What is Remix OS?
Remix OS is a fork of Android, made to work on x86 processors. In theory it can allow any PC — running on a x86 chip — to be able to run Android. Had that been all it could do no one would be writing about this. It would be a nice experiment to have, but nothing more.
Remix OS however, is something more than just a port for PC chips, it modified Android in a way that allows it to do more than that just open the play store and use an app. Remix OS allows more than one app running at the same time, and on multiple windows. And by multiple windows I don´t mean the split screen Samsung has for a few years now — granted, Samsung also has windows mode on the Note line — or that Google is bringing to Android N, I mean actual windows, like you would have in a PC.
The key difference between what Samsung does with its Note line of phones and Remix OS is the availability to port to any laptop, if you’re so inclined to do so.
The Preparations
The first thing I did was to dust off an old HP Laptop I had. The last time I turned it on, Windows 8 was still a thing, because of that it was running Windows 7 and I installed Windows 10 Tech Preview. I needed to see if the thing was still able to boot up. It was, but there was an error on windows that made it impossible to load the OS all the way through.
Having that checked, I had to know if there was anything that would not work due to drivers. And here’s where I thought the troubles would start.
In the Remix OS page, I couldn’t find a single reference to drivers. What if my WiFi didn’t work? Or even the Ethernet? Would I get a brick — not that it was problem since this particular machine already had the same functionality of a brick — or would it, by some black engineer magic, just work?
Without much to lose I decided to move on with my experience. Since I couldn’t load Windows I decided I would install the OS on a 32Gb USB dongle I had around and boot up the PC from there. The file wasn’t that big, with only 800 MB worth of OS to download it took me less than 3 minutes to have on my hard drive.
The installation process is pretty much like the explanation on the OS site, with a quick installation to the USB pen and then it just needed to be plugged in PC and booted up.
The Failure…
I wasn’t actually expecting the whole operation to work smoothly, but for my surprise it did.
I plugged the USB flash drive, it took me to the PC’s boot menu, I selected what I wanted and I looked in awe.
The OS loaded, although slowly, then it took me to the initial set up, like a new Android phone would and then it was available to play with. Only that, not really. Everything I described happened, but it was painfully slow. The track pad and WiFi worked like they should, but often time it would just freeze.
I even side loaded the Google Apps to see what it would be like. It was like playing using a low end android phone from circa 2010.
I just wasn’t ready to give up on this yet. In my mind, the fact that the OS was being side loaded through a USB 2.0 on a Laptop 7 years old.
I would persevere, I had a plan — I would completely format the computer and do a clean install of windows, then I would download Remix OS again, and install it in a partition. If after my set-up marathon I wasn’t successful, I’d call this experience of mine for what it was, a complete utter failure.
Continuing
Persevering, I downloaded the Windows 10 Media Installation Tool, installed it on my trusty USB flash drive, and installed it on the laptop.
I remember Windows 7 installation being quite fast. This was the opposite to it. It took around 1 hour of my life. One which I won’t ever get back. Onwards, for science!
After the fresh installation I downloaded once again Remix OS and installed it on my hard drive. The instructions on the site were clear, the first load would take some time. In fact, it can take a lot of time.
When I loaded the OS on the USB drive, it took indeed some time on the first load, which was around 10 minutes. This load however took a little more than that. I waited for over an hour for the first boot to finish — not as much waited as I was watching Netflix while I forgot the laptop was on my lap. After one hour of not booting, I decided to call it quits.
The end
I suppose there might be a place in the market for something like Remix OS. Since apple released the iPad Pro people are starting to use mobile operating systems to do productivity work. Although Google is starting to optimize the base Android Operating System to allow better productivity, it’s still not quite there. Remix OS however brings the potential of Android as a tool for productivity front and center, and that at least is an idea worth cherishing.
Meanwhile I’ll keep trying to run Remix OS through a USB Pen, perhaps on a desktop next.
For science!
Originally published at www.jc-pires.com.
