Well about a week ago I was writing about my experiences with Android x86. That particular OS runs reasonably well in a VM on Linux, but on my Windows computer I couldn’t achieve anything with it because apparently of the hardware virtualisation limit. So then I upgraded the computer to one that does full virtualisation and I tried again. But I also tried a different Android package – I tried RemixOS, which is far superior to Android x86, being a lot more refined in many aspects.
There are three ways you can run RemixOS:
- In a virtual machine
- As a native install (hard disk or pen drive)
- As an emulator (Remix OS Player)
The native install as a pen drive has been the least successful method so far – giving me the Android startup messages, but then stopping at a black screen with just a mouse pointer visible. In a virtual machine (Virtualbox) on Windows 10, I have only got the Guest mode to work so far (no data saved) while the Resident mode throws error messages and never reaches the home screen. The Player experience has been similar to the virtual machine Guest mode, except that data does persist. Both experiences to date are far superior to Android x86.
RemixOS isn’t just another basic emulation of Android on a desktop – it has adopted some well known GUI elements like a desktop, a taskbar and a start menu as its shell. The result is something that is far easier to use than Android x86.
That said, Remix is pretty new and there are still a few glitches. Right now with Instagram, I can browse my newsfeed, but can’t post anything – selecting an image crashes it. So the Remix people still have a few things to fix on what is actually version 1.0 of their player. The VM run with Resident Mode working is something I am still tweaking to see if I can get that working properly as well, but I would expect it wouldn’t be better than the player, so I am going to focus on the player and that means talking to the Remix people about any fixes they can create to address the crashes.