Anbox on KDE Community Edition (Manjaro)

[neil2ball]

This thread is being started to document the trials and tribulations of installing Anbox on my Pinephone.  Likewise, it would be an honor to learn from those who blazed the trail before me.

I managed to install Anbox through pacman by switching to the unstable branch.  (It seems that the unstable branch also has a few fixes to other software that have been helpful, but maybe adding an extra bug or two.  I'm not entirely sure, but I digress.)

This is not recommended if you are squeamish about experimental software.

Code:

sudo vim /etc/pacman-mirrors.conf

(I am still not sure what the default text editor for Manjaro is, but I am a Vi guy.) I changed changed the branch here from "Branch=arm-stable" to "Branch=arm-unstable", on line 6.  I saved the changes and exited the application.

Code:

sudo pacman-mirrors -f5 && sudo pacman -Syyu

This changed my mirrors and updated my operating system software to the unstable branch.  This was scary, but it worked for me (as in it did not brick my phone).

Now for the main course:

Code:

sudo pacman -S anbox-image-aarch64 anbox android-tools

It installed Anbox without issue.  I saw the Anbox logo among my application icons.  I clicked it and got a grey screen, followed by a crash.  Fair enough.

Code:

anbox system-info

version: danctnix-0_git20201130-r2
cpu:
  arch: 
  brand:
  features:
os:
  name: Manjaro-ARM
  version:
  snap-based: false
kernel:
  version: Linux version 5.10.13-1.0-MANJARO-ARM (builduser@on2-runner) (gcc (GCC) 10.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.35) #1 SMP Fri Feb 5 15:29:57 UTC 2021
  binder: false
  ashmem: true
graphics:
  egl:
    vendor: Mesa Project
    version: 1.4
    extensions:
      - EGL_ANDROID_blob_cache
      - EGL_ANDROID_native_fence_sync
      - EGL_EXT_buffer_age
      - EGL_EXT_image_dma_buf_import
      - EGL_EXT_image_dma_buf_import_modifiers
      - EGL_EXT_swap_buffers_with_damage
      - EGL_KHR_cl_event2
      - EGL_KHR_config_attribs
      - EGL_KHR_create_context
      - EGL_KHR_create_context_no_error
      - EGL_KHR_fence_sync
      - EGL_KHR_get_all_proc_addresses
      - EGL_KHR_gl_colorspace
      - EGL_KHR_gl_renderbuffer_image
      - EGL_KHR_gl_texture_2D_image
      - EGL_KHR_gl_texture_3D_image
      - EGL_KHR_gl_texture_cubemap_image
      - EGL_KHR_image_base
      - EGL_KHR_no_config_context
      - EGL_KHR_partial_update
      - EGL_KHR_reusable_sync
      - EGL_KHR_surfaceless_context
      - EGL_KHR_swap_buffers_with_damage
      - EGL_EXT_pixel_format_float
      - EGL_KHR_wait_sync
      - EGL_MESA_configless_context
      - EGL_MESA_drm_image
      - EGL_MESA_image_dma_buf_export
      - EGL_MESA_query_driver
      - EGL_WL_bind_wayland_display
      - EGL_WL_create_wayland_buffer_from_image
  gles2:
    vendor: n/a
    vendor: n/a
    extensions: []

This is about as far as I have gotten.  I believe binder should be enabled.  There is more work to be done.  I would like to eventually install an android package manager into Anbox and see if it will work.  I will keep you informed of the results.  Any input is greatly appreciated.