Local Desktop helps you run a desktop Linux environment on your Android device.

Local Desktop is a Rust rewrite of the original Polar Bear project, which was written in Kotlin and C++. The aim of this rewrite is to make it more stable, portable, and able to do the development work on Android.

1. An Arch Linux ARM64 filesystem is set up inside the app's internal storage.
2. Proot mounts the filesystem and provides a chroot-like environment.
3. A minimal built-in Wayland compositor runs in Android NDK.
4. Rootful Xwayland & a desktop environment launches inside the chroot and renders back to the Android native activity.

Proof of Concept: A Pixel Tablet running the XFCE desktop environment inside a Proot-based ARM64 Linux. No configuration is required; just install and go.

Along with Rust, please make sure you have these components installed:

brew install llvm lld gradle@8

Then install our local version of xbuild:

cargo install --path patches/xbuild/xbuild
x build --release --platform android --arch arm64 --format apk

Alternatively, trigger the default build task by pressing Ctrl+Shift+B.

You can find the output APK in:

open target/x/release/android/gradle/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/

Recommended setup:

• IDE: Visual Studio Code

• Extensions:

  • Rust Analyzer
  • Android Debug
  • CodeLLDB

• Instructions:

  1. Open Visual Studio Code.
  2. Launch the [Android] Debug configuration from the debug panel. This will:
     • Build the Rust code into an APK.
     • Install the APK on a selectable device, and launch the app in debug mode.
     • Redirect stdout/stderr output to the terminal.

Tip: You can debug the app on either a physical device or a virtual device.

For more instructions on how to work on this project, please visit the Developer Manual.