Building Android-x86 image with kernel customization

Android-x86 OS build

With kernel customization

Are you familiar with the Android x86 project? It's an open-source initiative that aims to port the Android operating system to run on traditional x86-based hardware And Run them Natively in laptops and desktop computers without any kind of emulation. You can then evolve your old laptops into an Education / Media Center / Gaming or even use them for Testing and Development of Android Apps on a Large Screen.

For a specific project I needed to build the Android sources for an x86 Target but the standard build process output had issues with Ethernet Drivers. It led me to customize the Android Kernel and Integrate the Ethernet Driver statically with the Kernel Build. Here in this post I will show How I managed to build an Android x86 OS variant with kernel customization. I hope you enjoy it 🙂

Host machine info 

~$ uname -a Linux ayx-ThinkPad 5.0.0-29-generic #31~18.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Sep 12 18:29:21 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Install dependencies 

~$ sudo apt -y install git gcc curl make repo libxml2-utils flex m4 ~$ sudo apt -y install openjdk-8-jdk lib32stdc++6 libelf-dev ~$ sudo apt -y install libssl-dev python-mako syslinux-utils ~/android-src/android-x86$ sudo apt-get install ncurses-devel libncurses-dev

Download the Source

~/android-src/android-x86$ repo init -u http://scm.osdn.net/gitroot/android-x86/manifest -b pie-x86 ~/android-src/android-x86$ repo sync -j8

This will download all the source

Environment setup 

~/android-src/android-x86$ make clean ~/android-src/android-x86$ . build/envsetup.sh ~/android-src/android-x86$ lunch

Choose : “android_x86_64-userdebug”
The resultant build configuration would look like the following

============================================ PLATFORM_VERSION_CODENAME=REL PLATFORM_VERSION=9 TARGET_PRODUCT=android_x86_64 TARGET_BUILD_VARIANT=userdebug TARGET_BUILD_TYPE=release TARGET_ARCH=x86_64 TARGET_ARCH_VARIANT=x86_64 TARGET_2ND_ARCH=x86 TARGET_2ND_ARCH_VARIANT=x86_64 HOST_ARCH=x86_64 HOST_2ND_ARCH=x86 HOST_OS=linux HOST_OS_EXTRA=Linux-5.0.0-29-generic-x86_64-Ubuntu-18.04.3-LTS HOST_CROSS_OS=windows HOST_CROSS_ARCH=x86 HOST_CROSS_2ND_ARCH=x86_64 HOST_BUILD_TYPE=release BUILD_ID=PI OUT_DIR=out ============================================

Obtaining The Network card info 

~/android-src/android-x86$ lspci | awk '/[Nn]et/ {print $1}' | xargs -i% lspci -ks %

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 (rev c4)

Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 BGN

Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi

Kernel modules: iwlwifi

0c:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 07)

Subsystem: Lenovo RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller

Kernel driver in use: r8169

Kernel modules: r8169


Take note of the network card’s kernel module names

Customization of the Kernel 

~/android-src/android-x86$ make -C kernel O=$OUT/obj/kernel ARCH=x86 menuconfig

Now the standard Linux kernel customization graphical interface in terminal will show up

[make sure your terminal is wide and long enough ]

Note: The configuration file is the default .config

Browse to >Device Drivers > Network device support   │<*>     Virtio network driver Browse to >Device Drivers > Network Device Support > Ethernet Driver Support   │<*>     Realtek 8169 gigabit ethernet support

In a similar way you can change other parts of the kernel as you want

>> Now copy this config file to build systems’ actual config files’ location

~/android-src/android-x86$ cp out/target/product/x86_64/obj/kernel/.config kernel/arch/x86/configs/

>> Now rename the .config file

~/android-src/android-x86/kernel/arch/x86/configs$ mv .config my_x86_64_conf_20190923

~/android-src/android-x86$ nproc 8

>> Now build the kernel only

~/android-src/android-x86$ make -j8 kernel

The build took around 25 minutes
The built kernel is at out/target/product/x86_64/
The kernel modules are at out/target/product/x86_64/system/lib/modules/

>> Now we will build the final image with the kernel we just built

~/android-src/android-x86$ make iso_img -j8 TARGET_PRODUCT=android_x86_64 TARGET_PREBUILT_KERNEL=~/android-src/android-x86/out/target/product/x86_64/kernel

Total translation table size: 23151 Total rockridge attributes bytes: 10128 Total directory bytes: 24576 Path table size(bytes): 130 Done with: The File(s)                             Block(s)    342143 Writing:   Ending Padblock                         Start Block 342197 Done with: Ending Padblock                         Block(s)    150 Max brk space used 23000 342347 extents written (668 MB) out/target/product/x86_64/android_x86_64.iso is built successfully. #### build completed successfully (08:51:29 (hh:mm:ss)) ####

Android-x86 installation on VM 

Open Virtual Box >> Create new machine , choose linux type , create a virtual disk

From Settings -> storage -> Select the ISO you built

Now boot the machine , select installation of hard disk , Use GPT to write partition table

Create a partition out of the free space of the VDI , format by EXT4 , then GRUB will be asked but GRUB won’t work on a GPT partitioned so MBR will be used
Enable 3D and 2D acceleration ,

Network related Configuration

After installation completed remove iso attachment
Start the VM and you will see android x86 booting.

Installation in Laptop (Natively)  

Here below is snapshot of the custom build installation natively

You can see all the services being started and finally the Android Screen will come up

Here is a screen out of the running OS . Please Note you would not find any google Apps with this build because you then need to be registered as a vendor and follow certain rules regulations. Otherwise you can install F-Droid kind of free app stores to download and play with different apps https://f-droid.org/en/