Android Installation
The following is how to install Android using a virtual machine, more specifically using VirtualBox. This will offer a stable, fast environment for testing and developing with-in. After using the AVD Manager in attempts to test out Android before I had owned a device, the first thing I had noticed was that the emulated devices were extremely sluggish. Using the VM method instead allows you to achieve much greater speed out of the OS itself at the expense of no network access.
First thing you will need to do is obtain an ISO image of the x86 version of Android. Do do this you can visit the Google Code project download page for Android-x86 and obtain one of the pre-made ISO images. Also make sure you have the latest version of VirtualBox installed on your system.
Configuring VM
Before we begin here I am going to make assumptions like most of my articles do, however I will like usually outline those here for you. I am assuming you have basic knowledge of VirtualBox and VMs in general or you wouldn't be here. If you have never used VirtualBox or virtual machines in general it would be advisable to obtain a brief amount of knowledge about said technologies before you continue. Now that that is out of the way let's begin.
- Click the New button in the toolbar to create a new VM, then click the Next to proceed to the next page of the Create New Virtual Machine wizard.
- Identify the VM with a unique name, and then under OS Type set the Operating System to Linux and the Other Linux as the version. Then click Next to continue.
- Technically speaking you can now use all default settings for the rest of the VM setup. I however usually change one more setting, being the Memory, as it usually gives the VM another small speed boost. Move the slider for Base Memory Size up to either 512 MB or 1024 MB depending on how much you have available.
- Click Next now four times to skip through the disk setup, then finally press the Create button to create the VM.
- Click on the VM you just created and then click the Settings button in the toolbar.
- Head over to the Storage tab and select the 'Empty' CD/DVD Drive. Over on the right side click on the CD Image with the down arrow to select Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file... and choose the ISO image you downloaded. Then press OK.
Booting Android
Now that we have the basic setup for the Android VM we can continue on to the actual installation of the operating system.
