Remix OS, Android on a desktop PC

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dualmeister

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Install Remix OS on any PC to run Android as a desktop operating system
Jide’s Remix OS is a custom version of Android designed to make Google’s mobile operating system feel like a desktop OS. And it pretty much works.

The developers of Remix OS have released two devices that ship with the software, a tablet and a mini desktop computer, and they’ve also made the software available to Chinese device makers such as Cube.

Now Jide wants to make it easy for anyone to install Remix OS on an existing computer. Starting January 12th you’ll be able to download an alpha version of Remix OS for PCs and install it on just about any system with an Intel or AMD chip.

Jide worked with the developers behind the Android-x86 project to bring Remix OS to desktops.

The current build is a version of Remix OS 2.0 which is based on Android 5.0 Lollipop. It includes access to the Google Play Store, allowing you to install and run thousands of apps and games. But unlike most versions of Android, Remix OS includes a taskbar, support for viewing multiple apps at once in resizable windows, and memory management tweaks that keep you from losing data when switching between apps if your device is running low on memory.

You’ll be able to run Remix OS 2.0 on a PC by downloading it to a USB drive and then booting from that drive.

While you don’t need a powerful computer to run the operating system (the $70 Remix Mini PC has just 2GB of RAM and a low-power ARM-based processor), Jide says a computer with a Core i7-4590 processor performs almost three times better in some benchmarks than a Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone.
Click to expand...

[video=youtube;E4XV7A_cl3U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4XV7A_cl3U[/video]

Remix OS website

Only thing is, it says USB drive should be USB 3.0 so not suitable for older hardware it seems :erm:
 
This is awesome thanks for sharing! Definitely going to test this on some x86 hardware! Just need to make sure its still got legacy boot haha!
 
Running Remix OS on a PC

Remix OS is a custom version of Android designed to make Google’s mobile operating system behave like a desktop OS. It has a taskbar, a desktop, and a start menu. More importantly, it allows you to run most Android apps in resizable windows that you can position anywhere on the screen, making it easy to view multiple apps at the same time.

When Jide first launched Remix OS in early 2015, it was only available for the company’s own Remix Ultra Tablet. But the company eventually released custom ROMs for the Google Nexus 9 and Nexus 10 tablets, launched the Remix Mini desktop PC, and worked with other device makers to make Remix OS available for some third-party tablets, notebooks, and TV boxes.

Now Jide is making it easy for anyone to try Remix OS on their existing hardware. Starting January 12th, all you need to do is download the new Remix OS for PC software, use it to prepare a USB flash drive, and you can boot your computer from that drive to run Remix OS.

Remix OS for PC was developed in partnership with the Android-x86 project, which has been providing versions of Android that are optimized to run on computers with Intel and AMD chips for years. But up until now most of those optimizations included hardware support, while Remix OS is also designed to make the user interface feel more desktop-like.

There are a few things to keep in mind. First, you’ll want a USB 3.0 or faster port for the best performance, as well as a reasonably fast USB flash drive. Second, you’ll need a computer that allows you to disable Secure Boot and use Legacy Boot mode… at least for now. At launch, Remix OS for PC doesn’t support UEFI firmware.

That said, the software that’s being release on January 12th is still an early, “alpha” version of Remix OS for PC. Future versions will likely fix bugs, improve performance, and add support for additional hardware.

[video=youtube;TA7UtwM9MRY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA7UtwM9MRY[/video]

For now, I was able to try Remix for PC on my Samsung Series 9 notebook by pressing F2 to get into the firmware settings and choosing the option to disable Secure Boot.

When you boot from the USB flash drive you have the option to use a Guest Mode that won’t save any changes (this is sort of like running a Linux LiveCD or LiveUSB) or a Resident Mode that will save your data and other changes. This lets you install apps, login to your accounts, load documents, media, or other files and ensure that they’ll be available the next time you login to Remix OS.

You should even be able to insert the USB flash drive into a different computer and pick up where you left off.

remix-pc_03.jpg

Not everything works on my laptop. YouTube plays videos smoothly, but Netflix doesn’t seem to want to stream movies at all. And it’s interesting to note that this laptop with a Core i5 Sandy Bridge processor and 4GB of RAM scores higher than most smartphones in the AnTuTu benchmark, but its score of about 90,000 roughly ties that for the Huawei Mate 8 smartphone. Does that mean the phone is really as fast as a computer with a 4-year-old chip? Maybe… but it could also mean that the OS and benchmark aren’t really optimized for this type of hardware yet.

