Surprised to see this on the frontpage - it's a well known piece of software.
It's unfortunate that there are no Google-vended images (e.g. the generic system image) that run on Waydroid. Typing my password into random ROMs from the internet sketches me out.
I wouldn't say it runs a "random ROM from the internet" - LineageOS is a very well-established project and is fully FOSS (free and open source software) except for firmware necessary for specific devices. It is the natural choice for any project, such as Waydroid, that requires good community support and ongoing availability.
Over a number of years, Google have progressively removed many of the original parts of AOSP (the FOSS foundation upon which Android is based), which means that alternative components have to be developed by projects like LineageOS. In spite of this, I suspect that LineageOS makes fewer modifications to AOSP than most phone vendors do, including Google themselves!
Is it random though? LineageOS is a pretty established project. I am generally more wary of typing any personal information into an image vended by Google because it is their primary, core business model to collect my data and show me ads.
What I’d love to see is a containerized android that can be fired up on a Mac (using docker desktop or orbstack or whatever) that I can modify the docker image of to have rooted man in the middle proxy already setup, making it much easier to drop an Android app onto to observe the network traffic and api calls.
Wireshark is nice, but for HTTPS MitM you'll need a tool like mitmproxy/Burp to do the proxying and either modifications to the system image or a Frida daemon running as root to make most apps trust the MitM'd certificates.
To get the traffic routed right, the Wireguard option for mitmproxy is pretty useful in my experience. Not sure how well Waydroid + Android VPNs work together, though.
This was the basis of how FuriLabs managed to get such good Android app integration. Obviously they’ve forked it [0] and heavily modified it, but the user experience they’ve created with this to allow Android apps on a Linux phone has been great.
My biggest question is: why haven’t you guys advertised yourselves more? I’ve heard of liberem and the pinephone but never knew you guys had a phone? With half-decent hardware and actual water proofing?? I swear if I had the disposable cash I’d have bought one (and I hope to anyway soon).
Ok, here’s a more typical question: I’ve heard your phone uses halium, what exactly is it? Some kind of hardware abstraction layer? Some people online appear to dislike it. (And googling unfortunately gives very few links that aren’t super technical.)
I know I'm late to the discussion but can you comment on the hearing aid compatibility (HAC) of the phone? It's something that keeps me tethered to bigger name phones since most of the time smaller companies don't even know what that is...
I'm interested in why the linked implementation is different or enhanced. There is nothing on the readme and I guess I would need to track down a summary of the talk
The Furiphone FLX1 makes heavy use of this and it is amazing. I can do most things I'd want a real android phone for (which is not much, admittedly). I know of people who use it for Signal and Spotify. Great project, and right at home on a Linux phone.
I just heard of it from this thread and took a look. It looks great! I'd love to get one, but from the FAQ:
> "The only apps that won’t work are ones that require the full Google Play Store and all it’s requirements. This includes some banking apps"
Sigh. It looks like I'd have to carry two phones.
Banking and credit card apps are essential daily apps for me. I can't even log in to some of my accounts on a desktop browser without their phone app to authenticate, and quite often individual payments require phone app confirmation. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to switch accounts for a freer user experience.
Separately from finance, I also have to use the Google suite for my main job, and I've had to use Discord for another job. I guess those can run in a browser with reduced functionality, though. Not so for the banking/credit card apps, unfortunately.
This isn't a complaint about Waydroid or FLX1. I appreciate the work and creativity! I've long dreamed of owning (and building) a completely FLOSS phone, and seen how much work is involved. I owned two Nokia N900s back in the day.
But times have changed, and I wish and hope a way can be found to run the apps or protocols daily life seems to require now, on top of (or side by side with) a base FLOSS system.
Wow, this phone is almost perfect - TRRS connector, uSD card, user-replaceable battery, and available in the United States. Not having an OLED panel might be a dealbreaker though.
Many apps depend on running an "official" Android distro from Google, Samsung, etc. and don't work with Waydroid's Lineage-based distro. I think the Wine-like approach from https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_transla... might help to trick apps into believing that they run on an "official" Android distro.
