Category: Android News

Hey Guys, as you know the Smartphone market is dominated by Android OS – which itself is an operating system designed / based on the linux kernel , but unfortunately the Android Emulators for Linux itself are quite less as compared to windows counterparts 🙁 . so let’s have a look on the 5 best  Android Emulators for Linux to run android apps and play android games on Linux -Ubuntu,LinuxMint,Fedora,ArchLinux etc

1. Genymotion 

Genymotion – This is probably the Best Android emulator when it comes to Linux Platform due to some unique abilities present only in genymotion, Features of Genymotion are —

• It allows us to easily Download pre-configured Android Images of various Android Versions and various Android device images such as Nexus 7,Galaxy S2,Galaxy S3 etc directly on our emulator.
• It also allows us to configure the amount of resources e.g RAM ,harddisk to be allocated to the Android device / Emulator. Great feature if  limited on hardware resources.
• Genymotion directly supports networking through ethernet /Wi-Fi , emulates your connected connection directly so it use internet directly in the emulated android.
• ADB Support and it also supports OpenGL hardware acceleration so  your Android device works fullscreen and thus enhancing your experience while playing android games on your Linux!
• It Also supports drag and drop file transfer to the emulated SD Card 🙂 , supports Gyroscope,Light and accelerometer sensors too.
• You need an account on Genymotion Cloud – to Download and deploy Genymotion android device —
• Click here to register on Genymotion site and download Genymotion for Linux [32 bit as well as 64bit].Note – Oracle Virtual Box must be installed on your Machine for Genymotion to work! , installing Virtual Box On Linux is covered at the end of this post 🙂
• Installation instructions for installing Geanymotion on Ubuntu/Archlinux are available here.

2.Andro VM

AndroVM is the Parent Project of genymotion – nevertheless it still works and works awesomely! and the best thing about Andro VM is that the android machine is deployed offline on your PC unlike Genymotion where it is deployed on your PC through cloud, thus you can use Andro VM to install Android Emulator on your linux even offline

• another striking feature of Andro VM is that it supports hardware OpenGL rendering through Virtual Box.
• Virtual Box must be installed on your Linux OS for Andro VM to run , check end of the post for Virtual Box installation tutorial .
• AndroVM supports Net Sharing from guest to host , the internet sharing as well as Installation tutorial for Andro VM is available here at their blog — > Click here for AndroVM installation tutorial
• AndroVM can be downloaded for both 32bit and 64-bit Linux Kernels from here –> Click here to download Andro VM Virtual Box image for Linux.

3. Andy Android Emulator by Andyroid.net – Andy OS

• Although, yet in Beta at the time of writing this article – ANDY OS Android Emulator is pretty much exciting and the best Android emulator for Linux ., being a beta tester i have the access to pre-release features of ANDY , hence i have given it the 3rd place, it  could easily been the first one though!
• Features of ANDY emulator include Google Play Store support inbuilt, none of the emulator has this feature inbuilt even for Windows builds!
• Multi-Touch support 🙂 the word explains it all !
• Use your phone as a controller for controlling / playing the games, the picture alongside explains it 🙂
• Access the installed apps directly from the Desktop environment!
• OpenGL hardware acceleration, Camera and Microphone all features supported!
• You can download the beta version for Linux or the Windows build for Andy from here –> The link will automatically redirect you depending on your OS —
• Click here to download / Get ANDY OS!

You might want to check out this new emulator which runs directly inside Google Chrome Browser – ARChon! Android Emulator.

4. Official Android SDK – Android Emulator / AVDs

• The  Official Android SDK/ Android emulator by Google, has a lot of fans though not me 😛 and is used by default by mostly anyone who wants to develop apps for Android
• This Android emulator supports all the functions including SD Card support, file transfer et
• It also supports physical keypad which none of the Android emulators support !!
• Being developed by Google Engineers you are assured of the quality of product and safety!
• The Setup of this emulator is the thing which doesn’t impress me much though 🙁
• An easier setup guide to install the Official Android Emulator can be read here .
• The required SDK / ADT bundle for Android emulator and plugins can be downloaded from this Google’s Official Page .

5. Jar of Beans – Wine Compatible!

• Although Jar Of Beans was developed as an Android Emulator which was Portable for Windows ,it can be run through Wine.
• It has all the basic support such as APK install, SD Card supports and supports installation of Play Store too..
• but already Wine being a kind of Emulation environment we wont encourage usage of Jar of Beans on Linux
• For using Jar of beans for Linux, extract the exe contents of the Jar of Beans.exe file which can be downloaded from here –> , and then by runnint the jarofbeans.exefile with wine .
• Click here to download Jar of Beans from Google Drive

Installing VirtualBox on Linux

• As, we mentioned we need to install virtual box on linux before using Genymotion/AndroVM/ANDY , the eaiest method to install virtualBox on linux is
• Installing the dependencies by executing  “sudo apt-get install dkms”  in terminal , and then by executing
  “sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.3″ in the terminal! that’s it virtual box will be installed !
• If it doesn”t get installed you may want to check out this Article.

Update : You might love it to check out the New Firefox OS on PC – Click here to Configure Firefox OS Emulator on your Linux 

If you have any doubts/queries/suggestions  Feel free to Comment , we will try our Best to Please you Thanks!