Not that long ago after screwing up my android while fooling around with ZTE merit codes on my ZTE Z990g that was rooted with the ZTE avail, I screwed up my touchscreen calibration firmware and cannot figure out how to reinstall it, oops. After figuring out how to get my rooted devices to work with android screencast on my computer so that it could be accessed, I than proceeded to try different techniques to unroot my android to see if there was any way to get into FTM mode. Just for kicks, my SD card reader decided to take a dive, great, now I have an android, that is unrooted and can't do a thing until my new phone and new touchscreen comes in.
Anyways, while doing many searches on how to fix my issue while waiting, I discovered the world of installing the Android Operating system on the computer. My oh my, this is so cool, had to try it out. Well since Android is still in beta testing, it was unable to detect my my keyboard after getting past the "install to harddisk screen", grrr. Tried it in Virtual Machine, way to slow, sheesh, if one wanted to go back in time and get that nostalgic feeling of installing windows 98 on a 486, why not do just that. Okay so there had to be a way, and let me just say, it was easier than I thought. There are a few ways I discovered, that one would not find in a search but had to know what they where searching for, search for all those little pieces and put them together, so I did just that, got Android KitKat running on my Desktop computer. Now let me make it easier for you, in one Blog Post, just how to the same thing I did, without doing all those searches one how to do one thing only to have to put them all together.
There are a few ways this can be done, my preferable way is using a Linux operating system, since Android is a linux operating system, this technique is a little easier than if you are running Windows. If using windows, it is probably a better idea to just use the steps to create an ext4 format on a USB stick, setup your bios settings to boot to USB stick as first or second boot option.
For Ubuntu, things you will or may need:
- Ubuntu or Xubuntu live CD, 14.04 is the latest stable release
- Android x86 KitKat RC2 Iso
- Some type of unzip tool to extract your android x86 ISO to your harddisk, winzip - extraction tool already available if Ubuntu is already installed.
- Gparted - if you are already running Ubuntu and have a second hard disk or a area already partitioned off, then you can run the following commands:
sudo apt-get install gparted
sudo gparted
If Ubuntu is already installed and you do not want to redo everything, but just want to create a new partition, there are a few work arounds.
- Follow the steps using a USB Stick from gparted.
- Want mega space to run all kinds of Google Play APPS in AndroidX86 Kitkat but do not have any available partition, than a fresh install of Ubuntu is the best method.
- You could partition off the hard disk that Ubuntu is installed from using the method below through the live CD, but this may give you messy run around, causing issues with your boot.
- If you do decide to try to partition off your primary Windows or Ubuntu drive, from the Ubuntu Live CD:
a. run Ubuntu Live CD
b. unmount the linux-swap if Ubuntu
c. right click on the primary partition and resized. create a new primary partition from the unallocated space
e. format the partition, ext4 is usually the safest way to go for
any Linux based operating system.
f. this could potentially cause problems with the Ubuntu boot
afterwards, if so, follow these instructions to repair the boot.
As for using Gparted to partition off your Windows drive, not really sure, again, if in doubt use a USB stick.
Burn your Ubuntu ISO to a CD, DVD or USB per instructions on the Ubuntu download link above.
If you already have done the following Steps for installing Ubuntu/Xubuntu, skip down to the link below for instructions on how to manually install Android X86 below.
Part One - getting ready for Android X86 KitKat!
Make sure BIOS is setup to recognize the device you plan on using to Install Ubuntu from under boot options (USB or CD storage). Each computer is different so you will have to reference your motherboard manual to find your settings.
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| Insert your Xubuntu/Ubuntu CD/USB stick and turn on the PC, when finished loading, select Try Xubuntu/Ubuntu: |
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| When Ubuntu shell loads, click on the menu and open up your terminal: |
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| sudo gparted |
Gparted will now open, this is where you can partition your harddisk to suit your needs. Lets say you have a 1.5 tb hard disk like me, this is how I setup my partitions. For a fresh new install, you will need to right click on any partitions that are used and delete them, right click and delete until all the partitions are combined into one large unallocated space.
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Right click and delete unwanted partitions, you want to work with unallocated space. If resizing, right click the partition you want to resize, create an extended partition then create a new ext4 partition. This method is useful if dual-booting with windows.
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Optional: I'll show you later how to create an emulated SDCARD for Kitkat
If your going to install windows just select OK no need to enter any values.
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| This is how your final result should look |
- Right click on the Android-x86 and select "Extract Here"
- Now you should see a folder with the same name as the Android-x86 ISO you just extracted.
- In that folder all you need are the following four files:
- initrd.img
- ramdisk.img
- kernel
- system.sfs
- Select just those four and copy them to the drive where android-x86 is going to run from and paste them into a folder called Android. In the newly created folder Android create another folder called data. The data structure should now be:
- Android-x86
- data
- initrd.img
- system.sfs
- kernel
- ramdisk.img
- Open up terminal and enter the code:
sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom
This is the following you will see:
#!/bin/shexec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
<code>menuentry "Android-x86" {
set root='(hd0,X)' Linux /Android/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=generic_x86 acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode SDCARD=sda3 SRC=/Android
initrd /Android/initrd.img}
</code>
If you skipped the step for creating an emulated SDCARD, then just remove the line, SDCARD=sdaX. If you did create a partition to use an emulated SDCARD, then below in the following command, <code>sudo fdisk -l</code> identify that partition and replace X with the number, mine is sda3. As for the <code>set root='(hdX,X)'</code> this is determined as to which drive android is running from. In terminal shell enter:
sudo fdisk -l
and the output will be, this is mine:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/sda1 * 2048 204802047 102400000 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 204802048 307202047 51200000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 307202048 1906276351 799537152 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 1906278398 2930276351 511998977 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1906278400 2912458087 503089844 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 2912460800 2930276351 8907776 82 Linux swap / Solaris
sda1 is where android is running from, so my format is - set root='(hd0,1).
Example
Hard Drive
sda = (hd0,0)
sda1 = (hd0,1)
sda2 = (hd0,2)
USB Stick
sdb = (hd1,0)
sdb1 = (hd1,1)
sdb2 = (hd1,2)
Now that you have created your menuentry for android, press
ctrl x
press enter
type the letter y for yes
press enter
Now in terminal type:
sudo update-grub
sudo reboot
In the Ubuntu boot menu you will see Android-X86 at the bottom, scroll down, hit enter, sit back and enjoy Android on your PC!
