There is no doubt that Android is the one of the best free open source mobile operating system in the world. If you have an android supported mobile devices like tablet or smartphone, you can play with the android interface and can add apps from the Google play. If you don’t have a mobile device suitable for running the Android, there is another way to experience the fun. Install/run android on your PC or laptop. You can install Android using an Androidx86 special build for PC. There is also a short way to experience it without altering the configuration.
The first step to do this is to download and install a free tool called Virtualbox. VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use.Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, OS/2, and OpenBSD.
Next step is to install the virtual box on your PC or laptop. This is an easy step, you can follow the directions from the installation screen and can install the tool with in a minute. The next thing you need is the new version of Androidx86 image. You can download the Andoidx86 from the Android X86 Project for free.
Yes, now you have your virtual box running and having and Androidx86 image file which was downloaded from the internet. Now you can setup a new virtual machine using the File>New command. The wizard will help and guide you to complete the setup.
Here is another method, a short cut to do it easily. You can also download a preconfigured Android 4 Ice cream sandwich version from VM Lite (this is a light weight version-file size is only 88MB).
The step to run the Android 4 ICS in your VirtualBox is like:
- Download VirtualBox and install it and also download the preconfigured ICS set up from VMLite
- Now uncompress the Android-v4.7z file, look for “Android-v4.vbox” and double-click it to load and boot the configuration into VirtualBox
- When running at the boot menu in VirtualBox, select the lower “Android Startup from /dev/sda” option (May be the default option)
- Ok your Android 4 ICS is up and running !
Did you installed and setup an Android OS on your PC. How is your experience? Did you experience any problem while installing it.
