Can I change how Waydroid works?

O.o.

Currently, tapping on an Android app icon in the UT menu results in Waydroid spinning up, LineageOS booting up and the app starting "rootless" so-to-speak (meaning you can't escape out of the app to the underlying LineageOS home screen). Then when you swipe the screen out in UT, it kills Waydroid.

But there are two problems with that approach:

If one Android app is running, you can't start another. You have to kill the container to redo the whole rigmarole with the new app.
I need to run Molly (Signal fork) permanently in the background, and also the Chargie app for my charge limiter. That means I have to keep one of them up (not both) and be very, very careful not to close it. And then I can't use anything else while it's running.

Would there be a way to modify how Waydroid work and make it start the container empty at startup time, then spawn apps in it from the UT menu - and when the app is swiped away, it kills the app, not the entire container.

Side question - related to this problem, but not just: is there a way to keep an app running silently in the background and hide its window without stopping it?

kugiigi

@O.o. Waydroid has a mode that displays apps in separate windows however that doesn't work well yet in UT. So the best way to use Waydroid, for now, is to open Waydroid with the Waydroid app icon and use it like an Android phone in a window.

O.o.

@kugiigi said in Can I change how Waydroid works?:

So the best way to use Waydroid, for now, is to open Waydroid with the Waydroid app icon and use it like an Android phone in a window.

Okay thanks for the heads-up!

Yeah that's kind of what I do right now. But it's dicey because I have to remember not to swipe the Waydroid window out.

Also, it feels a bit like a defeat: I'm trying to get away from Android, and what I end up doing is running Android in a UT sandbox to get the apps I need going. At this point, I reasonably ask myself what the point of the UT middleware is at all: I might as well run LineageOS directly.

Also, I'm trying to prepare for next year when effing Google effectively kills sideloading and F-Droid, and relying on a LineageOS VM and Android apps doesn't move me any further away from that particular problem.

Hmm...

Moem

@O.o. said in Can I change how Waydroid works?:

I'm trying to get away from Android, and what I end up doing is running Android in a UT sandbox to get the apps I need going.

True, but that's the same whether or not you can see the sandbox.

Personally I see Waydroid as a crutch. It's better not to need it, but it's there if you do. And if you only run Waydroid every now and then, as many of us do then most of the time you are effectively not using any kind of Android.