Pathik Shah

How to Install Android OS on your PC / Netbook / Laptop?

This tutorial will show you how to install Android 2.0 Eclair on your Asus EEE PC. It also works with most other netbooks.

Download the Android X86 port from http://www.android-x86.org/

-> Android-X86 Download Link

How to Install Android OS on your EEE PC?

After downloading the bootable android-x86 ISO, burn it to your USB drive using Win32DiskImager –  or UNetBootIn

Insert the USB drive in your netbook, set it to boot from USB drive from the BIOS options and then restart your netbook.

The installation process should start soon. You can use it as a Live USB to run Android without installing it or install Android to your harddisk.

If you choose to install it, select a partition to install it to and then format it using the EXT3 format. Choose to install the GRUB boot loader.

After the installation is complete, you can reboot your EEE PC to run the installed Android OS.

The OS is very responsive and works perfectly well, atleast with the EEE PC. Everything just works out of the box – Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Display, Mouse, Keyboard etc.

It can be used as a backup OS or just to show off a bit. It also has a makeshift version of the Android Market with a few apps compatible with the X86 platform.

Android is a free operating system for mobile phones developed by Google. I’ve always been a huge fan of it; most probably my next phone is going to be an Android. It is mostly run on smartphons powered by ARM chips, though it is being ported to various platforms and architectures, including X86.

LiveAndroid is a Live CD for Android running on X86 platforms. You can use it to run Android directly on your PC.

To Install Android on your PC,

Just download LiveAndroid

Live Android – Part 1
Live Android – Part 2

After downloading these files, just join them using HJSplit.

You can also download it via the LiveAndroid torrent.

Next, burn the ISO (disk image) to a CD using any CD burning application like Nero, Magic ISO, Power ISO etc.

You can also use W32DiskImager to copy the image to a USB drive.

After this step, just reboot your computer and boot from the CD or USB drive. You should be greeted by the LiveAndroid startup screen.

Alternatively, you can also load the ISO in any virtualization application like Microsoft Virtual PC or Virtual Box.

This is a tutorial to try Android as a Live option. To install Android on your EEE PC or netbook – How to Install Android OS on EEE PC

What is Moblin?

Moblin is an open source project focused on developing software for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). It is jointly being developed by Intel and the Linux Foundation. It is optimised for Netbooks powered by the Intel Atom processor. Moblin v2.0 Beta was launched very recently.

Official Site – Moblin.Org
Moblin – Wikipedia

Download Moblin

You can download Moblin v2.0 beta from the official Moblin site – Download Moblin

It’s a 670 MB IMG which you can then burn on your USB drive or a CD and then install it on your Netbook or Laptop.

Here are the Official Download Links -

Moblin Download

Moblin Torrent – MD5

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A great start to 2009. Two geeks at Venturebeat have managed to port the Android OS to an X86 based Asus EEE PC. It is the first major mobile OS that has been ported to a standard computer. Almost all driver incompatibilities have been sorted and all the hardware is working great. The main roadblocks – compiling the Android code on a X86 based CPU instead of a ARM CPU commonly used in smartphones, and porting the framebuffer graphic drivers of Android to work on PCs have been blown off. It’s great news especially for me, as I have been an early adopter of netbooks as well as an Android enthusiast.

Speculation that Android may soon be officially ported for normal computers is on a high since someone noticed that there are separate policies for phones and MID’s (Mobile Internet Devices) in Google’s Android product policy.

More details:

Android Ported to Netbooks

Android Netbooks FAQ

Android Porting – Google Group