Virtualbox - Resident Mode

[Eduardo Claro]

anyone managed to start Remix OS in Resident Mode using Virtualbox VM?

[Richard Coleman]

Nope, mine's been sitting on the fading Remix OS logo for an hour and a half.

[naimish10...@gmail.com]

Same here.

[Ben Rossington]

try partitioning your virtual hard drive first. I'm about to give it a shot.

[marco foil]

Try to convert the iso image in vmdk disk, after this Resident mode start well

[japz...@gmail.com]

I've managed to install it as a full OS instead of using Resident mode. Bit of a pain though.

[Richard Coleman]

Marco, Jordan,

Any advice on how to either install it as a full OS, or convert the iso?

[Jordan Pt]

First you have to install it:

• First off make your VM and make a hard disk for it. I recommend a Dynamic VDI of at least 10GB.
• Now you need to format and partition the hard disk. I just used a Lubuntu LiveCD that included GParted to do this.
• Format the drive EXT4
• Now mount the RemixOS ISO and boot into it.
  
• On it's boot menu, quickly press [Tab]
• Modify the boot command so it says
  /kernal initrd=/initrd.img root=/dev/ram0androidboot.hardware=remix_x86_64 androidboot.selinux=permissive INSTALL=1 DEBUG=
  
• Press [Enter]
• You'll see a scroll of output and then you'll reach the install screen.
  
• Select the partition you made
• Do Not Format
• Install GRUB = YES
• Install EFI GRUB = SKIP!!!!!!!
• It'll now installed

Now you have it installed, but booting it is another matter. By default it won't boot properly. The only solution I've found so far is to run it in VGA mode from GRUB.

The quick and dirty method is to

• Find the resolution you want from the 'Color Depth 16' codes on this table. And copy down the code.
• Boot into the VM
• Press [E] on the Boot menu
• Press [E] again
• Now add "vga=" to the end plus the code you picked. So for example, the end result would be "vga=794" for 1280x1024.
• Now press [Enter], then press [B]

The VM should now boot into RemixOS. Please Note the initial boot of Android always takes a while, up to several minutes.

Obviously doing this every time is a pain. So you can modify the GRUB menu.lst file to make it permanent. To do this I just booted my Lubuntu LiveCD again, mounted the partition and then opened './grub/menu.lst' using a Root level Text Editor. ex: "sudo leafpad /media/lubuntu/Androidx86/grub/menu.lst". Just add the "vga=XXX" to the first kernal listing and save it before rebooting.

However, even after all this and getting to the Desktop, it's really unstable for some reason. I still haven't figured out why when the Guest mode from the ISO runs relatively okay. Maybe I'm missing some boot commands. I'll keep playing with it.

Also, interestingly Google Apps are installed as well, but most things crash. Most likely Installation isn't ready yet, which is why the option is missing.

PS: You can get a few more specific resolutions, but it's complicated and I'm out of time. You can learn about how here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/8273560

[Richard Coleman]

Thanks Jordan!

For some reason, my installation didn't like it when I tried to install GRUB.

When I hit yes, it gives me a black bar at the bottom of the CLI, and doesn't seem to do anything.

Next time I hit cancel, and skipped EFI as well. It started, but I think it may have been in Guest mode as I was prompted to choose again.

[Jordan Pt]

The installer can't properly format the drive do to a bug. So you have to format it ahead of time like I said in the instructions. Then in the installer you select your pre-made position, choose to NOT format it, say Yes to GRUB, and skip EFI. It'll ask you if your want a rewriteable System(I'd recommend to say yes). It should then install GRUB, and then a progress bar for copying data should appear. When it asks you at the end to boot into Android x86, don't do anything. Unmount the RemixOS ISO from the Device menu, Force it when it complains, then Reboot the VM. You should see a Black boot menu now. That's your installed OS.

[Richard Coleman]

Thanks again Jordan,

I'll have another go having partitioned them beforehand.

Thanks!

[jefferso...@gmail.com]

Figured it out on Windows 10.

Download the zip from the Remix OS website

Double click the executable and target it at a USB drive. (Will format and remove data)

Download Disk2VHD.

Set it up to clone your USB drive, uncheck "use VHDX" and "volume shadow copy"

Get the VHD file and add it to the Remix OS machine

[Brady Turner]

Pease expand with more details Jefferson......

