Most devices that ship with Google’s Android operating system are smartphones or tablets with touchscreen displays and ARM-based processors. But for years the folks at the Android-x86 project have been porting Android to run on computers with Intel or AMD chips.

This week the team released the first stable build based on Android Oreo.

The latest update has been in the works for a while — I reported on an Android-x86 8.1 release candidate last June. But the stable release should be more reliable and it brings all the new features you’d expect from Android 8.x Oreo including autofill and text selection improvements, picture-in-picture support, and downloadable fonts.

Android-x86 8.1 is available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions and it supports secure boot and UEFI. I’ve only tested it in a virtual machine so far, but theoretically you could use the disk image to install Android on your computer’s built-in storage and dual boot Android and Windows (or another OS) on the same computer.

The operating system supports hardware-accelerated OpenGL ES 3.x graphics on systems with Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA GPUs and there’s experimental support for Vulkan graphics on computers with newer Intel or AMD GPUs.

There’s also support for automatically mounting external USB drives or SD cards, support for WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet hardware and it should support cameras, audio, and multi-touch input.

Android-x86 8.1 also includes two different launchers — a standard Android launcher and Taskbar, an open source launcher that makes Android function a bit more like a desktop operating system with a taskbar, menu, and support for running apps in freeform windows that you can resize and move.

via Android Police

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13 replies on “Android-x86 8.1 released, lets you run Oreo on desktop PCs”

  1. Has anyone here dual booted lately with Android-x86 on a Surface (I have a Surface Pro 4 i7)? If so, what has your experience been like?

    1. not yet. I try to install Android X86 8.1 r3 on a Surface Pro 7. Till now w/o success. Secure Boot is disabled, and it’s booting from my USB-Stick. after choosing install it’s booting again and freeze. try to figure out how to install.

  2. You can run Bluestacks instead, which lets your Windows PC emulate an Android phone (with 64GB storage, one of several phones including Samsung, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, etc)., Bluestacks is funded or supported by Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, Google. It comes with the Google Play Store (login using your existing Google credentials). With Bluestacks, you still have access to the Windows running on your PC. Recommend at least an Ivy Bridge Core i5-3xxx, 4 GB RAM, SSD, or better for acceptable performance.

    1. bluestack is not android. is a garbage that mimic android functionalities and is full of blotware.

    2. If you need an emulator on Windows and not a full independent OS like Android x86, you can run pure Android PIE with the Android Studio emulator. you can run also arm apps…. thanks to houdini

  3. Hope it actually works on my desktop equipped with Nvidia graphics. Been waiting 2 years for an Android operating system to boot on my PC.

    1. You can run Bluestacks instead, which lets your PC emulate an Android phone (Bluestacks emulates with 64GB storage, one of several phones including Samsung, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, etc, . Bluestacks is funded or supported by Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, Google. It comes with the Google Play Store (login using your existing Google credentials). With Bluestacks, you still have access to Windows.

  4. Dumb question here. Can this run on x86 tablets? I have a couple of old windows tablets and I am wondering if this would bring new life to them.

    1. The list of tested devices is fairly small so the best thing might be to try it and see. I might do that with my i3-4100Y powered tablet which is aging poorly.

      Tested devices:
      ASUS Eee PCs/Laptops
      Viewsonic Viewpad 10
      Dell Inspiron Mini Duo
      Samsung Q1U
      Viliv S5
      Lenovo ThinkPad x61 Tablet

  5. I’m liking the movement to integrating my phone (Android) onto my Windows 10 PC. The Messages app setup is incredibly sweet and more integration along those lines will likely get a golfers clap and much appreciation.

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