Years ago, one can install Android on a virtual machine such as VirtualBox to run some Android apps on Windows, MacOS or Linux through the virtual machine. It was good, but not too convenient as one has to first share some resources like CPU and RAM to the virtual machine during setup and then start up the virtual machine every time before running any app.

One can also run an Android Virtual Device provided from Google mainly for app developers to try various versions and flavors of Android and debug apps. It’s an emulator and very resource intensive.

A better way is Waydroid. It’s container-based and runs Android system and apps directly on Linux. It’s very light. Apps installed in Waydroid can be started directly from Linux UI as if running a Linux application. Installing an app is also simple. One can do it in Waydroid just as one does it on an Android device: getting the app from any app store like F-Droid or Google Play. Or if one has an apk file, one simply do it in a Linux terminal (without having to run Waydroid): waydroid app install xyz.apk. One can also use it as debugging device for app development. For that, one just need to type first adb connect <IP>:5555 in a Linux terminal, where is the ip address of Waydroid, then any debug installs from an IDE or commandline can be directed to Waydroid.

Waydroid requires the Linux running a Wayland desktop session (not the traditional X11 desktop). Now many Linux distributions support Wayland session by desktops like KDE Plasma or Gnome.

All being said, I admit that Waydroid is not perfect. Some apps don’t run properly though many do.

Cheers! Santé! Prost!