[jrm4]

Apologies if this is somewhat of a thread hijack, but what's the current state of "Android apps on Linux?" and is anyone aware of a guide to make this easier? It's in the state of one of those things that ought to be really easy and is probably (I'm not sure) hard due to Google resistances (as in, you used to just be able to run them in Chrome?

My use case is "my kid has a Chromebook, and along with the stupid games, there are some art apps that I see are good for her style," but I'd love to have the best of both worlds, because it really seems like it should not be that hard.

I'm messing around with Waydroid now, but it's super fiddly?

[drdec]

I had a Chromebook a few years ago and at that time one could run Android apps on it, is that no longer the case?

[xrd]

You definitely can. The experience is a mixed bag: they aren't often optimized for no-touch devices, and they often need more resources than low end devices can provide. But they definitely run without much work to install. I thought i was smart getting my kids Chromebooks but the frustrations about how poorly they run supercedes the value in my opinion.

[drdec]

Thanks for the update

[jrm4]

Right, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear --- when I said "run in Chrome" I meant "in the Chrome browser regardless of OS, e.g. in Linux"

I want the kiddo to have not a Chromebook, but real Linux, e.g. Ubuntu. While the Android apps work fine, other things we do (e.g. easily saving files, dealing with local network stuff like Java Minecraft play) do not.

[bpye]

There is Waydroid. It doesn't use Chrome but should work on any Linux distro. I have used it in the past with some success, but not for quite some time now.