Waydroid Linux Mint

[Kirby0196]

In terminal type sudo apt install weston and when its done type in the terminal weston and in Weston open the terminal and type waydroid and set it up.

[Kirby0196]

In terminal type sudo apt install weston and when its done type in the terminal weston and in Weston open the terminal and type waydroid and set it up.

Edit :Sorry that its in the wrong spot 😭

[Fantu]

waydroid was added to Debian only recently and there is a backports to trixie https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/waydroid
about ubuntu instead there isn't a backports to 26.04 for now

There should be better support from the official system packages, and it should be better to run it on native Wayland sessions, as far as I know (I haven't tested it).

Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean in your message. Perhaps you've had problems and are asking for help?

[moloch1994]

Does it work well this way?

[Fantu]

if you do not use a DE with native wayland session you need to use a nested wayland compositor (for example weston), I have to try it since on both PCs where it is needed have xorg sessions

[moloch1994]

Right, so I want to know if that works well

[Fantu]

@ost-guy-comeback Please try to avoid unnecessary or unclear replies (in general, regarding many of your messages)

@moloch1994 Regarding your question, a summary of what I noticed in testing and trying to use it in production.
The CPU consumption is basically negligible than I expected (as a container, I already knew it was efficient and lightweight compared to a VM), and with that in mind, it would be feasible even on very old hardware.
Unfortunately, however, I've noticed that the graphics drivers have a significant impact, with proprietary NVIDIA drivers excluded, nouveau driver with poor performance, and even on older video cards, the results are terrible. I tried it last weekend on a user's old PC, but I had to give up because it wasn't "fluid" enough. I didn't think it was worth letting the user use it; with the switch from Windows 10 to Mint 22, he's already seen a radical improvement in performance and is able to work better, very well despite the fact that his PC is 18 years old.

Regarding using it on Xorg, despite some limitations and additional features, it didn't seem blocked to me, and the required operations can be scripted and a link (.desktop file) can be created that even inexperienced users can click and use. However, there are several disadvantages in managing windows, making it not very convenient to use. In practice, in my case, I advise users on whom I install Linux by default not to use Wine programs except in very rare cases (and excluding Proton via Steam, which is simpler and less problematic). Now, I've done the same thing relating to android apps, although I've seen that Waydroid is feasible and quite usable in some cases. I advise against using Android apps with it unless there are cases where there are no acceptable alternatives.

[moloch1994]

@Fantu thanks for testing it and coming back to me. It's a shame it doesn't work that well.

[Fantu]

Unfortunately, graphics driver support on Linux was lacking until a few years ago due to manufacturers snubbing Linux. Only recently, thanks to Valve and the push into gaming, has it changed radically.
Waydroid seems to rely on modern graphics features (in addition to excluding proprietary NVIDIA drivers), and it's a problem on NVIDIA cards and others with older drivers.
I should try to see if there are settings to reduce or disable graphic effects or other features to improve the situation, but I don't have time. I've already spent half a day on most of the tests, even though I only wanted to do a few quick tests to possibly use it on just two PCs. Only two users would need it, which one is now excluded, and the other, I'll have to check next weekend. I don't know what video card it has.
I've seen it work good on one of my workstations, but if I disable the NVIDIA card and use only the integrated Intel one, I don't need it right now.

[Fantu]

I did some tests, mainly in debian unstable with both xorg and wayland session, work also on xorg session but with more things to do and more limits.
I did a fast test also on mint 22.3 but only xorg session.
I haven't used Waydroid much, but I've mostly looked at the practical requirements, some limitations, and potential problems. I used the upstream (Waydroid) repositories for the Mint testing. It might be better to backport the Debian ones to PPA, but I'm not sure I'll have the time. From my tests, the differences don't seem to be significant, and there should be few additional potential problems.
With Claude, I've created the following howto by cutting, better explaining, simplifying, and translating the notes I took during testing. I hope they'll be useful:

HOWTO: Android apps on Linux Mint with Waydroid

Waydroid runs a full Android system in a container, using Mint's own kernel. It is not an emulator:
no virtualisation, performance close to native — but in exchange it depends a lot on your graphics
card.

Tested on Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon with Waydroid 1.6.2.

1. Will it work on your PC?

Two commands, before downloading more than a gigabyte of images:

ls /dev/dri/renderD*    # this must exist
glxinfo -B              # the renderer must NOT be llvmpipe

(glxinfo is in the mesa-utils package.)

• Graphics card with a Mesa driver: Intel and AMD are fine. It does not work with the
  proprietary NVIDIA driver, because Waydroid skips NVIDIA render nodes; with nouveau it starts,
  but with nouveau's performance.
• Real 3D acceleration is required. If glxinfo reports llvmpipe, graphics are running in
  software and Waydroid will not start. This applies to virtual machines too (see the last section).
• RAM: 4 GB at least. Android alone takes about 780 MB; with 4 GB and a desktop session open you
  already start touching swap.
• Disk: ~3 GB in /var/lib/waydroid, downloaded on first initialisation.
• The CPU matters less than you'd think: it works even with instruction sets as old as a Core 2
  Duo's. On machines of that era startup will be slow, but there is no technical showstopper.

2. Installation

Waydroid is not in the Ubuntu archives, so it is not in Mint 22.x or Mint 23 either: you use the
project's own repository, which covers both bases (Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04).

curl -fsSL https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash
sudo apt install waydroid
sudo waydroid init

waydroid init downloads the Android image (LineageOS 20, Android 13) into
/var/lib/waydroid/images: a few minutes. The container service enables itself. There is also a
graphical "Initialize Waydroid" entry in the menu.

