Hey guys this tutorial will show you how to install Android as a dual boot to most OS. You do not need a touchscreen for this, all you need is a mouse and keyboard. Wifi works brilliantly as do most features.


Latest Build:
Feb 27, 2012 3:38 AM android-x86-4.0-RC1

Features:

• Kernel 2.6.35.7, KMS enable
• Wifi support with GUI
• Ethernet configuration GUI
• Better disk installer
• Power Suspend/resume (S3 mode)
• Battery Status
• Software mouse cursor
• Mouse wheel
• Support netbook native resolution
• Audio (ALSA)
• V4l2 Camera support
• External monitor support
• External storage auto mount support
• Support external keyboard
• Debug mode with busybox
• Bluetooth

For this particular job you need:
A Laptop or PC
A blank Disc or USB at least 512Mb in size
An Internet Connection
The latest build of the x86 Android (can be developer preview or a release candidate) Downloaded from http://www.android-x86.org/download
A harddrive with at 5Gb of space.
Unetbootin
A Windows PC, or a Virtual Machine, or Wine, or a program that allows you to open .exe files on other OS

Step 1. Download the x86 Android from the website. Preferably 4.0, for most laptops and PC's, use the download with ASUS in its name.

Step 2. Download UnetBootIn if you are using a USB from here http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ or IMGburn from here
http://download.imgb...urn_2.5.6.0.exe

Step 3. Place the ISO file you have downloaded in a folder on your desktop.
If you are using a USB follow step 4A, If you are using a Disc follow step 4B

Step 4A. Run UnetBootIn and select diskimage at the bottom of the program. Click the ... to choose the .iso file we saved to our desktop remember? Select USB drive at the bottom of the page and choose the directory letter. We don't have to worry about anything else for now so press okay.

Step 4B. Run IMGburn, Press write to disc and select the .iso file on our desktop by pressing the folder and navigating our way there, for destination choose the disc drive with your blank CD/DVD inside it and press the .iso to disc button under it. Allow it to do it's thing.

Step 5. Open up your start menu for windows users. Open my computer and right click your C: drive. Storage --> Properties . Check that it has the space we need and that it is formatted to NTFS. This should be done by default but be sure just in case.

**I reccomend you back up your important files at this point, just in case **

Step 6. Insert your disc/usb into a drive and restart your computer.

Step 7. Open your Bios/Boot Options and set your USB/CD or DVD to first priority.

Step 8. Allow the computer to read the file and you should see a dialogue appear, choose install android to hard disk
.
Step 9. Choose your partition, this is where it gets tricky as linux doesn't show the names of partitions, my C: drive is always the third, but yours could be anyone one of them, It can only be an NTFS drive so try one.

Step 10. Now it should ask you about format options select don't format.

Step 11. It will ask to install Grub Loader, Select yes (this is our multiboot utility)

Step 12. Now if it is the correct drive it should say a The installer found a Windows Partition. If It said that skip to Step 14. If it hasn't go to step 13.

Step 13. Restart your computer and repeat steps 8 - 12 but select a different NTFS drive until the program tells you it found the windows partition.

Step 14. It will now say "do you want to install /system directory as read-write?" Select Yes. It will now begin installing Android.

Step 15. It will ask you to create a disc image, select yes, this allows it to save your apps/work/android setup

Step 16. It will prompt you to set the space in Mb the image can take in MegaBytes. I reccomend 1Gb, so type 1024 or any other amount of space you want. This may take a while, feel like a break? Go have one.

Step 17. Now you can select create a fake sd card, to store your system files in, type 1024. I haven't figured out how to access this in windows yet but, create one anyway to store phone files I suppose.

Step 18. Now reboot your PC/Laptop

Step 19. Now you can choose your boot options. This will happen everytime you boot your PC or Laptop. Upon first boot android may take a small time to load.

Step 20. Set up your Google account. And away you go.


Known Bugs Within Android 4.0 Release Candidates:
Yay! Bugs in The Release Candidate!
Known Models of PC That Are Compatible:

Known Models Of Laptop That Are Compatible:
Acer Aspire One
Asus EeePc Series
Dell Inspiron Mini Duo
Samsung Q1U
Viewsonic Viewpad 10
Lenovo ThinkPad x61 Tablet


Have questions?
Feel free to ask.

Also If you used this be sure to rate it. This will have pictures added soon.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

It's worth noting that the setup should take note of a Windows installation no matter where it's being installed to; I installed it to an SD card and it still noted Windows 7 on the main drive and let me add it to the bootloader. That being the case, I'd recommend changing the guide to reflect this; while you could let the bootloader do what it wants with your Windows partition, I think setting aside a partition in advance (and making a note of which partition that is in advance) is probably a safer idea idea.

Also, I don't think you need more than 5-6GB of space, do you? I might be wrong here, but it seems like the system files take up around 350MB, and the data and sdcard images are maxed out at 2GB each. Since all the data would be written to those two images, I don't believe there would be anything written anywhere else on the partition.