[jefferso...@gmail.com]

1. Run the executable to put RemixOS on a USB drive

2. Use Disk2VHD, select the USB drive

3. Add the resulting VHD drive to your VBox OS through the IDE master

4. Boot to the drive and run it

[mem...@gmail.com]

Just wanted to share my setup that is relatively easy and working well for me. I am using Windows 10 and Virtualbox.

1. Go into Disk Management and under Action choose Create VHD. Leave it set to VHD then set your size (mine is 32GB) and save location.

2. It will automatically mount the new drive so right click on it and initialize it then create a FAT partition and give it a drive letter.

3. From here I tried unetbootin, but it would not see the drive. Instead I used Rufus (http://rufus.akeo.ie/) to copy the ISO to my VHD.

4. Make sure you unmount the drive from Windows.

5. Inside Virtualbox add the VHD as your hard drive. Now it will boot the same as if you used a flash drive.

[lord...@gmail.com]

HI Jordan,

Thank you for your detailed instruction. I followed it till the "Install GRUB = YES" part, where it .. kind of froze. I have waited for a while. There is a cursor under the blue portion where it is possible to type, but nothing else. Does it take a really long time to install GRUB or I did something wrong?

Just to clarify, I used Ubuntu ISO to format the partition to EXT4 format in advance.

[Richard Coleman]

Did you set the partition to be a Linux partition? Or is it free space?

I had to do that before I got past that screen.

If you're still having trouble, I've got a Virtualbox disk on my dropbox which I saved after successfully booting:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6oii6n7v4rro1s0/Remix%20OS.vdi?dl=0

[lord...@gmail.com]

I set the partition to EXT4 format, and later checked using disk utils in Ubuntu to ensure that indeed, the partition was in EXT4 format. Do I need to do something additional to make it a Linux partition?


Thank you for the Image!

[rozensht...@gmail.com]

Can you upload it again? Getting 404 error

[Richard Coleman]

Dropbox throttled my public links so it doesn't work anymore unfortunately. I'm trying to upload to OneDrive now but it's very slow. I'll post a link when (if) it uploads.

[duncan.h...@gmail.com]

I had tried a few methods to get the resident mode to work. In each case it said "USB writing speed test failed" (or something like that) then went to the Remix OS screen and hung there indefinitely, presumably failing to write to the USB stick, e.g. mounting the iso image to virtualbox

The method from mem...@gmail.com worked for me to give me resident mode using the default application options on Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc), Rufus, and Virtualbox to achieve this. No physical USB stick is required.

Note that using this message you see the message "Initialize Data Partition, please be patient" in text before the Android-x86 and Remix OS screen. I had not seen this on any previous attempt. So I would look out for this (in place of the "USB writing speed test failed" text) to know if you are doing it right

[simu...@gmail.com]

Gracias, funcionó a la perfección.

fácil de llevar, fácil.

Rufus, es genial! Muy bueno.

Sin saber que Windows podría crear y cargar los discos virtuales VHD VirtualBox y trabajar con ellos.

[Eduardo Claro]

I think I am doing something wrong.

I managed to copy the ISO content to VHD drive successfully, but when I try to use it in Virtualbox, I receive a READ ONLY error.

Any tip?

[Eduardo Claro]

Ok, I dettached it from Windows, and now the VM starts, but I receive a NOT BOOTABLE DEVICE messagem.

I Need help

[Eduardo Claro]

Now I realized, I donwloaded the wrong version of RemixOS. To work for me, I had to download the legacy version (EFI version did not work). Booting now, let's see what happenns.

Thanks for now

[masdeco]

Remix OS successfully installed. but the problem now can't connect to internet after I root it.

[steve...@gmail.com]

Richard - any luck with a new download link? I will host in my Google Drive too in case another throttling takes place. Hopefully my paid account will allow for a lot of use.

[hariharan....@gmail.com]

The solution from mem...@gmail.com works like a charm !!!

Thank you !!! :)

[bgra...@gmail.com]

Your solution works perfect.

[sst...@gmail.com]

This looks like a very good method but still doesn't work for me. Can you tell me the exact options you choose? For instance the following:
1. Should I create a fixed or dynamic VHD?
2. Should I download the 32bit or 64bit version of Remix OS?
3. Should I chose a specific file system on Rufus, e.g. NTFS, FAT32 or doesn't matter?
4. When I click Start on Rufus it asks if I want to write on ISO Mode or DD Mode. Which should I choose?
5. Should I know something when I create a VM on VirtualBox?
Thanks in advance.