There is a set of specific APIs you have to simulate to trick apps like this. On “real” Android, such simulation is done with things like Magisk modules (which mock certain things) or microG (which reimplementats Google services as a whole). The Wine-like approach used in ATL is certainly more straightforward for simulating APIs, but it’s still needs to be reimplemented specifically for ATL. Waydroid, on the other hand, can probably reuse Magisk or microG, since it’s running a whole Android setup.
Every time I see this I think "cool! I can run some cool Android app that doesn't have a Linux counterpart" and every time I fail to think of anything. Are there any must have Android apps out there?
The main thing for me would be stuff like banking which require app-based authentication. Of course, solutions like this unfortunately don't work on something like Waydroid because the app knows it's in a container and thus blocks functionality.
I use it for this; found out about it when I installed Bazzite on my ROG Ally and it came with Waydroid.
The other useful feature for me is using the Android apps for media subscriptions that only enable offline downloads in the app and not in the browser so I can use them on the go.
For me it seems useful for the opposite reason. There's a lot of garbage that you have to use where something could be a website but they want you to install some Android app. If I could run those Android apps on my PC, maybe it could be a slightly less terrible experience. Perhaps various dating apps as well, idk.
I use Waydroid to run my banking apps on my laptop. Much more convenient than going through many layers of authentication each time on internet banking.
Does this allow the container access a hardware USB device? I have Mooondrop FreeDSP usb-c cable with an PEQ that only works with a terrible Android app, and it takes forever to change the EQ settings via an Android tablet I have, that has terrible touch screen. I wish I could just use my linux laptop to do it.
Readit News
It's unfortunate that there are no Google-vended images (e.g. the generic system image) that run on Waydroid. Typing my password into random ROMs from the internet sketches me out.
https://source.android.com/docs/core/tests/vts/gsi
Over a number of years, Google have progressively removed many of the original parts of AOSP (the FOSS foundation upon which Android is based), which means that alternative components have to be developed by projects like LineageOS. In spite of this, I suspect that LineageOS makes fewer modifications to AOSP than most phone vendors do, including Google themselves!
/? Android play store APK GitHub actions
It looks like Android Emulator has the most current version of Android that will run on x86?
Deleted Comment
sudo ip netns exec <netns> wireshark
To get the traffic routed right, the Wireguard option for mitmproxy is pretty useful in my experience. Not sure how well Waydroid + Android VPNs work together, though.
[0] https://github.com/FuriLabs/waydroid
Ok, here’s a more typical question: I’ve heard your phone uses halium, what exactly is it? Some kind of hardware abstraction layer? Some people online appear to dislike it. (And googling unfortunately gives very few links that aren’t super technical.)
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/furiphone_flx1/
> "The only apps that won’t work are ones that require the full Google Play Store and all it’s requirements. This includes some banking apps"
Sigh. It looks like I'd have to carry two phones.
Banking and credit card apps are essential daily apps for me. I can't even log in to some of my accounts on a desktop browser without their phone app to authenticate, and quite often individual payments require phone app confirmation. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to switch accounts for a freer user experience.
Separately from finance, I also have to use the Google suite for my main job, and I've had to use Discord for another job. I guess those can run in a browser with reduced functionality, though. Not so for the banking/credit card apps, unfortunately.
This isn't a complaint about Waydroid or FLX1. I appreciate the work and creativity! I've long dreamed of owning (and building) a completely FLOSS phone, and seen how much work is involved. I owned two Nokia N900s back in the day.
But times have changed, and I wish and hope a way can be found to run the apps or protocols daily life seems to require now, on top of (or side by side with) a base FLOSS system.
I love it.
No DP Alt mode.
It's a little frustrating because "Convergence" options are exposed in the UI.
They are still installable, but not available in the app store. The company (Norstedts) went over to a subscription style (of course).
I use waydroid to have them on my desktop and I love it.
Organic Maps has a desktop linux version but it's far from having feature parity.
Although it might change with this grant [1] aiming to build a nice desktop UI for Organic Maps.
[1] https://nlnet.nl/project/OrganicMaps-ConvergentUI/
The other useful feature for me is using the Android apps for media subscriptions that only enable offline downloads in the app and not in the browser so I can use them on the go.
If not, it's just a Linux container, so with some udev rules you should be able to make it work regardless.