Virtualbox Android Mac

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Google has developed a new Android called Android Pie. After the Android Oreo on the market, it is another version of Android which contains tons of new features with it. According to Google, it was supposed to be released in 20 aug, but suddenly they published it on 6th August 2018. For now, only the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Phones can download this android and use it. The biggest changes which Google brought on Android P is Notification updates and smart reply, Data cost sensitivity in JobScheduler, Multi-camera APIs,
ImageDecoder for bitmaps and drawable, Display cutout APIs and many more. The very good news that you can test it on your computer too. If you are using Android Studio, then you can test it there, but if not then you have to use Virtual Machines such as VirtualBox and VMware. Today I will show you How to Install Android P on VirtualBox on Windows 10.

Required Files:

  • Download VirtualBox
  • Download Android P ISO- Coming up soon

Step 1. Install VirtualBox on Your system

VirtualBox 6.1.20 - x86 virtualization software. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at safe and trusted MacUpdate. Go to the folder and run Portable-VirtualBox.exe. You'll see a window like the one below: If you have already downloaded the installer for VirtualBox from www.virtualbox.org click search and navigate to the file. If not, click 'Download The Installation Files of VirtualBox.'

Once the required files are downloaded it is time for you Install VirtualBox on your system. Installing VirtualBox is much easy, that’s why no need for me to perform How to Install VirtualBox on Windows.

Step 2. Create a New Virtual Machine for Android P

Launch the VirtualBox and Select New then give a name for the Virtual Machine. In this case, I will name the Virtual Machine Android Pie with below settings on the screenshot.

Step 3. Specify the amount of memory and click next. However, I recommend you to add 2 GB of RAM for Android.

Memory size

Step 3. Now select the Create a Virtual Hard Disk Now and click next. This will create a New Virtual Hard Disk where the files of Android P will be stored, basically, its location is the Drive C on the Documents.

Step 4. Select a Hard Disk type and click next, but I recommend you to go with the Default settings.

Hard Disk File Type

Step 5. Select a Virtual Hard Disk type and click next. On the below screenshot you can see what is Dynamic and What is Fixed-size storage. Read them and decide which one you are going to use. However, I prefer to go with the Default settings.

Step 6. Go ahead and verify the location and size of storage for the Android P. I will go with the default settings.

File Location and Size

Step 7. Once the Virtual Machine is created, we need to add the Android P ISO in order to Install Android P on VirtualBox. To do that, Select settings > Storage, then select the empty drive. Now select the DVD icon and insert the Android P ISO.

Step 1. Once you inserted the Android P ISO, start the Virtual Machine.

Start the Android P Virtual Machine

Step 2. After running the Android P ISO, select the install Android-x86 to HardDisk using arrow keys on the keyboard. If you don’t want to install just go ahead and use the live test.

Step 3. Now, create a new partition and install on it the Android P. To do that Select create/modify partitions and press enter on the keyboard.

Create a New Partition

Step 4. Once the drive is created, you have to decide its partition type GPT or MBR. In this case, I will go with the MBR version.

If your windows is running in GPT Partition, certainly you have to the GPT version, if not then use the MBR Version.

Step 5. This step is about configuring the created amount of storage. In this step, all you use is the arrow keys and enter button on the keyboard.

  • First You have to New select to Create a New Drive.
  • Then Partition must be primary for the Drive which you selected just now.
  • After That, You have to press enter on the keyboard to configure the amount of storage for the drive.
  • Once the Drive is created, you need to boot that by selecting Bootable. When the drive is bootable under the flags boot will be written.
  • Once the drive is bootable, you have to format that as Linux Partition. To do That Select write, then type yes and hit enter on the keyboard.
  • When the drive is formatted, select Quit to exit the partition process.

Configure Partition of the Android P

Step 6. Once the drive is created safe and sound, you have to that drive where you have to install Android P on it. You have to select sda1 and press enter. sda1 is the same drive which you created before on step 5.

Step 7. Now select ext4 to format the drive as a file system of Linux.

Format as Ext4

Step 8. Once you selected Ext4 in the previous step, in this once it will ask you to confirm that. So, select yes and move on.

Step 9. Here you have to Select Yes because without bootloader Android P won’t boot.

Install Bootloader GRUB

Step 10. When you reached the panel which asks you Do You want to Install/ system directory as read-write, you have to select No.

Step 11. After that, you have to select Reboot the Android to visit the display window of Android P.

Installing Virtualbox On Mac

Reboot Android P

Step 12. Once the Android P is rebooted, you will a list of menus in black background, simply select the first one and press enter.

