Is anyone else anxious about effortlessly running Android games & apps on Linux?
KDE Plasma mobile is integrating Waydroid and desktop Plasma is next.
Steam Machine’s launch is imminent, Steam Frame is next. And with it, Lepton. Valve’s way of running Android games on Linux.
Waydroid has been working fine for a while but it requires quite a lot of setup for the casual user. Anyone looking to avoid putting the effort will see their opportunity in the coming months. Thanks to both KDE & Valve.
I honestly don’t know exactly what I’ll do with it, but I freaking love that it is being made available. Personally, I won’t be running any Android games, but my kids might want to. And I’m very motivated to try it. I think my biggest reason to be interested in it is the possibilities it opens for Linux phones.
Sure, Google’s integrity API will still block some apps from even working, but the amount of mainstream apps that will work is immense.
For those curious about this: Do you have any specific reason for it or are you interested in the tech?
There’s https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_translation_layer which can already run BeatSaber apparently.
I think games specifically might be easier than most other apps as they are probably often little more than a 2D canvas displaying a regular Linux app with quite limited use of android-specific APIs.
Like you, I am excited about it for the sake of the community, though I’m hard pressed to find any reason to play games on my Android phone as it is. Android games are either ad infested junk that isn’t interesting to me, or open source and playable on Linux already.
I’ve messed around with Waydroid because it sounds cool in theory, but every time I get it installed, I’m like “now what?” I can’t think of anything to actually do with it, so I imagine it’ll be the same for Lepton.
Still, very cool to have the options, and I’m happy that Linux is getting more attention as a preferred platform such that gaming companies recognize the value in supporting translation layers for it.
I think a SteamOS gaming phone would make sense for Valve tbh. There is a market there that is untapped that they could pursue with gusto! Handheld, PC, VR, and phone would close the loop nicely i think.
It’s not going to be effortless. That’s not really the goal. Anything that uses Google Play Services is going to be a problem still as the underlying service layer just mocks out those API calls a la Waydroid. They’re working more on the FEX stuff from what I’ve seen in the repos.
Google Pain Services*
I thought Lepton was being built on top of Waydroid? So technically you can already use the core feature of Lepton today.
If I had to guess, it’ll be released as part of the Steam Machine SteamOS update?
I’m using waydroid and some apps don’t work at all even if I installed translation layer. But 90% of the apps should work.
valve tends to do that. they might be working on it, they might not.
maybe we will see it come out all of a sudden a few years from now.
Is Lepton even officially announced? I assume at the moment Valve is highly occupied with other work. They probably just don’t have too much time at the moment.
Yes. Officially announced. Multiple times. IIRC the last time was at GDC, in their presentation deck.
