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+--- Thread: Android OS for your Netbook or Virtual PC (/thread-3323.html)
Android OS for your Netbook or Virtual PC - ralgith - 09-21-2012
WARNING: Some of this is quite technical and detailed. If you just want to play with Android use the first of the 3 options and the free Virtual PC software VirtualBox! So sayeth I.
I had a thread awhile back about the emulator included in the Android SDK. This thread will instead take the next step: Installing Android 4.0.x "Ice Cream Sandwich" actually on a physical computer (a few laptops and netbooks supported, but the ASUS Laptop image should work on a lot of laptops and netbooks unofficially) using Android x86, or running it on a Virtual PC using VirtualBox or VMWare. This is a really great way to use Android OS without having one of the devices, or to get Apps for devices that use an alternative Market and are locked to it (Such as the Kindle Fire being locked to the Amazon App Market) so that you can "Side Load" (Alt 1, Alt 2) them.
To use it on VBox or VMWare, visit here:
http://www.buildroid.org/blog/?page_id=121
And just follow along. This tutorial uses nice pre-built virtual machines so all you have to do is drop in and run.
For installing the Google Apps (including their app market) you'll also need the Android SDK in order to use adb to "push" the apps. This is included in the tutorial.
To install it on a physical machine on the hard disk drive, first go to the Android x86 Project and get the correct ISO for your machine... or if you don't have a supported machine get the Android 2.2 Generic or Android 4.0 for ASUS Laptops. Burn the ISO to a CD and then reboot with it in the drive. Do not choose install yet, use one of the LiveCD boot options to give it a test drive on your machine to see how it works. Once you've done that, if you still wish to install it do so. Or you can use the prebuilt 4.0 ISO with Ethernet Patch in place of the one from the Android x86 Project because it includes Ethernet support. Regardless... if you wish to have the Google Play App Store, you MUST tell it to install with the "system" folder as read/write instead of the default read only.
Alternatively you can follow this tutorial and use the custom build (based on the Android x86 Project's 4.0 ASUS laptop build) that has Ethernet Support.
Tutorial
Prebuilt 4.0 ISO with Ethernet Patch <-- Use this instead of the Android x86 release of 4.0, or use the Android x86 2.2 release instead.
Regardless... if you wish to have the Google Play App Store, you MUST tell it to install with the "system" folder as read/write instead of the default read only.
Other useful links (tutorials):
http://www.spkaa.com/how-to-android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich-using-vmware-player
http://programming4.us/desktop/8462.aspx