Install the Google Play Store in Anbox (Linux)

These are the instructions I use to install the Google Play Store in Anbox on a Linux Computer. Once installed you should be able to log into the Google Play Store with your account and install google apps.

There are basically three things you need to do make this work

  • Install Anbox.io
  • Install Dependencies: wget curl lzip tar unzip squashfs-tools
  • Script from Geeks-r-us at Github to install the Google Play Store: install-playstore.sh

Anbox, or Android in a Box, is a free and open source tool that allows running Android applications on Linux. It works by running the Android runtime environment in an LXC container, recreating the directory structure of Android as a mountable loop image, while using the native Linux kernel to execute applications.


Using Anbox, each Android application or game is launched in a separate window, just like system applications, and they behave more or less like regular windows, showing up in the launcher, can be tiled, etc.

By default, Anbox doesn't ship with the Google Play Store or support for ARM applications. To install applications you must download each app APK and install it manually using adb.

Before using this, I'd like to make it clear that not all Android applications and games work in Anbox, even after integrating libhoudini for ARM support. Some Android applications and games may not show up in the Google Play Store at all, while others may be available for installation but will not work.

These are the Instructions.

1. Install Anbox according to the instructions on their website at anbox.io. Also, make sure you run anbox.appmgr at least once after installing Anbox and before using this script, to avoid running into issues. Also, make sure Anbox is not running when executing the script below.

2. Install the required dependencies (wget, lzip, unzip and squashfs-tools).

In Debian, Ubuntu or Linux Mint, use this command to install the required dependencies:

sudo apt install wget curl lzip tar unzip squashfs-tools

3. Download and run the script that automatically downloads and installs Google Play Store (and Google Play Services) and libhoudini (for ARM apps / games support) on your Android in a Box installation. This is on Github at https://github.com/geeks-r-us/anbox-playstore-installer

To download the script and make it executable, use these commands in a terminal:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geeks-r-us/anbox-playstore-installer/master/install-playstore.sh

and

chmod +x install-playstore.sh

4. Now you can run the script:

./install-playstore.sh

5. To get Google Play Store to work in Anbox, you need to enable all the permissions for both Google Play Store and Google Play Services

To do this, run Anbox:

anbox.appmgr

6. Then go to Settings > Apps > Google Play Services > Permissions and enable all available permissions. Do the same for Google Play Store!

7. You should now be able to go to the Google Play store and download any app you see available. Remember.... they may not all work.

Posted in Linux Desktop Tips, Linux Network Admin Tips, Uncategorized on Jun 17, 2020