As I mentioned in my reviews of the Remix Mini and Remix Ultra Tablet, I think Jide has done a better job than any other company in making Android feel like a full-fledged desktop operating system. But that doesn’t mean the experience is perfect.

For example, when you’re scrolling through web pages in the Chrome web browser, the tab bar at the top of the page will sometimes disappear. You have to scroll up a bit before you can see the tabs again. It makes sense for that to happen if you’re using a phone, since it maximizes screen real estate. But it’s disconcerting when it happens on a desktop or notebook with plenty of screen space.

remix-pc_02-1.jpg

And when you want to bring up a context menu in the app menu, you can right-click to see options to pin apps to the taskbar or uninstall them. But if you try right-clicking on a link in a web browser or other Android apps it’ll usually have the same effect as a left-click (or a tap with your fingertip). In order to bring up a context menu in apps, you’ll probably have to click-and-hold your mouse button.

Jide does include an experimental zoom feature that lets you hold the Ctrl+Alt buttons while moving your mouse scroll wheel to zoom. This comes in handy if you’re using a device that doesn’t have a touchscreen, since many Android apps expect you to be able to pinch-to-zoom. You’ll have to open the Settings menu and go into the Experimental sub-menu to enable this zoom feature.

You should be able to install Remix OS to your hard drive or solid state disk if you’d like, either by wiping you current operating system or creating a separate partition and setting up a dual boot environment. But Jide hasn’t provided instructions for doing that yet, I’m not sure I’d recommend doing that unless you’re an advanced user and you’ve already ensured that the software works well on you computer.

Remix OS may feel a little under-featured compared to a desktop operating system like Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint. But Jide co-founder David Ko tells me a big part of the goal isn’t getting people to switch from Windows to Remix OS, but getting people who’s first experience with software was on a smartphone to use a desktop OS that features familiar apps and settings.

There are a lot of people in developing nations who may never have used a laptop, but who already have a smartphone, and Remix OS is aimed at them as much as it is at power users willing to do geeky things like download and test a new operating system that you can run from a USB flash drive.

Source
 
It looks like a better alternative to Bluestacks, which I absolutely despise.
 
Typing this from Remix Os on laptop.

Detected WIFI OK
Installed Netflix
AnTuTu score = 397 607 lol

Screenshot_2016-01-12-10-56-22.png
 
Last edited:
Nimz said:
Official release is now live Link
Click to expand...
Would be great on older hardware and little ram like Intel atoms, celerons, pentiums, amd semprons etc.

Things in the garage that you're meaning to get rid of.

If anyone tries it on old hardware let us know how it runs.
 
http://www.neverware.com/free/

Chromium was built without broad hardware support. CloudReady makes it run on virtually any machine by providing a single installer image with broad driver support and compatibility fixes.

We’re constantly improving CloudReady’s support for all the most common graphics, wifi, trackpad, and even hot-key functionality. It's easy to install CloudReady and start using it right away. No headaches; no configuration, no expertise needed
Click to expand...

For people that want Chrome OS
 
Can someone confirm is usb 3.0 recommended or required ? Does is matter if you install on hard drive ?
 
looks interesting. Maybe I will install on the miniPC I have at home.

all I use it for is Kodi, Chrome, a tiny amount of torrent downloading (maybe twice a year) and playing music.

and all of those things are android apps already....
 
Kensei2605 said:
Can someone confirm is usb 3.0 recommended or required ? Does is matter if you install on hard drive ?
Click to expand...

Remix OS 2.0 FAQs: Answers to All Doubts

My PC has no USB 3.0 Slots, Can I still install Remix OS 2.0?

Well, yes, you can install Remix OS 2.0 on a USB 2.0 Drive, but it is recommended to use ‘USB 3.0’ over it, because it USB 2.0 is a way slower than USB 3.0, Thus can make the Remix OS 2.0 run slower and might give a sluggish experience. But if you are someone with an OLD pc which doesn’t have USB 3.0, then you can give USB 2.0 a try.

Can I install Remix OS 2.0 on an External HDD?

External HDD’s have better read/write speed over most of the USB Drives, However, to install Remix OS 2.0 on the external HDD, you will have to format it to the format FAT32. Some people might also use the External HDD for getting more storage, but be it a HDD or a USB, the Maximum Space allocated is only 3.9 GB for now.
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