Android 16 May Support Linux Graphic Apps

Google expanded the capabilities of the terminal emulator from access to a full Linux environment performed in a virtual machine. During the development of the Android 16 branch in Terminal, support for launching graphic applications compiled for Linux was introduced.

In the virtual machine for Linux applications, hardware acceleration of graphics is implemented. To create a graphic environment, the composite Weston server is used with the WAYLAND protocol. The launch of X11 applications is carried out using the XWAYLAND DDX component. To create a graphic session in the Terminal application, a separate button and activity “Display” were added.

The Terminal application is developed in the repository AOSP (Android Open Source Project) as part of the main Android platform but the ability to launch graphic applications did not become part of the first beta release of Android 16. Enthusiasts experimented with an assembly based on the fresh AOSP code base and demonstrated the launch of the Terminal game Doom on the Pixel 9 Pro smartphone. One of the limitations noted was the absence of sound support.


In addition to the graphic session in Android 16 in Terminal, the installation process has been improved, and settings menus have been added through which users can change the size of the disk image, enable network port redirection, and reset the environment to its original state.


The functionality of the virtual machine with Linux is being developed as part of the

/Reports, release notes, official announcements.