And Now Congratulations on Installing Android P on VirtualBox on Windows 10.

Android Pie Running on VirtualBox on Windows 10

Also Read: Top 5 2018 Laptops Under $500 For Daily Work

Conclusion:

That’s all with How to Install Android P on Virtualbox on Windows 10. I hope it helped you to set up things on your computer rather than your mobile.

Run Android on your PC


VirtualBox How To

The following are instructions on how to run Android-x86 inside VirtualBox.
Note: For optimal performance, make sure you have enabled either VT-x or AMD-V in your host operating system's BIOS.
Android-x86 versions tested against Virtualbox versions.

Date TestedVirtualboxHost OSAndroid-x86Result
??2.2.4Windows XP??Good
??3.0.2Fedora 11??Good
Nov. 2 20175.2.0Windows 106.0-r3 32/64 bitGood

Downloading

Download an ISO of Android-x86 from here.

Caution
If you are using Android-x86 for debugging purposes, some binaries (gdb for example) are built for 32-bit architectures and will not support debugging 64-bit binaries such as the Android app host. Download a 32-bit distribution instead.

Create a new VM

If you have not already created a VirtualBox virtual machine for Android-x86 yet, do so as follows:

  1. Click the 'New' button, and name your new virtual machine however you like. Set Type to Linux, and Version to Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x. Note that you should choose the appropriate bit type for the version of Android-x86 that you downloaded.
  2. Specify how much RAM will be allocated to your virtual machine when you run it. Android doesn't specify a bare-minimum requirement for memory, just keep in mind what apps you plan on running. 2GB (2048MB) is a good place to start, and you can change this later if you need to.
  3. Create a new Hard disk image which will act as your machine's storage. The recommended starting size of 8GB is enough. Click through the rest of the options for creating your Hard disk.
Your virtual machine has now been created. It still needs to be initially installed at this point.

Settings

Tested on VirtualBox 64-bit for Windows, version 5.2.0. Android-x86 version 6.0-r3, both 32-bit and 64-bit.
Select your machine, then click the Settings button and refer to the below recommended configuration to make sure your settings match.

  • [System]Recommended: Processor(s) should be set above 1 if you have more than one virtual processor in your host system. Failure to do so means every single app (like Google Chrome) might crush if you try to use it.
  • [Display]:
    1. Optional: Video Memory may be increased beyond the minimum selected automatically. The affects of this are unknown.
    2. Mandatory: Unless guest additions are installed[1], change the default VMSVGA to VBoxVGA.
    3. Optional: Enable 3D Acceleration may be checked. The Linux Guest Additions must (VirtualBox v6.1+) / may (VirtualBox v6.0 and below) need to be installed[2][1] to get any benefit from this.
      4. Failure to do so means you won't even be able to launch Android-X86 in the first place.[3]
  • [Storage] Find the first 'Empty' item (this should have an icon of a CD). In the Attributes, click on the CD icon with a small down arrow, and pick 'Choose Optical Virtual Disk File...'. Specify the Android-x86 ISO that you downloaded.
  • [Audio] Intel HD Audio seems to be natively supported in Android-x86.
  • [Network] By default, your installation of Android-x86 will be able to automatically connect to the internet. If not, you can try to enable WiFi in Settings/Network & Internet, and connect to showing VirtWifi. If you do not want to connect to the internet in VirtualBox, uncheck Enable Network Adapter under the Adapter 1 tab.

Install

Click the green Start arrow to power-on your virtual machine. You'll be presented with a list of options. Use the arrow keys to pick which one you want, then press Enter once the one you want is selected.

  1. If you don't want to install Android-x86 yet and just want to test it, pick one of the Live CD options (except for Debug mode).
  2. Pick the Installation option if you want your system to be installed to the virtual hard drive.
If you want to use higher resolution, you can edit the boot option by pressing TAB, change vga=788 (800x600) to vga=791 (1024x768) or vga=794 (1280x1024), and press Enter. You can also use vga=ask to see all available modes. But please note Android will only work under 16-bit mode.

Virtualbox Android Mac Download

Partition

When you are prompted to Choose a partition:

  1. If you upgrade Android-x86 from a previous version, just select the existing partition. Agree to overwrite it when prompted.
  2. If this is a new VM, choose to Create/Modify partitions. Use Bootable but not GPT! This will cause the GRUB installation to fail later.
You may partition your disk however you see fit. If you just want a simple installation, create one partition taking up the entire disk and format it as ext4.

