Quick Start Guide

This guide will walk you through the essential steps to get Waydroid up and running.

1. Initialize Waydroid

Before you can use Waydroid, it needs to be initialized. This process downloads the latest Android system and vendor images and sets up the necessary configuration files. This command requires root privileges.

sudo waydroid init

This might take some time as it downloads several hundred megabytes of data.

2. Start the Waydroid Session

With initialization complete, you can start a Waydroid session. A session launches the necessary background services that manage the container and integrate it with your host system. This command should be run as a regular user, not with sudo.

waydroid session start

This command will start and then run in the background. The Waydroid container itself will be started automatically by this service.

To verify that the services are running, you can use the status command:

waydroid status

You should see output indicating that the Session and Container are running.

3. Launch an Application

By default, Waydroid does not display the full Android UI. Instead, you launch individual apps. You can launch the default Android launcher to get a desktop-like experience.

waydroid show-full-ui

This will open a window displaying the Android home screen.

4. Install an Application

You can install Android applications from an APK file using the app install command.

waydroid app install /path/to/your/app.apk

Once installed, the application will appear in your desktop's application menu under a "Waydroid" category.

5. Stop the Waydroid Session

When you are finished using Waydroid, you can stop the session to free up system resources. This will terminate the container and all related services.

waydroid session stop

This will gracefully shut down the Android container and all associated services.