[_pietro]

really really really really slow in virtual box

[kle...@gmail.com]

1. Fixed
2. 64
3. NTFS
4. ISO

But it is slow.

[alb...@gmail.com]

see  http://forum.xda-developers.com/remix/remix-os/how-to-install-remix-os-virtualbox-to-t3301160

[alb...@gmail.com]

works fine!

[David Dzado]

Did you use MBR of GPT? 

It says that there is "No Bootable Medium Found..."

Any ideas?

UPDATE:

You have to enable the EFI option in System->Motherboard

[alb...@gmail.com]

I didn't enable EFI and I do use MBR.

Till which step (step 1 to step 8) did you come?

Step 8 "Rooting" did work fine for me too.

[pedro...@gmail.com]

Installing Remix OS in Virtual Box (definitive version/resident)

1- Download Remix OS : http://www.jide.com/remixos-for-pc

2- Extract the downloaded files

3- Create a new VM

Memory: 1024mb (minimum)/2048 or more (recommended)

Storage: 8gb or more

4- Start VM with the Remix OS ISO

5- Press TAB key on resident mode > press (space) and add ( INSTALL=0) "Capital Letters" > Enter

6- Create/Modify partitions > Do you want to use GPT (No) GPL (No) > New > Primary > Choose all size you make for virtual > Bootable > Write (yes) > Quit

7- First line (sda1) > OK > ext4 or fat32 > Format (Yes) > GRUB (Yes) > Do you want to install EFI GRUB2 (Skip) > System read-write (Yes) > Run OK ( some differences option may see on different operation system you will choose)

8- To make mouse work go to Input > Mouse Integration ( remove it )

9- After reboot you will not be able to start before you remove the CD from Remix OS setting, Right click on Remix OS virtual disc Settings… > Storage > Remove by right click on Remix_OS > Remove > OK

Original post:

 http://forum.xda-developers.com/remix/remix-os/install-remix-os-parallels-vm-t3328973

[abna...@gmail.com]

mem...@gmail.com 's procedure, it keeps flashing at RemixOS logo

[rca...@gmail.com]

Yes, but not the way you might think.  

First I used a vbox Win10, to install to a real USB drive.

Then I made a 8GB blank vdi and a 16GB one

Then switching to a vbox OpenSUSE I used dd if=/dev/usb of=/dev/sdb to clone the USB drive to a virtual drive (the path -/dev/sd_ or usb_ to the USB will differ from setup to setup)

After this point I didn't need the USB drive so I set it aside

Next I used GParted to record the lay out of the cloned drive.  It was in three partitions so on the empty 16GB:

  create the first partition as a boot flagged fat partition of the same size as the cloned one's

  create the second partition (non-boot) the same size in fat too.

  create the third partition the same size as the clone's

  move the third partition to the far end of the 16GB's disk

Now in sequence, use dd to clone each partition from the clone to its twin on the 16GB

  i.e.: dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/dev/sdb1  

        dd if=/dev/sdc2 of=/dev/sdb2

        dd if=/dev/sdc3 of=/dev/sdb3  

Now, returning to gparted, resize the second fat partition to about 5GB is you want to put a lot of apps on and then

         move the 3rd partition to the front of the empty space after partition 2 and commit the change

         expand the 3rd partition to fill the remaining empty space which should give you about 9GB of personal data space

I set my vbox to use Unscaled HiDPI video and EFI extended + I/O APIC motherboard

Note, This version will not root as it does not have a system.img file to replace

I haven't tried it yet on an iso installed vdi so I can try rooting it

[ocelo...@gmail.com]

Hi, ran into an issue following your instructions. whenever i try to copy to VHD with Rufus it fails with the error; "the drive is in use by another process". I would appreciate advice you can give please.

[rca...@gmail.com]

I am not sure why Rufus failed for you, but if you look back at what I said, I did not try to create the USB in linux.  I figured that the installation tool [ Remix_OS_for_PC_Installation_Tool] which comes zipped with the iso file would work, albeit only on a Windows platform, so on my virtual Win 10 machine which I gave vbox access to my real physical USB drive I used the included exe installer to write the iso to my real USB.  It would help if you have a true 16GB USB, I only had an 8GB.  A lot of what comes next is trying to expand the 8 to 16GB format for more room.  The installer tool only supports creating either an 8 or 16GB USB.

I left the real USB plugged in to my Mac host, then I closed the Win10 virtual and opened a Linux virtual machine with access to the real USB.

