Is there a way to start multiple instances of android within one operating system?

[Денис Кондаратцев]

Right now, when started, android x86 provides two terminals which can be accessed by Alt+F1 (console) and Alt+F7 (visual part). My question is, is there a way to spawn several visual parts which will use different resources and behave like two different android subsystems with independent apps, users, etc. which can be accessed with Alt+F2, Alt+F3 and so on?

[Antony Stone]

No.

Alt-F1, Alt-F2 etc are what Linux calls "virtual consoles", but only one can
be attached to the Graphical Display Manager - which Android needs.

Answering the question in your subject line, Android *is* an Operating System;
it's not like launching multiple instances of an *application*.


Regards,


Antony.

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If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement.
If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

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Please reply to the list;
please *don't* CC me.

[Somebody]

Not to be contradictory, Antony, but that isn't actually true at all.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/run-multiple-x-sessions-without-virtualization/

So what you see there, is GNOME DE running in :0 (Ctrl-Alt-F7), and Window Maker DE running in :1 (Ctrl-Alt-F8).

Contrary to one thing that is implied by the article, there is nothing there that is actually restricting Xorg to F7 and higher. That is just a convention, and the distro will actually have a map between Ctrl-Alt-FX and whatever happens to be sitting there. For example, I am currently using a Fedora 23 workstation, and my Xorg is running on :0, which is mapped to Ctrl-Alt-F1 <-- one. Not seven.

Now the Android end of things;

Well. Yes. You certainly CAN arrange Android on a system in that manner, but it might take some work, possibly coding.

Here is the deal;

Separate instances of Android probably wouldn't get along well with each other. Specifically, I would be concerned about IPC/binder. I think that with some work, binder could be extended to keep track of which Android instance messages belong to, but there would likely be conflicts between multiple Android instances as it is now.

Beyond that, the setup would actually be quite simple;

each instance of Android is in its own chroot. Start android UI from chroot into :0, :1, :2, etc.

[Povilas Staniulis]

Android (unlike most normal Linux distros) does not run an X server, but uses Google's own custom sulution for it's UI.
I doubt Google even intended to run multiple instances of Android's UI on the same system without using virtual machines.

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[Antony Stone]

On Wednesday 18 November 2015 at 20:08:21, Somebody wrote:

> Not to be contradictory, Antony, but that isn't actually true at all.

Agreed, it may not be true for Linux, but I still don't think Android can do
this.

> https://www.maketecheasier.com/run-multiple-x-sessions-without-virtualizati
> on/

> So what you see there, is GNOME DE running in :0 (Ctrl-Alt-F7), and Window
> Maker DE running in :1 (Ctrl-Alt-F8).

Fine, no problem, but that's GNU/Linux, not Android.

> Contrary to one thing that is implied by the article, there is nothing
> there that is actually restricting Xorg to F7 and higher. That is just a
> convention, and the distro will actually have a map between Ctrl-Alt-FX and
> whatever happens to be sitting there. For example, I am currently using a
> Fedora 23 workstation, and my Xorg is running on :0, which is mapped to
> Ctrl-Alt-F1 <-- one. Not seven.

I agree that console 7 is no magic number, just a convention (in fact I often
assign X to console 12 in /etc/inittab on my own systems, so that I can select
text consoles 1 - 11 when I want to), but it's still true that if you only
have one graphical login manager, you can only have one graphical console.

> Now the Android end of things;
> Well. Yes. You certainly CAN arrange Android on a system in that manner,
> but it might take some work, possibly coding.

"Coding" lets you do anything :)

> Here is the deal;
> Separate instances of Android probably wouldn't get along well with each
> other. Specifically, I would be concerned about IPC/binder. I think that
> with some work, binder could be extended to keep track of which Android
> instance messages belong to, but there would likely be conflicts between
> multiple Android instances as it is now.
>
> Beyond that, the setup would actually be quite simple;
> each instance of Android is in its own chroot. Start android UI from chroot
> into :0, :1, :2, etc.

Okay, I'm looking forward to the implementation :)

Not saying it can't be done - just saying it can't be done as easily as the
original poster was looking for...


Antony.

--
I have an excellent memory.
I can't think of a single thing I've forgotten.

[mike...@android-x86.net]

And now me, why talk? Just do it! Blah!

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On November 18, 2015 5:14:04 PM Antony Stone