Lepton appears to be the new official name for Valve’s version of Waydroid (Android in a Linux container).
We still don’t have a whole lot of details about how this is all going to work, outside of Lepton enabling Android APKs for developers on the upcoming Steam Frame VR kit, but it’s now that little bit more official with a proper name and even a logo.
This seems like a big deal
It was a big deal when they announced it several weeks ago. It just flew under the radar for some reason. This is just putting a name to it.
It could bridge the app gap when Linux phones become viable daily drivers
Waydroid is GPLv3 and that’s great. Hopefully contributions will be upstreamed. Waydroid, Wine, FEX… Valve is contributing to great things!
Aw man, at first I thought this was an Android desktop OS. Android being in Google’s pocket is trash, but you gotta admit the Android permissions system would be an enormous privacy/security upgrade over nearly all other Linux distros, especially factoring in ease of use/understandability (speaking as someone with a functional Qubes setup).
I think it would be easier to beef up Flatpak’s permissions system than to become reliant on Google
Doesn’t flatpak achieve similar? Won’t ask for permission at runtime though.
Biggest two issues with Waydroid are x86 to ARM translation and correct GPU passthrough:
https://github.com/waydroid/waydroid/issues/2115
In theory, you should be able to just play Fortnite on linux this way, but I haven’t been able to get it to launch like this guy did.
People have also been calling Waydroid dead for a while now which I dont know how true it is.
Pretty sure Waydroid uses the x86 image of LineageOS, cus last time I used it (like a year or more ago) I had to get x86 version of APKs I wanted to install.
Waydroid is a container (like docker), not an emulator. So waydroid on its own on a regular x86 Computer will Run only x86 Android Apps, but if it were installed on an ARM machine (like one if the Snapdragon Laptops) it would run normal (ARM) Android Apps (and no x86).
To run any android app on x86 you need to emulate ARM, which waydroid doesn’t do on its own, but scripts exist to add it to waydroid; https://github.com/casualsnek/waydroid_script
I’m assuming Valves Lepton does all if the for you, as well as using some optimized settings for some of the most popular Apps.
When I last used Waydroid (also about a year ago) I had problems with GPU Acceleration not working. All I wanted was SmartTube on my HTPC, but all videos were insanely choppy and laggy, so I hope they focus on that a lo. (if anyone knows a way to get ad-free YouTube with a TV like interface for free on linux, please let me know :) (I’ve also tried Kodi with a YouTube Plug-In and while it worked, the interface was pretty ass, so I’m just using Firefox with UBlock and a Bluetooth Mouse+Keyboard, which works but it like to be able to control it using just a cheap USB remote that I have)
Yeah, I already understood that. I just thought the comment above was saying it already had ARM emulation, but it was bad or something. I just misunderstood what the above comment was saying.
Latest release was 2 weeks ago. Not sure how “dead” that is.
I’m not used to the Android ecosystem. Are there any good Android games I would want to play on my PC?
I recommend starting your game search here friend. https://f-droid.org/en/categories/games/
Thank you. I am decently underwhelmed.
First thing that comes to my mind is that one-off unmantained and cant be played anymore Dead Space game. Heard that it was great before they killed the support for it.
I can’t wait to use this on a Linux phone
