Guide to installing Anbox on Volla

[TotalSonic]

UT community developer Rudi Timmermans posted a nice guide on how to get Anbox working with Volla on Gitlab here -
https://gitlab.com/Xray2000/Anbox-on-Volla-Phone

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[poVoq]

So this runs a 32bit armhf image somehow on a 64bit device? Will this the way other 64bit devices will also get Anbox in the future?

Anyone working on an actual 64bit Android image compatible with Anbox?

[stanwood]

@povoq I confirm Anbox works on Vollaphone, but only very few apps are usable now (whatsapp ok), most of them just crash and can't be opened.
No idea if someone works on an arm64 Anbox version.

[TotalSonic]

@stanwood - what impacts to battery life have you seen by installing Anbox?
I have yet to try Anbox for any UT device I have, but the only Android apps I would want to install are things like Simpletask (for which there are a number of UT native options available for though) as well as ridesharing apps (like Lyft and Uber, but which I don't know whether would work in Anbox) - but I am doubtful the impact on battery life would be worth installing Anbox for me.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[stanwood]

@totalsonic Not a huge difference as I noticed. But using apps in Anbox consume more battery power.
Now, I've tried a few apps in Anbox, and almost all of them do crash shortly after opening:

Aliexpress
Wish
MyCSS
Project make over (game)

However, Whatsapp does work fine.

For this reason I did disable Anbox, until some further development will be done.
I've made those tests using my Nexus 5 as well as my spouse's Vollaphone. Results are identical on both devices.

On Nexus 5 I could upgrade Anbox using the command:

anbox-tool upgrade

But I have not seen any change
This command however doesn't work with the Vollaphone (unsupported device: yggdrasil)

I presume the best is to try 1 by 1 each app that you need, hoping some of them will work

[AppLee]

@totalsonic said in Guide to installing Anbox on Volla:

Lyft and Uber, but which I don't know whether would work in Anbox

Apps within Anbox won't have access to the GPS data so it might be problematic as those services use GPS coordinates.
I don't know how those apps work so I don't know if there is an option to set the location manually (but I doubt it).
And maybe a webapp can do the trick with manual location too (Morph and webapps also do not have access to your position).

[TotalSonic]

@applee - thanks, I was unaware that Anbox apps have no access to gps locaton, but that makes sense.
Anyway - there are in fact some webapps that can access location if permission is granted to it, e.g. the Here maps webapp, as well as the Lyft webapp that I made with Webapp Creator (that can at least hail a ride, but does not have most of the other features that the Android app enables).

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[PerlMax]

@totalsonic Unfortunately the guide to install Anbox is not online any more. On https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/dailyuse/anbox.html it is said, that you have to install the Anbox kernel after each Ubuntu Touch update. Otherwise one can put the UT device on an unstable state.

Can someone tell me how to install or update Anbox. I have installed it some times ago, but after some UT updates WhatsApp indeed crashes often

Thanks in advance,
Max