Setting up Anbox on Debian

Anbox - (Android in a box) is an open-source application that allows you to run most Android applications/games on any GNU/Linux Operating System.

Install Required Modules

Anbox requires some kernel modules to be installed on the host machine before you can run it. Below are the steps to install those modules.

Install DKMS

sudo apt install dkms

Install Kernel Headers

# Check kernel version
uname -r

# Search for appropriate kernel header
apt search linux-headers-$(uname -r)

# Check if its already installed
ls -l /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)

# Install Headers (If not already installed)
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Clone the Anbox GitHub repository to your system

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/anbox/anbox-modules.git

Then run INSTALL.sh script inside the repository.

Can Also do This Manually

First, install Anbox configuration files:

sudo cp anbox.conf /etc/modules-load.d/
sudo cp 99-anbox.rules /lib/udev/rules.d/

Copy module sources:

sudo cp -rT ashmem /usr/src/anbox-ashmem-1
sudo cp -rT binder /usr/src/anbox-binder-1

Install modules using DKMS:

sudo dkms install anbox-ashmem/1
sudo dkms install anbox-binder/1

Enable the necessary kernel modules:

sudo modprobe ashmem_linux
sudo modprobe binder_linux

Finally, verify if kernel modules are installed properly by running the following commands and checking their results:

lsmod | grep -e ashmem_linux -e binder_linux
## Expected result
binder_linux          114688  0
ashmem_linux           16384  0

ls -1 /dev/{ashmem,binder}
## Expected result
/dev/ashmem
/dev/binder

ls -alh /dev/binder /dev/ashmem
## Expected Result
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root  10, 55 Jun 19 16:30 /dev/ashmem
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 511,  0 Jun 19 16:30 /dev/binder

You have successfully installed the required kernel modules if you see the above results.

Installing and Setting Up Anbox

sudo apt update
sudo apt install anbox

## Using snap
sudo snap install --devmode --beta anbox

Anbox expects an android image in the /usr/bin/anbox/android.img directory. Download the image and move the image to the required directory using the following command.

wget https://build.anbox.io/android-images/2018/07/19/android_amd64.img

sudo mv android_amd64.img /var/lib/anbox/android.img

Restart the service

sudo service anbox-container-manager restart

Finally, launch anbox with following command.

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

Since Play Store and Google Play Services are not available, install applications using adb using the command

adb install your_desired_application.apk

If ADB is not installed in your system, you can install it with:

1
sudo apt install android-tools-adb