partition you created especially for the VM, change Type to Linux, change Version to Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (64-bit), and then click the Next button.
- Set the memory size for the Android VirtualBox. To run this VirtualBox Android smoothly, at least 2GB memory size is recommended. Then, click the Next button.
- There is no need to change parameters. You just need to agree with the default settings and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the creation process.
- After the Android VM is created, highlight it and click the Start button. Then, you will be asked to add an ISO file to perform the system installation process. Please click the folder icon, click the Add icon on the new window, navigate to Android x86 ISO file, and open it.
- Then, click the Choose button and the Start button.
- Now, you can go through the Android installation process. Please select Installation – Install Android-x86 on to harddisk. If all is OK, you will be asked to select a partition to install Android-x86. Please choose Create/Modify partitions and then choose the OK button.
- On the new window, select New > Primary. It will tell you the size needed. Then, press Enter to confirm the size.
- Select Bootable. When you see “Boot” appears under the Flags tab, now you can select Write. Then, type “yes” and press Enter to confirm that you want to write the partition table to disk. Once the process is completed, select Quit.
- Select the partition you just created to install Android x86.
- Select a file system to format the partition. As Android x86 supports booting from EXT4, FAT32, and NTFS, each file system is OK. Choose Yes to confirm the format operation.
- After the installation process is completed, select Run Android-x86 to boot into it. Wait until you get into the GUI. Then, you can enjoy the Android on VirtualBox.
What Is VirtualBox?
VirtualBox is one of the most popular free and open-source hypervisors that anyone can try right now. This is a Type 2 hypervisor that is used to create virtual machines quickly and reliably, depending on the hardware of the host machine. VirtualBox is completely free, but it still has features that many other hypervisors don’t have or require a paid subscription to use.
Because it is a popular piece of open-source software, there are a lot of tutorials on how to use it, and the community behind it helps a lot. VirtualBox is also a cross-platform hypervisor, which means that it can be installed on Windows, macOS, and many Linux distributions.