⚠️ These are unofficial packages, and it's worth knowing beforehand: a few more rough edges than
with distribution packages is normal, and if Waydroid ever lands in the official Ubuntu archives
the upgrade will not be automatic — the two sets of packages conflict with each other, and the
ones from the external repository would have to be removed first.

On LMDE 7: Debian backports are the better option

LMDE users don't need the external repository: Waydroid is in Debian trixie backports,
officially packaged and in a newer version (1.6.3 against 1.6.2).

# if backports are not enabled yet:
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-backports main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list
sudo apt update

sudo apt install -t trixie-backports waydroid
sudo waydroid init

Where it's available this is the way to go: none of the caveats above, and updates that follow
Debian.

3. Starting Waydroid

Waydroid draws its interface as a Wayland client, so how you start it depends on which session
you picked at login:

• a Wayland session — it just works, one command (right below);
• the regular Cinnamon session (X11), which is Mint's default — you need a small nested Wayland
  compositor, weston, plus a bit of resolution setup.

3a. In a Wayland session

If you pick "Cinnamon (Wayland)" at login (still experimental in Mint), nothing else is needed:

waydroid show-full-ui

The Waydroid entry in the applications menu works too. No resolution to set: the interface fills
the screen and follows its size. This is all of section 3 that concerns you — the rest is
X11-only, so you can skip to section 4, keeping in mind only the multi-window mode described at the
end, which is at its best here.

3b. In an X11 session (the default)

You need a Wayland compositor to run Waydroid inside: weston.

sudo apt install weston

# 1. nested compositor: a window opens
#    width and height are the screen Android will see — see below on how to size them
weston --backend=x11 --width=1280 --height=720 --socket=waydroid &

# 2. Waydroid inside that window
WAYLAND_DISPLAY=waydroid waydroid show-full-ui

The socket name is arbitrary, as long as it's the same in both lines.

Resolution and full screen

--width and --height are not just some window size: they are the screen Android sees. Take
off the ~32 pixels of the bar weston draws at the top (with 1280x720 Android ends up with 1280x688).

Careful here, because --fullscreen on its own is not enough: it makes the window full screen
but leaves the output at 1024x600, so Android ends up in a box in the top-left corner with black
around it. Always pass your actual screen size as well:

xrandr | awk '/\*/{print $1}'    # current resolution

weston --backend=x11 --fullscreen --width=1920 --height=1080 --socket=waydroid &

To reclaim weston's bar too, create ~/.config/weston.ini:

[shell]
panel-position=none

On high-DPI screens add --scale=2, otherwise everything is tiny.

3c. Apps as separate windows (both sessions)

Android apps can show up as windows of their own instead of living inside a single interface:

waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.multi_windows true
waydroid session stop     # the session has to be restarted
waydroid app launch <package.name>

On Wayland they become proper Cinnamon windows: resizable, with their own icon in the panel.
On X11 they stay confined inside weston's window, and the taskbar only ever shows weston.

4. Installing apps

From an APK, including by right-clicking the file:

waydroid app install application.apk
waydroid app list

Open stores such as F-Droid or Aurora Store work normally.

Play Store

There's no need to install GApps by hand: an official image with Google services included is
available.

sudo waydroid init -f -s GAPPS

⚠️ -f starts over from scratch: apps and data inside Android are lost. The image is bigger
(1.2 GB against 700 MB). After re-initialising, restart everything, or you'll be left with a black
window:

sudo systemctl restart waydroid-container

then close and reopen weston and the interface.

On first sign-in Google refuses the login because the device isn't certified. It has to be
registered once: get the identifier

waydroid shell -- sh -c 'sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db "select * from main where name = \"android_id\""'

and paste it at https://www.google.com/android/uncertified/ using the account you'll sign in with
on the Play Store. It takes a few minutes and a restart of the Waydroid session.

5. If something doesn't work

The most common symptom is a black window while waydroid status says RUNNING. The causes, most
frequent first:

1. No 3D acceleration (glxinfo -B says llvmpipe, or you're in a VM without 3D). This is by
   far the most common one and has no software workaround: Waydroid's graphics component crashes
   over and over, which you can see in waydroid logcat.
2. Multi-window mode is on: with persist.waydroid.multi_windows set to true the full
   interface is black by design — in that mode you launch individual apps.
3. Session or container need restarting, typically after a waydroid init -f.

Two more common trip-ups:

• Don't start the session with sudo: it loses WAYLAND_DISPLAY and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and
  fails with an error about the Wayland socket. The container already runs as root on its own.
• ARM-only apps won't run: the image is x86_64 and includes no translation layer.

Useful commands:

waydroid status                 # container and session status
waydroid logcat                 # Android logs
waydroid shell                  # shell inside Android
waydroid session stop           # close the session
man waydroid                    # the man page is thorough and worth reading

6. Inside a virtual machine

It works, but only with 3D acceleration enabled. With QEMU/KVM and libvirt, on a powered-off
machine:

virt-xml <vm-name> --edit --video model.type=virtio,model.acceleration.accel3d=yes
virt-xml <vm-name> --edit --graphics gl.enable=yes,listens0.type=none

After rebooting, glxinfo -B in the guest must report virgl. Without 3D you fall straight into
case 1 above, and the "software" workaround found here and there
(ro.hardware.gralloc=default + ro.hardware.egl=swiftshader) does not fix it: Android does
boot all the way, but the window stays black.