Vmware Android Install

[Phuong Fulsom]

Androidis a very popular and prolific operating system on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Most of the time, there is no practical reason to install Android on a physical computer, but there may be some cases when you need to run Android on a virtual machine (VM), for example, when developing applications for Android and testing them. Fortunately, you can install Android on VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware ESXi, and VirtualBox.

Once you install Android on VMware Workstation or ESXi, you will get all features available for Android installed on a smartphone. The advantages of using an Android VMware VM include the possibility of creating snapshots and cloning a VM during the development or testing process. This blog post explains how to install Android on VMware ESXi step by step with screenshots.

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First, download the Android installation image. In this example, we are using the 64-bit version of Android Oreo (the third release). While the ARM and ARM64 architecture is used on most smartphones and tablets, the image applied in this example is ready for devices using the x86-64 architecture. You can also see all available images for different architectures on the official web site of the Android project.

Open VMware vSphere Client in a web browser, go to Storage, select a datastore connected to the ESXi host on which you plan to install the VMware Android VM, select the Files tab, and upload the installation ISO image to the selected datastore (click Upload Files and select the needed file). In this example, the android-x86_64-8.1-r3.iso file is uploaded to the SSD2 datastore that is connected to the ESXi host whose IP address is 10.10.10.74.

4. Select storage. Select a datastore in which to store the configuration and disk files of the Android VMware VM. You can leave the default value for the VM storage policy. If you see the compatibility checks succeeded message, go to the next step of the wizard.

5. Select compatibility. Select the required hardware version for your Android VMware VM. The higher the VM version you select, the better VM performance you get. The newest VMware features are available for the latest hardware versions of virtual machines. The Android version that is installed on VMware ESXi in this example is compatible with ESXi 6.5 VM hardware version. Hence, ESXi 6.5 and later is selected as the virtual hardware version.

6. Select a guest OS. A selected guest operating system allows the wizard to provide the appropriate default VM settings for installing an operating system. As Android is based on a modified Linux Kernel version, you can select Linux as the guest OS family. The guest OS version may be selected as Other 3.x or later Linux (64-bit). If you wish to install a 32-bit version of Android on a VMware VM, select the appropriate (32-bit) version of the guest OS.

In the New CD/DVD Drive settings, select the Datastore ISO file option in the drop-down menu, select the Android ISO installation image file (android-x86_64-8.1-r3.iso that was uploaded to the ESXi datastore in this case), and tick the Connect At Power On checkbox. Other settings may have default values.

After creating a new virtual machine, power on the VM and boot from the virtual ISO image (android-x86_64-8.1-r3.iso) you selected to use by a virtual CD/DVD drive during the Android VMware VM creation.

When the Boot flag is set for the partition, write changes to the disk. Navigate to the Write option and press Enter. After that, you will see the question: Are you sure you want to write the partition table to disk? (yes or no)

Now the Android VMware VM is booted and you can see the graphical user interface of Android. Select your preferred language and hit Start. In this walkthrough, English (United States) is used.

On the next screen, you should see the VirtWiFi network. This is the name of your network to which a virtual Ethernet controller of your Android VMware VM is connected. You can try to use a USB Wi-Fi adapter and connect the adapter directly to the VM as explained in our blog posts about installing Kali Linux on VMware and VirtualBox hypervisors. To do this, insert a USB Wi-Fi adapter to the USB port of a physical computer running a VMware hypervisor (VMware ESXi or VMware Workstation) and use the USB pass-through feature.

Configure Date & time, user name, and log in by using a Gmail account, configuring Google services options if needed. After passing all steps of the Android configuration wizard, you will reach the main interface of Android.

After that, you can reboot the Android VMware virtual machine and Android should boot successfully without manual manipulations. Disable the sleep mode. You can configure the sleep mode by going to Setting > Display > Sleep. You can also enable graphics acceleration (Accelerate 3D graphics) in the VM settings. Notice that there are no VMware Tools compatible with the Android operating system.

Deploying an Android VMware virtual machine may be useful for software development and testing. As Android is optimized for devices with a touch screen, using this operating system on a desktop is not a practical option.

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The installation seems to proceed properly (using EXT4, and EFI Grub) and i get a message that it has installed successfully. However when I reboot it passes GRUB, picks the correct Android installation, but it does not boot. I get the result seen in the screenshot below and then a blank screen with a blinking cursor.

You can find all the VESA modes when you use the iso file and pick the boot option to boot in VESA mode - it will show the list with all modes (numbers are in hex and there is also a redundant letter in front of some modes - ignore it) and you can test them there immediately to see if it works and is good to use in this menu.lst fix, but you have to convert it from hex to dec first using any hex->dec converter.

I'd like to extend and improve @Jay Smith answer based on personal experience.He is right in the core thing that the cause of the issue is VGA resolution used by Android, but he is wrong in his assumption it is disposable fix and should be typed at each boot.

It can be made persistent, and should be! And I show you how:)

is not related to VGA issue and should be dealt separately. I also met this error and full reinstall helped, so I assume this error is somehow connected with the Run option, 'cause when I selected Reboot I didn't face the error.

We need working Linux installation (physical or virtual, doesn't matter). The problem here is that GRUB folder cannot be accessed from inside Android as it's protected, and it should be accessed externally. And not from Windows because it doesn't recognize ext3/ext4 partitions, only from *nix OSes.So add this disk (VHD, VDI, VMDK or whatever) to your Linux installation for it to have access to android filesystem

I also had problems with Android x86 vitual box on a Windows 7 Pro x64 AMD machine. I suppose we are all going to have slightly different issues depending on our architecture/hardware but they all seem to be similiar root causes. I think more emphasis should be on the architecture/hardware then the host OS. Try 32bit without/with EFI set in System, leave hardware acceleration at default, make sure virtualisation is enabled in your bios. Don't enable 3D Graphics acceleration, you should get a warning if you enable 2D acceleration so don't enable that, if you get a black screen during initial setup try increasing the video memory up to 64mb. Finally you can download pre-built VM images here:

My other post was deleted for some reason, but if you want to find out if VESA/VIDEO is the reason your gui isn't coming up after install, then boot from the Android x86 ISO and select VESA mode (Live boot) and if you get a gui, then check out that youtube video. It explains perfectly how to setup your grub to boot the correct VESA mode.

Completely new to this but I just tried installing Android 6.0 on Workstation 12 Pro and on boot just stuck at command prompt ocassionaly flashing. Tried a couple of the suggestions from abvoe to no avail. Finally went into VM settings and ticked on 3D Graphics at which it warned that it was not supported. This then allowed me to select 32mb of graphic memory. Rebooted and it worked. Tried booting several more times just to prove it and it is still working. Hope this helps.

For an average user, there is no need to install Android on a physical machine. Still, some system administrators who develop or test apps may require this operating system on a virtual machine. The biggest advantage is the ability to create snapshots/cloning and to get the most from development or testing.

The first step you have to do is [download the Android installation file] (Download Android-x86). We use 64-bit Android Oreo of the 3rd release and the image in our example is compatible with the devices of the x86-64 architecture. Most tablets and smartphones use the ARM and ARM64 architecture.

Open your web browser and go to VMware vSphere Client. Select Storage, and choose the correct datastore, which is connected to the ESXi host. On this host, you will install the VMware Android virtual machine.

Here you have to choose the correct datastore for disk files and configuration. Or you can just continue with the default settings. Let the system check all the compatibilities and you can hit Next.

You should understand the logic: the higher your version of virtual machine, the faster your virtual machine is. Every new version brings a lot of useful features and better performance. In my case ESXi 6.5 and later is chosen, as it is compatible with my Android version.

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