Anyone succeded in creating an "Android" VM?

[Armando]

I would like to start by pointing out that, as I know Android emulating OSes are not officially supported (to my knowledge) by VBox, this message of mine is NOT aimed at VBox developers or alike BUT only at other forum (and VBox) users.
I'm not complaining in any way; just trying to share user opinions and experiences on the matter.

I have noticed that most of Android emulating OSes, especially if recently released, behave the same "faulty" way when one tries to install them in a VBox VM starting from their own official ISO files.
The ISO file boots regularly and, together with the "live CD" mode, it offers also the option of installing on the local harddisk. Once triggered, the installation gets carried out and completed without any problems but then, once the ISO file has been "removed" from the virtual drive and the VM has been restarted, everything stops with a message like "no bootable medium found".
At that point the only way to boot the VM is by "inserting" the ISO file again, which makes the whole story start again from the beginning, exactly the same way.

So here is my question:
are there (here) any VBox users who have found a way to get around this... snag?

[scottgus1]

I didn't have that snag when I tried Android x86. I used Mpack's Android recipe here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=92683&start=15#p464073 with a couple tweaks. My experience is a few posts down. It installed correctly, did not go "no bootable medium found" and was "usable" but not stable enough for my needs at the time.

[Armando]

Thanks scottgus1 for your reply.

I also did succeed (a couple of years ago) in creating and using a VBox VM with Android-x86, which has not been updated for a while now (maybe no longer supported?).

However I'm not able to install other similar products, maybe based on that one but more recent, whose names I don't mention here because I don't know whether that could break some forum rules.

I tried three of them and every time I ran into the problem I described.
That's why I thought to consult the forum users. Maybe I'm wrong, but I assume that emulating Android with a VM might be a not uncommon need (or desire, at least) these days.

[scottgus1]

One thing I do remember when installing Whatsapp in the VM is a warning popup from Whatsapp saying there was a custom ROM in the OS that might make Whatsapp run incorrectly. I surmise this custom ROM was part of the conversion process to get Android, an ARM processor OS, to run on x86. (Note that Virtualbox doesn't convert ARM to x86; this was done by the releasers of the Android x86 OS.)

I'd guess that for the most authentic and accurate environment for Android, people are using either actual Android devices or an authentic separate Android emulator that runs Android ARM code natively.

[Armando]

What makes the matter (apparently) weird is that the OSes I tried actually run (or at least seems to) when launched in the "Live CD" mode.

Which leads one to (wrongly?) expect that if the VM works when booted from the virtual DVD it should also work when booted from the virtual hard disk after installation. After all, it's the very same OS.

So the suspicion arises that perhaps there is some kind of... trick or workaround, maybe even simple, which could make it work...
And the idea of not being able to find it is very frustrating... :]

[scottgus1]

As you know, Android isn't a supported OS inside a Virtualbox VM. This merely means that the devs don't test Android when testing Virtualbox. If there is a way the new Android installer is failing, the devs won't find it. So it's up to us users to web-search it and find it. And that means, Armando's fix for failing Android installs is awaited here on the forum! Please let us know what you discover.

[Armando]

I thank you again, not only for your kind and patient useful answers (somehow rare, around the web) but also for your (undeserved) trust in Armando's ability to find a solution.

In fact, I admit I was really hoping that some other user, here in the forum, had already found one.
So I'm afraid the wait you mentioned may be quite... long. :]

Anyway I hereby promise I will make it known in this thread as soon as Armando finds it (IF he does).

[lylejk]

Got Android X86 to finally run in VIrtualbox. My problem is the Chrome browser just shows blank on every page but the default page. If anyone has a work-a-round, I'm all ears. I know for external emulators, you can disable vulkan based on links I already visited, but that trick doesn't apparently work for Virtualbox.

For the curious, I didn't install via ISO; downloaded the VDI instead and added it as the main drive. Have to change the graphic controller to VBoxSVGA (or VBoxVGA; both appear to work) and disable 3D acceleration. Used the 64-bit version. Downloaded the VDI from site below (if you are adverse to this method, then hopefully the ISO would work for you, but had lots of issues installing via ISO).

https://www.osboxes.org/android-x86/