Before Microsoft could bring native Android app support in Windows 11, Linux has spoiled the party. WayDroid is a kind of compatibility layer that enables you to run Android apps in any Linux distribution. The best part about WayDroid is that you get far better performance, even better than an optimized Android emulator or a virtual machine running Android x86 on Linux. It almost feels like you are running Android apps natively on your Linux machine. With that said, let’s not waste more time and learn how to run Android apps in Linux without an emulator.
First of all, you need to install Curl in case you have not installed it already. Open the Terminal and run the below command. Press “y” and hit Enter when the Terminal asks for your permission.
Next, run the below command based on your Linux distro. If you are using Ubuntu, use focal for the Distro, and for the latest Debian, choose bullseye, and so on. If you get a “Permission denied” error along the way, just run sudo su and then proceed with the commands.
Once you have done that, execute the below command to download WayDroid’s GPG key on your Linux distro.
Then, run the next command listed below, and it will add WayDroid to the source list.
echo “deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/waydroid.gpg] https://repo.waydro.id/ $DISTRO main” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/waydroid.list
Now, run the basic Linux command “side apt update” to update the repository and packages.
Finally, you are ready to install WayDroid on your Linux machine. Enter the below command, press “y” when asked, and hit Enter to proceed.
After the installation is complete, you need to run another command to download the Android image for WayDroid. Keep in mind that it will take some time as the image size is around 600MB.
Now, you are almost ready. You first need to start some WayDroid services before you can run Android apps on your Linux PC without an emulator. Execute the below commands one by one.
Finally, run the below command, and WayDroid’s GUI will open up on your Linux PC. You can now go ahead and enjoy Android apps on your Linux computer. By the way, you can also start WayDroid from the app drawer.
waydroid show-full-ui
