You can download Android-x86 right now from Softpedia

Aug 11, 2014 09:32 GMT  ·  By

Android-x86, a port of the famous Android operating system for the x86 platform, has reached version 4.4 R1 and is now ready for testing.

Android is actually using a modified Linux kernel underneath that interface. Some users even go as far as calling it a Linux distribution, although the consensus seems to be that it's not. In any case, with some tweaking, a few developers managed to port the operating system to the PC, for the X86 platforms.

There is no good reason why Android shouldn't run on an X86 processor, but it's built to take advantage of other architectures. It also uses a different display server from regular Linux distributions, but that's also not a problem.

“The 4.4-r1 release is based on the Android 4.4.2 (KitKat-MR1 release). We have fixed and added x86 specified code to let the system runs smoothly on x86 platforms, especially for tablets and netbooks,” says the developer.

According to the changelog, FFMpeg has been integrated as the stagefright-plugins to support much more multimedia files, users can now play HD and full HD videos in apps, the latest longterm stable kernel 3.10.52 has been integrated, most netbooks can now run Android-x86 in the native resolution, OpenGL ES hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon and Intel chipsets has been implemented, the installer has been improved in order to support upgrade from previous versions (since ics-x86), and a KitKat style launcher (Trebuchet) has been added.

Also, multi-touch, Wifi, Audio, Bluetooth, G-sensor, and Camera are now supported, the Huawei 3G modem is now supported, the external usb drive and sdcard are auto mounted to /storage/usbX on plugging, the hybrid mode of ISO images is now supported, multi-user support (max 8) is available, Ethernet is now supported (only for DHCP), 5-point touch calibration on some devices has been implemented, virtual machines like Qemu, VMWare, and VirtualBox are now supported.

You might ask yourself why you would need such as system. Well, there are a number of devices out there that have this kind of processor and their users might want the new system from Google to work on them. This also enables users to install the distribution on laptops and other devices that have SIM and 3G capabilities.

You can download the Android-x86 4.4 R1 Linux distribution from Softpedia if you want to give it a spin; you can use this Linux distribution in Live mode and you don't need to install it.

Android-x86 4.4 KitKat (11 Images)

Android-x86 4.4 KitKat
Android-x86 4.4 KitKatAndroid-x86 4.4 KitKat
+8more