Then I used dd to clone the USB to a vdi mounted drive.  After that, if you started with a 16GB real USB and installed with the 16GB setup within the , you can stop, your done.

The rest of the processes I mentioned are how to get the 8GB vdi remixOS on to a 16GB vdi, without breaking the boot sector, so I could but on more apps and have lots of personal file storage space.

To clarify, if you are trying to expand the partitions in a larger vdi clone, you have to move the ext portion to the end and commit BEFORE you expand the system partition.

You might try rather to only prepare the first 2 partitions and clone them, expand the 2nd (system) partition and then create the third target partition, clone it and then expand it. The main issue I ran into is that you can not move the start sector of the system partition without breaking the boot sector.  That means that up to the beginning sector of the system partition, nothing can move respective to its original position on the real USB.  Once it is in place, the system partition can be expanded in to free space after it.  Then the data or third partition could be cloned into a third partition and resized.

Now all that said, I am going to investigate later in the week a clue I saw online on how to point vbox to another real hard drive and see if it could be tweaked to spoof a vdi file as if it were a real 16GB USB by creating a /dev/_ _ _ redirect.   I will also look to see it I can create a 16GB vbox-floppy and spoof it as a USB.

============

[cristianb...@gmail.com]

1. Create a new machine - type: "Other", version: "Other/Unknown (64-bit)". I named mine RemixOS but it doesn't matter.
2. Allocate some RAM for it. I went with 2048MB and couldn't find the minimum required specs, but you should be okay with 2048+.
3. Create a virtual hard disk. I used the VDI file type with a fixed size of 8.00GB - simulating running it on a 8GB flash drive. The minimum specs require 8GB of space.
4. DON'T START THE MACHINE YET!
5. Click "Settings">"Storage">"Controller:IDE" and add an optical drive (icon looks like an optical disk with a plus symbol). Choose the OS's ISO. This should appear above any existing optical drives and below the hard drive.
6. Select the drive you just added and check the "Live CD/DVD" toggle. Then click "OK".
7. We are now ready to start the machine. When you do, there should be a splash screen - press the tab key before it tries to perform a default installation. If you missed it, just power down the machine (don't save its state or send the shutdown signal, just power it off) and try again. It only gives you about 3s to press tab.
8. Type a space then "INSTALL=1 DEBUG=" and press enter/return. Don't forget the spaces.
9. Press down to select "Create/Modify Partitions" and press return/enter.
10. Say "No" when it asks if you want to use GPT.
11. Press the right arrow key to select "New" and press return/enter.
12. Select "Primary" and press return/enter.
13. Press return/enter to use the default size.
14. Select "Bootable" and press return/enter.
15. Select "Type" and press return/enter until you're back at the main cfdisk screen.
16. Select "Write" and press return/enter.
17. Type "yes" and press return/enter.
18. Select "Quit" and press return/enter.
19. Select "sda1" (the partition you just created) and press return/enter.
20. Select "ext3" as the filesystem format (AFAIK, ext4 is also fine, but I didn't test with it).
21. Select "Yes" and press return/enter to format the virtual disk.
22. Select "Yes" and press return/enter to install GRUB.
23. Select "Skip" and press return/enter to skip installing the EFI GRUB2 loader.
24. Select "Yes" and press return/enter to enable the /system directory as a read/write.
25. Select "Run Android-x86" and press return/enter.
26. Several minutes later, you'll be taken to the language selection screen. Follow the OS install as you would any other.
27. Once you're on the desktop, shut down the OS (properly).
28. Open the VM settings and remove the OS ISO from the list of devices - we don't need it any more.

[cristianb...@gmail.com]

[James Boyd]

Nope, but I wish you the best of luck.

[kenny....@gmail.com]

I started Resident Mode,but very slow here,move cursor=cpu 70-100%,and also not support 2 core processor in guest.

My host:Windows 7,AMD phenom II X4 B45 processor,64 bit,6 GB RAM

[j.e.l...@gmail.com]

Didn't work.  It seems RemixOS is blatantly and outright hostile to VirtualBox.  Which means I won't be testing it out.  No loss to me.

