User-facing hardware virtualization support in our next OS release

linuxaki88

That's something i've been waiting for so long. Desktop mode right know sucks. Is there a future plan to be something like Dex mode (visually i mean), or this is something that AOSP must do? And when can we expect next release?

GrapheneOS

linuxaki88 Android is in the process of implementing a greatly overhauled desktop mode. The current one available via developer options is a legacy proof of concept. We plan to enable several feature flags to provide the partial overhauled implementation that's already available under the hood. It's not going to be as good as the final implementation yet but we can make what's already there available to users.

Serg

Will be ability to run Linux Virtual Environment without activating it in developer settings?
Can i run Linux Virtual Environment in secondary profile?

de0u

Serg Will be ability to run Linux Virtual Environment without activating it in developer settings?

Developer settings are for features that are unstable, don't fully work, and/or are needed by developers doing debugging on devices without private data. Once virtualization support is ready for users, it will be possible to access it via regular settings and apps (as is the case for other features that are ready for users).

leafnose

de0u
Is there not also another category of features in Developer Options, only related to battery life? I was under the impression that this was at least the case for the Wi-Fi scan throttling feature, and that it involved no risk. Was I wrong?

relay

I have build 2025030800 installed on my Pixel 8. I enabled Linux development environment and installed Terminal app. It constantly keeps crashing. Is it not stable yet?

matchboxbananasynergy

relay

For our next release after 2025030800, we've added support for the Android 15 QPR2 Terminal for running other operating systems using hardware virtualization. It's currently only a terminal but Android is adding support for graphics and GPU acceleration for a future release.

You'll be able to use it on the next release.

de0u

relay I have build 2025030800 installed on my Pixel 8. I enabled Linux development environment and installed Terminal app. It constantly keeps crashing. Is it not stable yet?

The first words of the first post in this thread are "For our next release after 2025030800". If you are running 2025030800 then you are not running the release after 2025030800.

yore

GrapheneOS Wow, this is huge! I'd love to try this out.

As for GrapheneOS support on desktop, is there a timeline yet as to when this might be available?

relay

de0u Sorry, my bad. Optimizing information behavior, you know.

GrapheneOS

Here's the new release with support for it:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20670-grapheneos-version-2025030900-released

Terminal app flaky for the initial setup and we'll work on fixing that next.

cdflasdkesalkjfkdfkjsdajfd

I'm at the march 8 version but I can't locate the terminal app. Where is? Tjanks

GrapheneOS

cdflasdkesalkjfkdfkjsdajfd You need 2025030900 and it's in developer options.

raskolnikov9

GrapheneOS It seems to be available in the owner profile only, correct? Any plans to make it available to other user profiles later down the road?

robert

GrapheneOS You need 2025030900 and it's in developer options.

I'm on 2025030800, but still can see the setting in developer options.

When I enable the setting I can see the Terminal app. After starting it, I can see the message that it needs to download some data. Then it crashes with this error message:

type: crash
osVersion: google/panther/panther:15/BP1A.250305.019/2025030800:user/release-keys
flags: dev options enabled
package: com.android.virtualization.terminal:35, targetSdk 35
process: com.android.virtualization.terminal

signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -1 (SI_QUEUE), fault addr --------
Abort message: 'In context processing binder RPC command (where RpcServer::setPerSessionRootObject is used to distinguish callers), getCallingUid does not make sense (binder sp: 0x0, guard: 0xe24c217424d0).

GrapheneOS

We've backported major improvements to this feature for our next release after 2025030900 including terminal tabs, GUI support with opt-in GPU hardware acceleration (ANGLE-based VirGL until GPU virtualization support is available), speaker/microphone support and fixes for a bunch of bugs including overly aggressive timeouts.

TrustExecutor

Would MTE still be used by the hypervisor in the case of virtualizing a guest OS?

Secureblue would be an interesting candidate due to hardened_malloc enabled system-wide.

GrapheneOS

TrustExecutor MTE can be used within virtual machines. GrapheneOS has been using it in microdroid virtual machines for a while which is a stripped down, very minimal form of the OS for running sandboxed low-level code without functionality like the higher level app runtime. Microdroid is barely used right now though.

GrapheneOS

raskolnikov9 It will be made available in other profiles in the future.

DeletedUser370

The Terminal app can still be used after you disable Developer options. 👍

GrapheneOS

leafnose Developer options are intended for app and OS development. That includes providing previews of experimental OS features for power users which are not yet considered stable and robust including this one. It will be moved out of developer options in GrapheneOS once it's a more mature feature.

You can see the documentation says the Wi-Fi scan scrolling toggle exists for local testing. Users may want to disable it for something like mapping Wi-Fi APs but that isn't really why developer options exist. They sometimes put little things there to provide a way for power users to work around something but that's bad design and should be avoided. Some of the things they've put there are highly misleading, broken features which should never be used despite looking like a good idea including the non-persistent MAC randomization toggle and many others.

Developer options are problematic. There's so much nonsense there with little care taken to remove legacy or broken options, or to fix ones which would still make sense if properly maintained. ADB takes it even further by giving a massive amount of access to all kinds of APIs where users can break tons of things in many ways with no easy way to undo it without a factory reset. People giving apps access to ADB shell via network ADB is deeply problematic.

leafnose

GrapheneOS
Thanks for the answer!

I guess that, in the end, Developer Options are also a sort of catch-all for things that no one had the heart to erase.
I understand that it’s bad design, but still, I used Wi-Fi scan throttling twice in order to fully use the WiFiAnalyzer app: is this option known to be problematic or is it one of those inconsequential little things?

I understood that the throttling, introduced in Android Pie, was supposed to be the new rule, but I was not aware that the toggle, introduced in 2019, was supposed to eventually get mature, or are you saying that it’s the GOS team that’s going to do it?