Installing and Running Anbox
Anbox is provided as a snap package, so the installation command is the same for all distributions.
snap install --devmode --beta anbox
And that’s it. When the installation has finished you’re able to start Anbox. Press the “Super” key—usually located between the left “Ctrl” and “Shift” keys—and type “anbox” in the GNOME search field. When you see the Anbox icon, click it.
The main Anbox window is already populated with some common Android apps, such as Calendar and Calculator.
Clicking one of the icons will open the app, just like it opens on your smartphone. A single click emulates a finger tap on a mobile device. A single click on the Calculator icon, for example, wil launch the familiar Android Calculator.
Clicking on the cogged Settings icon opens the Android settings app. This has all of the usual categories. You can scroll vertically in apps using the scroll wheel of your mouse. In apps that support sideways scrolling, you can left-click and hold the button down, then move the mouse right or left.
Installing Google Play
Anbox cannot supply the Google Play Store application. Google will only permit certified devices to ship with their applications. That goes for virtual devices too. You can manually install it yourself if you want, of course.
The process we need to follow is:
- Install some Linux tools that will be required during the installation
- Download an installation script from GitHub
- Run the script
- Set some permissions within Anbox
On Ubuntu, the command to install the tools is:
sudo apt install wget curl lzip tar unzip squashfs-tools
On Manjaro or another Arch distro, use:
sudo pacman -Sy wget curl lzip tar unzip squashfs-tools
On Fedora you need to type:
sudo dnf install wget curl lzip tar unzip squashfs-tools
To download the installation script—on all distributions—paste this into a terminal window. “Ctrl+Shift+V” is the shortcut for paste.
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geeks-r-us/anbox-playstore-installer/master/install-playstore.sh
The download will only take a few moments. Once it’s complete, we need to make the script executable. We’ll use chmod:
sudo chmod +x install-playstore.sh
And now we can run the script.
./install-playstore.sh
This will take several minutes to run. You’ll see multiple progress bars during the installation. There are also long pauses when nothing seems to be happening. Be patient and the script will eventually terminate.
When the installation has finished, open Anbox. You’ll see the Google Play Store icon has been added to the list of apps. But don’t click it yet.
Instead, click the Settings icon, and click on “Apps.”
Scroll down until you can see the “Google Play Services” and “Google Play Store” entries.
Click on the “Google Play Services” entry, scroll until you see the “Permissions” entry, and click it.
Set all permissions to “On.”
Go back to the “Apps” listing, click on Google Play Store > Permissions, and set all of the permissions to “On.”
Close the Settings app and click on the Google Play store icon. You’ll see the Google Play welcome screen. This means the Google Play Store app is happily communicating with Google, just as though it were on a physical Android device.
Click the “Sign In” button.
Enter your Google user name or smartphone number, and click the “Next” button.
Enter your Google password, and click the “Next” button.
You’ll see a couple of screens of terms and conditions, and then you’re in the Play Store. This behaves exactly the same as the Play Store on your smartphone. Which it should, because it is actually the same.
We searched for an app called “Trello” and clicked the green “Install” button.
A few moments later, the Trello icon was added to the Anbox main window.
Clicking the Trello icon launches Trello, as expected.
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