Continue through the installation. You should install GRUB when it prompts you to. You may also leave /system as read and write when prompted.
Once the installation is complete, force close/shut down the virtual machine and remove the ISO from the virtual CD drive.
Finaly, start Android-x86. If it's a new machine, once loaded you can perform the Android setup to begin using your machine.

Advanced

Custom partitions, SDCard

When booting Android-x86, you may specify which partitions represent the data and sdcard. On the boot menu, select an entry you would like to boot from, press TAB, then add the following as it suits your needs:
DATA=sda1 SDCARD=sda2 Press Enter to boot. These options specify user data (your setting, your uploaded applications, ...) go into /dev/sda1, and data saved in sdcard go into /dev/sda2.
If you build the ISO from source, you can add these options to bootable/newinstaller/boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg.
Here is a note from David when using fdisk:
  1. Create a new virtual machine with a hard disk.
  2. Launch the Live ISO in Debug mode (I used android-x86-2.2-generic.iso) to get the commend prompt.
  3. 'fdisk /dev/sda', then type:
    1. 'n' (new partition)
    2. 'p' (primary partition)
    3. '1' (1st partition)
    4. '1' (first cylinder)
    5. 'xx' (choose the last cylinder, leaving room for a 2nd partition)
    6. 'w' (write the partition)
  4. Repeat #3, but call it partition 2, and use the remaining cylinders.
  5. 'mdev -s'
  6. 'mke2fs -j -L DATA /dev/sda1'
  7. 'mke2fs -j -L SDCARD /dev/sda2'
  8. Reboot ('reboot -f')
  9. At the boot menu, choose VESA, then hit TAB and type so that the end of the line reads: 'DATA=sda1 SDCARD=sda2'. (Only need for the generic target images, for VM target images, this is not needed)
  10. After booting (and of course disabling mouse integration via the machine menu), the SD card is read as unformatted, but you can format it by going to Settings > SD card & phone settings > Format SD Card, then Mount SD card.
  11. The SD card should now work!

Install Mac Os On Virtualbox

Note: for the step 7, if you want to format to vfat only, then you can do : Also remember the partition type has to be fat32 (b or c). By using vfat, the step 10 is not needed.
DevTools application has a MediaScanner which (re)indexes your SD card for cases where you manually copied media over. This ensures that you see new images and/or music in the apps without having to reboot.
If you downloaded it from within android, the application asks the relevant service to index new files.

Playing music

This section describes two ways to upload music files into Android running on a vbox so you can play them by the Music app. Of course, you can save the files to the virtual disk mounted at /sdcard, as described above.

Mac

Upload files by adb

Adb is Android Debug Bridge, a tool to debug Android system. If you compile from source, it is located in out/host/linux-x86/bin/adb. Otherwise you can get it from Android SDK. Suppose the network of your vbox is OK, you can upload a file from your host by

ADBHOST=<ip of vbox> out/host/linux-x86/bin/adb push <a music file> /sdcard
Virtualbox Android Mac You need to know the ip of your vbox. You can get it by Alt-F1 and netcfg. You may also need to reboot Android to see the uploaded files. Of course in this way you have to mount /sdcard to a virtual disk partion.
For complex network settings of the VirtualBox VM, you should refer to Debug How To on how to connect adb to the VM.

Upload files by wget

You can also upload files by wget in the debug mode. In the debug mode shell, before entering Android,

# cd /android/sdcard
# netcfg eth0 dhcp
# wget <url of a music file>
Then type exit to enter Android.

Debug with adb

This section describes the way to debug Android with adb via network.

If we want to debug with adb via network, we should ensure the ip of vbox can be accessed by host machine. So we should change the Network Adapter type of vbox to Bridged Adapter. After starting the android-x86, we should follow the above Settings/[Network] section to ensure the network of android-x86 is enabled, and enable USB debugging in Settings/System/Developer Options. Then we can get the device ip from Settings/System/About tablet/IP address. For example, if we see the ip address is 192.168.0.116, then we can use following command to connect android-x86 in vbox from host machine.

Then you can use adb command to debug android-x86 such as get log, and dump system information.

References

  1. ^ ab VirtualBox currently has no Guest Additions for Android.
  2. ^ VirtualBox v6.1.0 states: 'old style 3D support (with VBoxVGA) has been completely removed'
  3. ^ VirtualBox states: 'Note that you must install the Guest Additions on the guest VM to specify the VBoxSVGA or VMSVGA graphics controller.'