Skip to content

Installation-Android.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
80 lines (56 loc) · 4.21 KB

Installation-Android.md

File metadata and controls

80 lines (56 loc) · 4.21 KB
Raw

Android installation guide

On Android, Droidspaces needs no terminal. Everything from the first install to running a full Linux distribution is done in the app.

Prerequisites

  1. A rooted device, using one of the supported rooting solutions.
  2. A compatible kernel with Droidspaces support enabled. See the Kernel Configuration Guide.

Step 1: Install the app

  1. Download the Droidspaces APK from the latest release.
  2. Install the APK on your device.
  3. Grant root access and open the app.

Step 2: Automatic backend setup

On first launch, Droidspaces does an atomic installation of the backend:

  • It detects the device architecture (aarch64, armhf, etc.).
  • It extracts the droidspaces and busybox binaries to /data/local/Droidspaces/bin.
  • It moves them into place atomically, so the install succeeds even while an older version is running.
  • It verifies checksums, so a corrupted binary is not installed.

Step 3: Setting up your first container

You don't extract rootfs files by hand. The app does it.

Option A: Install from the Rootfs Repository (recommended)

This is the shortest path. The app can browse, download and install distros itself, with no manual download.

  1. Open the Containers tab: tap the middle icon in the bottom navigation bar.
  2. Open the repository: tap the cloud icon (above the "+" button). This opens the Rootfs Repository sheet, which fetches every distro built for Android from our official repository.
  3. Pick a distro: browse or search the list. Each card shows the distro name, size, architecture and build date.
  4. Download: tap Download on the distro you want. A progress bar appears on the card. The file is saved to your Downloads folder.
  5. Install: when the download finishes, the button changes to Install. Tap it to start the container setup wizard.
  6. Configuration wizard:
    • Name: a name for the container.
    • Features: toggle Hardware Access, IPv6, Network Isolation, Android storage integration and the rest as you need them.
    • Container type: we recommend Sparse Image. It performs better and is more stable on Android's f2fs storage, and it avoids odd SELinux and keyring issues.
  7. Done: the app extracts the tarball and applies the post-extraction fixes (DNS, masking useless or dangerous services, and Safe Udev).

Tip

The official repository contains distros preconfigured for Android. For a wider selection, add the LXC images mirror as a custom repository. See the Rootfs Repository section of the usage guide.

Option B: Install from a local tarball

If you already have a .tar.xz or .tar.gz rootfs file on the device:

  1. Open the Containers tab and tap the "+" button.
  2. Select your tarball from storage.
  3. Follow the same configuration wizard steps as above.

Note

Both methods end in the same wizard. The only difference is where the tarball comes from.

Verification & settings

You can check the system status at any time:

  1. Go to Settings (gear icon) -> Requirements.
  2. Tap Check Requirements. This runs the full droidspaces check suite internally.
  3. Kernel config: for kernel developers, the same screen has a copyable droidspaces.config defconfig fragment, like the one on this page, to check that your kernel is compatible with Droidspaces.

Next steps