Anbox

anbox - Android emulator. Anbox puts the Android operating system into a container, abstracts hardware access and integrates core system services into a GNU/Linux system.

Installation

For Mint Linux installation instructions see our Snapcraft guide.

Make sure you run anbox.appmgr at least once after installing Anbox. Just type the following from your command prompt:

~ $ anbox.appmgr

There are other methods of installation.

Limitations

You can install Android apps but they need to be in android's architecture-neutral bytecode or in the same native architecture as your main OS, because there's no emulator, Anbox runs in a container, thus interecting straight with your current kernel. So you won't be able to install an ARM app on your PC which uses an Intel x86 / 64 processor. These processors work differently than the ARM processor in your phone. However, there are other factors such as the consideration you could use a Raspberry Pi with an ARM processor, or use further emulation on your PC to function between Anbox and your kernel.

One solution is using libhoudini to allow you to run ARM apps on your PC with Anbox.

Usage

In current distributions of Ubuntu and Mint (including Mint 18.3 and up) you can launch anbox from the command prompt (or from the search menu):

 anbox.appmgr

To install applications you must download each app APK and install it manually using adb.

Google Play

Anbox doesn't come with Google Services as Google Services can't be installed on an unregistered device including your emulator.

Troubleshooting

Failed to install : Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: Failed to extract native libraries, res=-113]

This error:

Failed to install battlefieldmars.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: Failed to extract native libraries, res=-113]

You are trying to install an app which was written for the ARM processor architecture on your Intel based device, Anbox on your PC.

Try libhoudini