@brywilson In order to use Google Play Services you would have to use something like this: https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/07/anbox-how-to-install-google-play-store.html (but it would most certainly require adapting at least to ARM + I have no idea what the script does, haven't looked at it). So simply said you can't use some things without installing GApps and you can't install GApps without some tweaking.

Hi,
since Anbox is finally here and usable more than ever before, who wouldn't want to play with it.

Unfortunately only the most powered devices were selected for this right now - leaving MX4 behind. But thanks to Marius arale is now in too :).

So, either build it on your own or download a boot image for arale here:
https://gitlab.com/zubozrout/kernel_arale (kernel patched with anbox stuff)
https://iubuntu.cz/mx4/arale-boot-anbox-canonical.img
https://iubuntu.cz/mx4/arale-boot-anbox-ubports-old.img
https://iubuntu.cz/mx4/arale-boot-anbox-ubports-latest.img (I'd recommend this one as it has the latest initrd.img)

Then continue by installing the above images just as mentioned here:
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1676/development-testers-for-anbox

If the image is flashed and your system booted up you should be able to check anbox binder is available eg. like this:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ file /dev/anbox-binder
/dev/anbox-binder: character special (511/0)

Installing Anbox may become a bit tricky since we have little space to operate with - so remount your / partition rw as mentioned in the original post, update and upgrade via apt, create some folder in your home, called e.g. "anbox" and do this:
apt -o Dir::Cache::Archives=/home/phablet/anbox install anbox-ubuntu-touch

Now we are almost there. You can now delete that new folder in home with all its content.

However in order for the last step: anbox-tool install to work you'll need to do this:

sudo nano /usr/bin/anbox-tool

and edit this line (it is one of the first lines of code, bellow the license comment):
DEVICES_URL = "https://iubuntu.cz/mx4/devices.json" (not leaving anything after it - on this line)

No we have swapped the json file which it checks against with our own containing arale in the list.

Now just do the mentioned anbox-tool install - it will take a while. And you are good to go :).

Enjoy

PS. Thank you very much Marius for your precious time and very valuable help with this :).

(

Xenial is still in a development state - you will have to wait until Dekko is released for Xenial (should be currently in development) or you can use one of the existing WebApps or access your email via web browser if your provider provides a web access to your inbox.

Here is OSMScout built for Xenial: https://iubuntu.cz/apps/osmscout.fransschreuder_0.5.5_armhf.click
It sort of works on MX4 but has all its flaws it always had.

I am not an author of this app, so I don't understand how it works :), but if anyone wants to update it here is a Xenial compatible source that can be built using clickable:
https://gitlab.com/zubozrout/OSMScout-ubuntu/tree/master/OSMScout

@ingo Yup, the dependencies are still not in the images unfortunately so it may not survive OTA updates for some. But for me the browser still works and I only had to install the packages once :).

@flohack You are of course right, but it is not just that. Look at the other side of the coin - Microsoft hurt Linux a lot in the past. Among well known examples I could even share a local example: In 2000 Microsoft almost destroyed a computer selling company named Mironet because they preferred Linux. They had their computers confiscated for almost 2 years based on Microsoft telling police they have illegal software on their PCs - which turned out not to be true. Before this all happened they were the biggest computer selling company in the Czech republic and because of this other company (Alza) took their place instead (czech source). And not much has changed now with things like this.

In any case I don't intend to spam here. Just wanted to say I don't trust Microsoft - but maybe they are better now than in the past. And I understand that GitHub had issues and had to act. Regarding myself I wasn't sure whether I should move my own projects over to GitLab or stay until I read this thread's first post. But it is of course much easier to move a few projects of mine not relying on anything than such a complex infrastructure UBports has. And therefore I agree with you the move should note be based solely on the fact Microsoft has taken over the service as it works well for the project now and would require quite a lot of resources to proceed with the move.

Who knows what Microsoft plans for GitHub. But it surely will no longer be what it used to be as so many people moved away in the last day or so. And I must say I miss the nice, simple and straightforward interface on GitLab.

I strongly dislike Microsoft and all their stand for - based on what they did in the past the company is not to be trusted no matter how well they may disguise their actions nowadays. But as some people realise there should be no rush on this - take the time. Just be ready in case Microsoft is about to introduce their "better" new services that will limit everything and cost money as a bonus.

@advocatux Funny. I had two OTA updates since I first installed the browser and it still works. That is click is obviously still there but I didn't have to reinstall the deb packages either. So maybe those dependencies landed in the system base already? ( haven't checked though)

This is cool :). The old browsers crashes for me a lot, e.g. https://github.com/ubports/webbrowser-app/issues/26
But with this one all seems to work quite well so far.

There are only a few minor issues I've noticed including the ones mentioned:

• you can't search anything but a valid url put in address bar (so e.g. Google search won't work)
• scaling is probably a bit too low on MX4 (but it would be cool if this could be also adjustable via some settings like on Desktop)

Anyway, once the keyboard avoidance is resolved and all the dependencies are part of system images I will very happily switch over :).

Thank you very much for letting us try this.

Ok, so there is this ppa https://launchpad.net/~bhdouglass/+archive/ubuntu/clickable with the latest forked package that is even available for bionic :). And it has xenial app support. With that reviewing the packages should work correctly.