Android-x86 9.0 Released, Lets You Run Android 9 Pie on Your PC

Android-x86 9.0

Android-x86, the free port of Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to the x86 platform, has a new stable version, Android-x86 9.0, based on the Android 9 Pie series.

More than three months in development, Android-x86 9.0 is here to let users run the Android 9 Pie mobile operating system on their personal computers. It’s the latest stable version of the project and comes with numerous new features and improvements.

This release adds support for OpenGL ES 3.x hardware acceleration for AMD, Intel, and Nvidia chips, as well as QEMU (virgl) virtualization through the Mesa 19.3.4 open-source graphics stack. For unsupported GPUs, it uses OpenGL ES 2.0 via SwiftShader for software rendering.

Android-x86 9.0 also adds hardware accelerated codecs for Intel HD and G45 graphics family devices, multi-touch support, audio support, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, sensors and camera support, as well as Ethernet (DHCP only) support.

For devices where the sensors aren’t recognized, Android-x86 will automatically enable ForceDefaultOrientation to force the device’s orientation. However, the developers note the fact that portrait apps run in landscape view without the need to rotate the screen.

On the visual side of things, this release add ‘Taskbar’ as an alternative app launcher. When enabled, this places a start menu and a tray with recent apps on top of your screen. It supports freeform window mode too.

Android-x86 9.0 supports UEFI Secure Boot

Another interesting new feature is support for UEFI Secure Boot, allowing users to install the OS on UEFI systems. Theme support to GRUB-EFI bootloader has been implemented as well.

Other cool features present in this release, include experimental Vulkan support for newer AMD and Intel graphics cards, which can be enabled in Advanced options during boot, a text-based GUI installer, support for ARM apps, and support for automatic mounting of external USB drives and SD cards.

For those who prefer to run Android-x86 virtualized, mouse integration is now supported in QEMU, VirtualBox, VMware, and Hyper-V virtual machines.

Under the hood, Android-x86 9.0 is powered by Linux kernel 4.19.105 LTS, supported on both 64-bit and 32-bit systems. You can download the latest release right now from the official website.

If you plan on upgrading, you should know that Android-x86 now supports upgrades from non-official releases.

Last updated 4 years ago

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