If you want internal storage inside the OS itself for apps, music, themes. You create a fake SD-Card. Also you can use an SD card but USB's are generally things that everyone will have. I have tried making another partition, but there is no need for it.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

Yes, but as far as I could tell, you can't create a fake SD larger than 2GB, so saying you need around 10GB of free space for installation seems a bit like overkill. And what I was saying was, I installed from a USB to an SD card so I wouldn't have to waste space on the HDD, and it still saw the Windows partition on the main HDD and added a boot option for it; therefore, instead of installing Android to the same partition as your Windows installation it might be safer to create a separate partition on the Windows drive and install Android there instead. I personally don't like doing anything that needlessly risks any of my OS partitions when there's safer options.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Yes, but as far as I could tell, you can't create a fake SD larger than 2GB, so saying you need around 10GB of free space for installation seems a bit like overkill. And what I was saying was, I installed from a USB to an SD card so I wouldn't have to waste space on the HDD, and it still saw the Windows partition on the main HDD and added a boot option for it; therefore, instead of installing Android to the same partition as your Windows installation it might be safer to create a separate partition on the Windows drive and install Android there instead. I personally don't like doing anything that needlessly risks any of my OS partitions when there's safer options.

That would be correct. Installing it to a separate partition is indeed safer (in case something goes wrong with Android) and easier in the long run (for when you want to remove Android). Zero, you should improve upon your guide a bit. Also, 10GB is a little overkill for Android, I would change that to 5GB for the system along with the 2GB fake SD card. That would give you enough space for any app that would require data storage as well.

 

[sentinel5000]

Ok I have a laptop dual booting with Windows 8 devs preview and Ubuntu 11.02. I also have burg as my boot manager. Can I still install android on it if it has the disk space??

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

It's more or less the same as installing and dual-booting with any other OS, but apparently it has the ability to coexist within another OS's partition. A note, though: while the installer detected my Windows 7 installation it completely ignored the Fedora installation. I'm not entirely certain about this, but I believe the best way to do it with Windows and Linux already installed would be to install Android to its own partition and decline its request to install its own GRUB loader. From there boot into Ubuntu and do whatever with burg (I've never used it, but I assume it's got some sort of tool to scan for other installations and add them to you boot menu). At your next boot, you should see Android listed with whatever else was already on your boot menu.

Note that that's all conjecture, although I could go and test it if I felt like switching my bootloader. I'm by no means an expert on bootloaders, and truth be told, I've been known to screw them up pretty bad. Worst case scenario, though, you have to reinstall Android and find a different method of getting the boot menu right.

 

[frogboy]

Before I start installing, can you tell me WHY I would want to install Android on a PC? Just asking.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Before I start installing, can you tell me WHY I would want to install Android on a PC? Just asking.

Really there is no reason why. I suppose it could be for those who don't know if they'd like to purchase an Android device or not. Really Android isn't really a useful PC OS, so do it only if you want to play around with Android. Otherwise, it's useless on PC.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

Before I start installing, can you tell me WHY I would want to install Android on a PC? Just asking.

Really there is no reason why. I suppose it could be for those who don't know if they'd like to purchase an Android device or not. Really Android isn't really a useful PC OS, so do it only if you want to play around with Android. Otherwise, it's useless on PC.

If your laptop, is slow with windows then this is a good choice. It is more aimed at netbooks than anything else.

 

[frogboy]

Stupid question: Can it run Android apps?

 

[Zerosuit connor]

Stupid question: Can it run Android apps?

Yes.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Before I start installing, can you tell me WHY I would want to install Android on a PC? Just asking.

Really there is no reason why. I suppose it could be for those who don't know if they'd like to purchase an Android device or not. Really Android isn't really a useful PC OS, so do it only if you want to play around with Android. Otherwise, it's useless on PC.

If your laptop, is slow with windows then this is a good choice. It is more aimed at netbooks than anything else.

Even still it's useless. Not only is it still buggy (on all releases) but you can't do all of the things you could with something like...Windows or Linux. It really is a useless PC OS and should only be used for fun. The project itself was never officially intended to be used as a whole PC OS.


EDIT: While Android on PC sounds cool and I'm not saying it's bad, it just shouldn't be used as a main OS.

 

[frogboy]

Stupid question: Can it run Android apps?

Yes.

Alright, I believe I'll give this guide a try.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

Stupid question: Can it run Android apps?

Yes.

Alright, I believe I'll give this guide a try.

As previously not all apps are supported, angry birds for one is not. This is because the android market reads your phone/tablets specs and if you have an ARM5 processor you can't run ARM6 apps, so it hides them. To combat this I have been downloading the .apk files and manually installing them. GBAoid and N64oid run well, but you have to download the roms through android.

 

[Kiaku]

I'm having issues with mine. Even when I tried installing android onto my hard-drive, it keeps saying that there's not enough free disk space. So I tried installing on another hard-drive, and it worked. Now, when I boot android up, all I get is a command-line screen, and it doesn't load to android's gui.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

I'm having issues with mine. Even when I tried installing android onto my hard-drive, it keeps saying that there's not enough free disk space. So I tried installing on another hard-drive, and it worked. Now, when I boot android up, all I get is a command-line screen, and it doesn't load to android's gui.

What model is your PC/Laptop?

 

[Kiaku]

Dell Inspiron 1501 Laptop

 

[Zerosuit connor]

Can you just load android without installing it?

 

[Kiaku]

It keeps looping on a message when I do that.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

Message?
Can you take a photo?

 

[greator]

I want to run windows on my china epad.