[Suggestion] Support Android container

[momobobe]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
WayDroid is a container solution for running Android App on Linux.

Describe the solution you'd like
I hope Distrobox can support it as a container distro so Apps installed there can be managed in a same place.

Describe alternatives you've considered
No idea Update: just found another Android container called ReDroid which runs with docker or podman

Additional context
WayDroid works with lxc instead of Docker or Podman, not sure, but maybe it's possible to find a way to support it.

[89luca89]

Not familiar with it, but if it doesn't run with docker/podman I don't think there will be any way to support it in the short run

[momobobe]

@89luca89 I see. Just found another project ReDroid which runs with docker or podman. Maybe that's feasible. Anyway I think an Android container could be quite useful, considering how many apps are there

[momobobe]

Just found duplicated with #741

[89luca89]

Redroid seems nice, but needs kernel modules and a lot of workarounds
So I cannot add it to the official compatibility list

But theoretically one could already try to use it

[profetik-777]

@89luca89 Maybe we should create a new tag or place for future enhancements that you know for sure you WANT to do, but are pending any real time lines / release roadmap. Maybe "Someday" tag?

[89luca89]

Done 😂

[scottsweb]

I haven't got around to testing this yet, but the vanilla-os folks are working on a waydroid container. I have scaffolded a distrobox.ini with the following contents:

[waydroid]
image=ghcr.io/vanilla-os/waydroid:main
entry=false
pull=true
root=true
init=true
replace=false
start_now=true
unshare_all=true
# exports
exported_bins="/usr/bin/ewaydroid"
exported_bins_path="~/.local/bin"

and they provide this example in their docs:

distrobox create --root --init --unshare-all -i ghcr.io/vanilla-os/waydroid:main -n waydroid
distrobox enter --root waydroid

I will report back once I have found time to experiment. It would also be great to have a new version of distrobox available so the exported_bins work as expected.

[Nitrousoxide]

Does this save the basic initialization and the one for gapps or in a persistent volume claim? We wouldn't want to have to do that every time the container is redeployed.

[Schweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

tried running waydroid using your guide but cant get it working also doesent work when installing it in archlinux or fedora
https://distrobox.it/useful_tips/#automated-installation

[user@waydroid ~]$ ewaydroid show-full-ui
Session: STOPPED
[18:08:45] RuntimeError: Command failed: % mount -o ro /var/lib/waydroid/images/system.img /var/lib/waydroid/rootfs
^C
[user@waydroid ~]$ sudo ewaydroid show-full-ui
touch: cannot touch '/root/.config/waydroid-props': No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ewaydroid: line 8: /root/.config/waydroid-props: No such file or directory
Session: STOPPED
[18:08:53] ERROR: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoServer: Failed to connect to socket /run/host/: Connection refused
[18:08:53] See also: https://github.com/waydroid
Run 'waydroid log' for details.
[18:09:00] WayDroid session is stopped
[18:09:00] WayDroid session is stopped
[18:09:00] WayDroid session is stopped
[18:09:00] WayDroid session is stopped
[18:09:00] WayDroid session is stopped
[18:09:00] WayDroid session is stopped
[18:09:00] Starting waydroid session
[18:09:00] ERROR: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoServer: Failed to connect to socket /run/host/: Connection refused
[18:09:00] See also: https://github.com/waydroid
Run 'waydroid log' for details.

[dottorblaster]

Moving this to discussions. Feel free to keep discussing the topic!