User:Th3userscene/Installing Android-x86 in VirtualBox

Mostly taken from here (the original has been taken down).

Create a new VM

If you haven't already created a virtual machine for Android-x86 yet, do so as follows:

• Click the "New" button, and name your new virtual machine however you like. Set Type to Linux, and Version to Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x. Note that you should choose the appropriate bit type for the version of Android-x86 that you downloaded.
• Specify how much RAM will be allocated to your virtual machine. Android doesn't specify a bare-minimum requirement for memory, just keep in mind what apps you plan on running. 2GB (2048MB) is a good place to start, and you can change this later if you need to.
• Create a new Hard disk image which will act as your machine's storage. The recommended starting size of 8GB is enough for most versions. Click through the rest of the options for creating your hard disk.

Settings

Tested on VirtualBox 64-bit for Windows, version 5.2.0, Android-x86 version 6.0-r3, both 32-bit and 64-bit. Also tested on VirtualBox 64-bit for Windows, version 6.1.28, Android-x86 5.1.1 64-bit.

Select your machine, then click the Settings button and refer to the below recommended configuration to make sure your settings match.

System

Processor(s) should be set above 1 if you have more than one thread in your host system. Not doing this means every app (like Google Chrome) might crash if you try to use it.

Display

Optional: Video Memory may be increased beyond the minimum selected automatically. The effects of this are unknown.

Mandatory: Change the default VMSVGA to VBoxVGA.

Optional: Enable 3D Acceleration may be checked. The Linux Guest Additions must (VirtualBox 6.1+) / may (VirtualBox 6.0 and below) need to be installed to get any benefit from this.

Failure to do so means you won't even be able to launch Android-x86 in the first place.

Storage

Find the first "Empty" item (this should have an icon of a CD). In the Attributes, click on the CD icon with a small down arrow, and pick "Choose Optical Virtual Disk File...". Specify the Android-x86 ISO that you downloaded.

Audio

Intel HD Audio seems to be natively supported in Android-x86.

Network

By default, your installation of Android-x86 will be able to automatically connect to the internet. If not, you can try to enable WiFi in Settings/Network & Internet, and connect to showing VirtWifi. If you do not want to connect to the internet in VirtualBox, uncheck Enable Network Adapter under the Adapter 1 tab.

Install

Click the green Start arrow to power-on your virtual machine. You'll be presented with a list of options.

Use the arrow keys to pick which one you want, then press Enter once the one you want is selected.

If you don't want to install Android-x86 yet and just want to test it, pick one of the Live CD options (except for Debug mode). Pick the Installation option if you want your system to be installed to the virtual hard drive.

If you want to use higher resolution in a Live CD mode, you can edit the boot option by pressing Tab, changing vga=788 (800x600) to vga=791 (1024x768) or vga=794 (1280x1024), and pressing Enter. You can also use vga=ask to see all available modes. Please note that Android will only work under 16-bit color depth mode.

Partition

When you are prompted to choose a partition:

• If you upgrade Android-x86 from a previous version, just select the existing partition. Agree to overwrite it when prompted.
• If this is a new VM, choose to Create/Modify partitions. Use Bootable but not GPT! This will cause the GRUB installation to fail later.

You may partition your disk however you see fit. If you just want a simple installation, create one partition taking up the entire disk and format it as ext4.

Continue through the installation. You should install GRUB when it prompts you to. You may also leave /system as read and write when prompted.

Once the installation is complete, force close/shut down the virtual machine and remove the ISO from the virtual CD drive.

If you get a GRUB 17 error when booting try installing Android-x86 again but not installing EFI GRUB2.

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Finally, start Android-x86. If it's a new VM, you can perform the Android setup to begin using your machine.