How to install Anbox on Debian - DEV Community https://dev.

to/sbellone/how-to-install-anbox-on-debian-1hjd

Sylvain Bellone
Posted on May 3, 2021

How to install Anbox on Debian

#linux #android #tutorial

While waiting to see how it works on the PinePhone, I've recently tried to install
Anbox on a Debian (Bullseye), and found out that the official documentation or other
online articles don't have proper Debian instructions. Most of those articles are based
on Snap, while nowadays everything is present to install it the Debian way.

After digging around, it turns out that most of what I will describe here is properly
documented in the dedicated Debian README ( /usr/share/doc/anbox/README.Debian ),
but I have to admit that it took me time to find it and I personally often prefer a
simple and visual tutorial.

So, here is what I had to do to run Anbox and the F-Droid apk on Debian!

Core installation
The first thing to do is of course to install Anbox itself:

$ sudo apt install anbox

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How to install Anbox on Debian - DEV Community https://dev.to/sbellone/how-to-install-anbox-on-debian-1hjd

Then, as stated in the official doc, check that the necessary kernel modules are
enabled:

$ ls -1 /dev/{ashmem,binder}

If not:

$ sudo modprobe ashmem_linux

$ sudo modprobe binder_linux

If like me, /sbin is not in your $PATH ( modprobe: command not found ), add it or use the
full path:

$ sudo /sbin/modprobe ashmem_linux

$ sudo /sbin/modprobe binder_linux

At that point, if you try to run it ( anbox session-manager ), you will probably get the
following error:

Failed to connect to socket /run/anbox-container.socket: No such file or directory

Android image
Anbox indeed expect to find an Android image at /var/lib/anbox/android.img .
Download the latest image available at https://build.anbox.io/android-images/ and
move it there:

$ sudo mv ~/Downloads/android_amd64.img /var/lib/anbox/android.img

Restart the service:

$ sudo service anbox-container-manager restart

You should now be able to run Anbox, either from your Desktop environment
launcher, or with the following command:

anbox launch --package=org.anbox.appmgr --component=org.anbox.appmgr.AppViewActivity

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Installing and running APKs
This last part is well explained in the doc. Start by installing adb:

$ sudo apt install android-tools-adb

You now have everything needed to install new applications:

Open the Anbox Application Manager

Download F-Droid: $ wget https://f-droid.org/F-Droid.apk
Install the apk: $ adb install F-Droid.apk

You should now see F-Droid in Anbox Application Manager!

Refs:
https://superuser.com/a/1464899
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/01/msg00894.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/01/msg00894.html
https://github.com/anbox/anbox/issues/123

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