Is it possible to use Android apps on the Librem 5?

Hardware Librem 5
49

Surely you’re taking the piss? :slight_smile:

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50

@kieran HA HA :grin:
Mostly now, but even if I don’t nobody knows outside the stall :slight_smile:
When you think about it, we’re probably going to see not only ports of .apks but also a whole bunch of whimsical new flatpacks for the Librem 5 by people who just want to make things in the spirit of the greatest program ev-er…kteatime! :smile:

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51

The N900 was my first real smartphone. I loved it. I used it without even knowing it was Linux really. And when I say I used it, that’s what I mean. I really used it. I was connecting via SSH to a VNC server back home and doing development work on the road in some cases using that phone. I still have mine and it still boots. To me the N900 was the crowing achievement of Nokia.

Maemo 5 was the OS, and while it was not perfect, it was totally useable. I still miss it today. I always wonder what it would be like to use that OS with SoCs that are available today. The phone is old now, but I remember running Quake 3 on it when I first got it.

If Anbox works, how pretty it does so isn’t really a concern of mine. I do however hope the project is being actively developed.

I do hope that the Librem 5 helps to spur development in that regard. There will be a market for it.

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52

The N900 was quite nice. The disaster was that Nokia stopped the development and support of Maemo making the N900 useless.

The morons at the top in Nokia did not understand anything about smart phone development. Interestingly, Nokia was the first with a “terminal” i.e. Nokia Communicator. My brother had one and used it until it literally fell apart from much use and old age. That was long before Apple iPhone and Android. Nokia was well ahead of Apple and history might have been different if the top morons had let that line go ahead. It was the same group of engineers at Nokia that later made the N900 But management stopped the line …

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53

Just found an online store which still had a XA2 available which i just ordered to run SailfishOS… Holding back on ordering a Librem 5 right now as im already late to the party. Might just aswell wait a few more months as ordering right now doesn’t make any sense.

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54

So, turns out it is perfectly possible. Now, dear community, come in and make it actually usable :wink:

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55

You definitely get my congratulations for this!

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56

You sir, are legendary.

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57

That’s awesome, i hope some dev will push this on librem5 repos making it installable and usable for unexperienced people, i think if whatsapp just work on it, it could help a lot the complete migration from andoid/ios to pureos

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58

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59

Anbox itself is already packaged in Debian; however, you need to copy an Android image yourself, as packaging it properly would be a challenge…

Please remember that I haven’t done much - I just took an already existing piece of software and ran it on the phone. Say “thanks” to the Anbox team, it’s them who made it possible :stuck_out_tongue:

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60

Thanks for the clarification. Despite that, anbox on the L5 is great news.

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61

Is this a specific image you copy from Anbox, or can it be an arbitrary image (eg. Lineage OS, /e/, etc)?

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62

I have built the android.img image for arm64 according to instructions on Anbox wiki. It’s viable for testing, but we can’t just package pre-built images into PureOS - it needs to have properly packaged and buildable complete source code. In this case, that would be the whole Android system in one package :smiley:

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63

Thanks! You’re response tells me that I’ve vastly underestimated the complexity of what you’ve done. Your modesty becomes, you – good work :wink:

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64

I never had much problem with it when I was using OmniROM without Google Play Services on my (now stolen and destroyed) old phone. Most of the apps I use today are also open source, other than Google Docs/Slides/Sheets and Discord, but those can be run online.

65

I love opensource. We need a video here!
Can I get steps to duplicate?
Can I download your android image (Feeling lazy)
How about 3d acceleration in snap?

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66

What’s wrong with seismometers? I have an app for one on my home screen in case I am unsure if there is an earthquake or I am just on a shakey surface, so I think they are relatively important.

67

nothing wrong with them . but ya know if youre having an earthquake youre probably going to be well aware of it …which is why i think they are kinda gimmicky

68

Gimmicky only in the sense that if you are having a big enough where you are at that moment. But put them on a network, like the Berkeley developed early warning and measurement, and those can detect early signs and warn others before they are hit with the tremors. Or just make additional observations for science about the characteristics of the quake. Or just curiosity: know what you are dealing with - and a lot of messaging after quakes enquire after magnitude, and less unhelpful messaging there is to flood networks the better.

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