If you are someone who runs Android on your laptop or desktop, you may have heard of the Android-x86 project. For those who haven't, the Android-x86 program is an initiative by volunteer developers to port over and run Android onto desktops and laptops running on AMD or Intel processors.
After pushing out Android 6.0 Marshmallow in June and the second Release Candidate a month ago, the Android-x86 project has pushed out the the first stable release of Android 6.0 to the public. This release build is based on the Marshmallow MR2 release (6.0.1_r66) from AOSP, along with all security patches.
Here's a look at the key features for this release, which are in addition to the features found on the RC2 release:
- Update kernel to 4.4.20 with more patches from AOSP.
- Update Mesa (Graphics Library) to 12.0.2.
- Preliminary HDMI audio support.
- Add F2FS support.
- Change trackpad cursor from circle to normal mouse pointer (back-ported from Android N).
- Improve suspend/resume issues caused by wifi drivers.
The stable release can be found on the official website, with images for both 32-bit and 64-bit processors. These images can be booted from both BIOS and UEFI firmware. You can also load the images to create bootable USB sticks.
There are a few known issues to the release. Specifically, the Skylake GPU's may have render issues on the built-in browser app. Also, the suspend and resume functions do not work on some devices, so your mileage may vary.
If you are looking to get Android onto a desktop system, Android-86 presents a good starting choice amongst others. And now you get the goodness of Marshmallow in a stable format and updated security patches too.
What are your thoughts on this stable build from the Android-x86 project? Have you tried out the release? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!