How Andronix Works
A quick look under the hood of Andronix, and how it uses Termux, PRoot, PulseAudio, VNC and XSDL to run Linux on Android without root.
Docs for Andronix app 8.x (Classic)
Andronix is simple under the hood (well, not entirely, but most of it is easy to understand). This page explains the building blocks Andronix uses to run your favorite Linux distribution on your Android device. The most important one is PRoot.
What is PRoot?
According to the official PRoot documentation:
PRoot is a user-space implementation of chroot, mount --bind, and binfmt_misc. This means that users don't need any privileges or setup to do things like using an arbitrary directory as the new root file system, making files accessible somewhere else in the file system hierarchy, or executing programs built for another CPU architecture transparently through QEMU user-mode.
In simpler words, PRoot lets you run Linux operating systems in a Termux chroot on an Android smartphone, tablet or Chromebook.
The building blocks
Here is how the pieces fit together:
- Termux provides the command line and the packages, specially compiled for Termux, that Andronix builds on.
- PRoot runs the Linux distributions inside Termux.
- PulseAudio provides sound support for the Linux distributions.
- XSDL and VNC provide a graphical user interface for the Linux distributions.
Next steps
- Read about the limitations of running Linux this way.
- Install a distro or try a Modded OS.
- Learn how to view your desktop with VNC.