The 6 Best Android Emulators for Linux - MUO - MakeUseOf

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One cannot deny the influence of smartphones on people’s lives. These days, there is an application for everyone and everything. Whether it's a news application to start your day or social media platforms to keep you close to your loved ones, smartphones have truly evolved to be a handy solution.

There are many loyal Linux users who want to run their favorite Linux apps on the computer. Android is a common de-facto operating system for smartphones to leverage the Linux ecosystem. To initiate this feature, you need to use Android emulators to do your bidding, literally.

Emulators are computer applications that help you run your Android applications and games on your Linux machine. Here are some common Android emulators that you can use to run and test Android apps on Linux.

Anbox was first developed for toying with Android applications and many users are enjoying this emulator ever since its inception. It helps run all your favorite Android apps and games, irrespective of the varying distros within the Linux gamut.

Anbox emulator places the core Android operating system into a simple contained platform while abstracting hardware accesses for performance metrics. It integrates the core system of Android services into the Linux system that allows optimized emulation and better accessibility.

Anbox leverages standard Linux technologies like containers (LXC) that help in differentiating between the Linux system and the emulator. From Cupcake to Oreo, this emulator lets you select any Android version. It is exceptionally secure compared with other emulators because of the containerized design it offers.

Genymotion is another popular emulator; this Android emulator is one of the best options quoted on digital platforms. It lets you run Android virtual devices in the cloud and on your Linux desktop. This is not all, for you will be endowed with more than 3,000 device configurations as soon as you install this platform.

This powerful emulator lets you forward sensor events like gyroscope data from Android devices to your Linux OS. Its pixel-perfect quality displays the original size of any application without installing any other third-party software.

Genymotion is compatible with Android SDK tools and Android Studio. Not just that, this is a multi-purpose platform that allows developers to test their websites and codes in different Android browsers directly from their Linux system.

Android-x86 makes everything possible for a Linux user by running Android emulation directly into the PC hardware. It takes the Android ecosystem out of its traditional ARM chips in the smartphone and runs smoothly on both x86 and AMD-based software.

This emulator needs a virtual machine installation to run the applications installed as a standalone Live system. With the inbuilt support of Wi-Fi, it helps you configure your network connections in a short time period.

Android-x86 also lets you mount the existing memory storage of the Android device directly to your emulator. The default debug-mode features "Busybox", which is quite handy for locating bugs in applications.

Android Studio is a software every developer needs for emulating Android applications on their Linux machine. This interface is a full-fledged tool best suited for application development and testing. If you need to experiment with any of your Android applications using Linux’s support, Android Studio is your friend!

What is required, you ask? All you need is an Android Virtual Device (AVD), which you can then configure to use the software as an emulator. Since it is an open-source solution and a free one on top of that, Android Studio is often a part of every developer’s work kitty.

As you grow and learn more about emulating systems, you will realize the importance of this tool and how well it can support other smart devices like smartwatches, televisions, and smartphones.

ARChon is a unique Android emulator for Linux systems. It does not function inside a virtual machine as you don't have to install it on your Linux system. It utilizes Google Chrome's powerful runtime and then hitches the emulation compound directly into it.

This means that this emulator runs on any kernel version, rest assured it will run effectively on every Linux distro. You might think the app support is minimal; on the contrary, this could not be further from the truth. Developers can quickly re-build their application and run it on their Linux machine using ARChon.

Developers can experiment with their software and modify it as per their needs with this open-source emulator. ARChon is an excellent choice if you wish to emulate Android applications without using any virtual machines.

If you are a developer, you probably understand the unending need to use your system resources efficiently while running some of the most resource-intensive gaming applications.

If this is your requirement, then it is time to turn to BlissOS. It is a powerful open-source emulator that lets users or developers run their favorite Android application as system software on Linux machines.

BlissOS is quite a genuine emulator offering several customized opportunities to the developers to modify the look and feel of the emulator.

Sometimes developers might face issues running the most demanding Android applications on their Linux machine. To cope with that, BlissOS comes with performance-driven designs and implementation, optimizing everything, and making it less resource-intensive. In other words, it takes care of your system by notifying you about malicious applications that might cradle your system.

Choosing the Right Android Emulator for Linux

It might seem complicated and insignificant to find the right Android emulator for your Linux system. Some developers look for emulation systems like Nox and Bluestacks, but since these apps are not available for Linux, they run out of luck and find themselves at a loss of action.

Given this list of Android emulators, you can make some well-calculated decisions and choose wisely. Rest assured, these will serve you with some excellent choices in your quest to find the best emulator for running your favorite Android apps on a Linux machine.

How to Run Android Apps and Games on Linux

Want to run your favorite Android apps and games on your Linux PC? Anbox makes it easy. Here's how to run Android apps on Linux.

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About The Author

Wini Bhalla (23 Articles Published)

Wini is a Delhi based writer, having 2 years of writing experience. During her writing stints, she has been associated with digital marketing agencies and technical firms. She has written content related to programming languages, cloud technology, AWS, Machine Learning, and much more. In her free time, she likes to paint, spend time with her family and travel to the mountains, whenever possible.