[kenny....@gmail.com]

Yes,but need to be extremely patient,you can but need a lot of time,even they don't have disk activity,may be need half to one hour to finish booting,amd might need even longer,don't forget to press tab in the bootloader screen,then type:INSTALL=1

[BloxBuilder]

I've been trying all day, and i've had no luck. :(

[rca...@gmail.com]

Well, I am revisiting this with the Marshmallow version

I have gotten it to work in resident mode with the iso as the boot device and letting it modify a vdi clone of an original real USB

What I am aiming for is a stand alone vdi.  I might have to go to a vdi clone of the iso with a second data partition, but we will cross that if the current path doesn't work out

Keep trying out there

[rca...@gmail.com]

Well I have had mixed results:

The first three examples here use a VM of a Linux distro to create and modify clones of USB and VDI disks and partitions:

It is possible to create a VDI clone of the iso disk, but the file system is read only

It is possible to "dd if=... of=..." a bootable clone of the iso CD at the front of a larger VDI and then add further partitions and even get the 'cloned' iso on VDI to install to the rest of the VDI, but unlike the next example, the cloned OS partition will only boot to itself and refuses to accept the just created 2-4th partitions as writable so it will not save Resident info therein.

Another direction is to install old RemixOS to a USB stick and let the VM open the USB port to a Linux VM and "dd if=... of=..." copy the USB stick to a VDI file but I have found that that VDI will not boot even if you set the boot flags.  Interestingly, if the second partition (REMIXOSSYS) on the VDI does not mount automatically, you can boot to the iso CD on any of the Sata ports 1-29, and the VDI you 'cloned' on Sata port 0, and when you select Resident mode booting the CD, the CD sometimes finds that second partition and inserts a compressed data.img file on that partition (4GB only) which it then mounts in RAM and it becomes your resident "drive".  I do not favour this method as 1) there is only 4GB available for resident data and, 2) the rest of the disk image is inaccessible.  There is one more thing about this set up, if you run "Update OS" from within the RemixOS program, more compressed image and SquashedImage files (about 6GB) will be added to the REMIXOSSYS partition on the clone of the USB.  When you reboot this combination, the iso CD starts the boot process and the VDI HD finishes from this mounted files that were added.  So you are running in a form of resident mode.

Success!  Here is a screen snap of the VM running on my iMac.

So I elected the simplest method and it works well and you can even tweek the result so it is always in Resident Mode (using a Linux VM).

I use a iMac (El Capitan) and run VirtualBox 5.1.6 r110634 (Qt 5.5.1), so the literal commands may be slightly different for you

1. I used the latest Remix_OS [Marshmallow_v6.0]_v3.0.207_for_PC_Android_M_64bit_B2016112101 installer on a Windows PC and install to a real 16GB USB stick.  
   
2. I mounted the USB stick on my host (iMac)  -- note the VBox program is NOT running at this time
   
3. From a command/terminal window having full 'root' privileges, I run the VBox command "VBoxManage convertfromraw source destination" to create a VDI clone of the USB including all the partitions (3: two VFAT and one EXT4) , file systems and boot sector flags
   

     root@aarc01:/Volumes/Data/vbox/VDIs/# VBoxManage convertfromraw  /dev/disk2  remixos.vdi

On a Mac one has to have root privileges to access the device root (in this case /dev/disk2 directly) as even the owner user can only access the partitions on that device (ex. "/dev/disk2s2"  a.k.s the REMIXOSSYS partition).  Depending your Linux set up and user permissions, you most often also need 'root' privileges to access the USB device's complete file system.

    4.  I remember to make my usual VBox user that VDI file's owner.

    5. I now just attach that VDI on a SATA controller Port 0 (no other attached devices) in my VM:

•  no EFI, 
• 4 CPUs,
•  3200 MB ram, 
• 3D acceleration, 
• Scale Factor 140% (to vertically fit my 1920x1080 monitor), 
• PIIX3 motherboard, 
• PAE/NX & Nest Paging, and 
• the PCnet-FAST NAT adapter.

Fire it up (don't forget to disable mouse integration) and maximize the screen, finish the install of the RemixOS options and enable Google Play and you are good to go

-----------------------------------

If you do not know how to get root privileges in Mac or most Debian distros, there is a back way in--the sudo command to launch a root shell-- "sudo -s" in a terminal.  You will then be root (master control).  Then use the command "passwd" to set a password for root. Then you may exit the terminal and at any later time, you may from any terminal just enter "su" and root's password and you have master control of the computer.  If you can not access the sudo command there other work arounds but this is not enough room here to go into that.  ArchLinux and SUSE type distros can't do this, but you can set the 'root' password at installation.

If anyone wants to host a zipped copy (1.61 GB) of the basic ready-to-go RemixOS v3.0.206 with Android v6.0.1 VDI on their cloud space and make it available to this thread, let me know and give me a link to upload that file to that space.