Q4OS Forum

chickenlittle

Member

Registered: 2021-02-21

Posts: 5

Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

Hello, I am new to Linux and consider myself somewhat computer literate but not Linux literate. I installed Q4OS on my 10+ year old netbook and I love it. It’s much faster than Windows 7 Starter.

I also installed Android-x86 on a third partition from a bootable usb.

I followed the instructions from askubuntu website (how-to-i-use-androidx86-ubuntu-dualboot) on how to set up the dual boot.

These are the steps I took:

1) I entered this in the terminal.
sudo -i
nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom

2) I added these 4 lines at the end of the file:
menuentry "Android-x86" {
set root='(hd0,1)'
linux /android-5.1-rc1/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=generic_x86 acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode SRC=/android-5.1-rc1
initrd /android-5.1-rc1/initrd.img}

3) Press and hold ctrl, x, then press y, and then press Enter.

4) I entered this in the terminal:
sudo chmod +x /etc/grub.d/40_custom
sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

5) I pressed the “Shift” button as the computer was booting.

A prompt appeared giving me the option to select either Q4OS or Android-x86. (screen shot #2)

When I selected Android-x86, everything seemed to be going well. (screen shots #3 and #4)
Early console in decompress_kernel
Decompressing Linux… Parsing ELF… No relocation needed… done.
Booting the kernel.
Detecting Android-x86… found at /dev/sda1

However, I got stuck on a black screen with flashing cursor. (screen shot #5)

The screen kept switching between screens #4 and #5 as if it was stuck in a loop.

When I pressed enter, I got the following: root@x86:/. (screen shot #6)
At that point, I powered off the computer by pressing the power button.

Every time the computer boots and I don’t press the shift button, it automatically loads Q4OS which is fine. But now, I cannot access Android-x86.

I tried attaching the screenshots but got the message that I am not allowed to post links.

Specs:
Asus Eee PC X101CH netbook
Q4OS (q4os-3.14-i386-instcd.r2.iso) on two partitions: ext4/ and swap
Android-x86 5.1 (android-x86-5.1-rc1.iso) on third partition: I think I formatted this partition as ext4 but I can’t remember. Would the partition format matter for dual boot?

I would greatly appreciate any help with this issue.

Thank you.

chickenlittle

Member

Registered: 2021-02-21

Posts: 5

Re: Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

I installed the basic Q4OS Desktop with common utilities, system tools and libraries.

Tolkem

Member

Registered: 2019-10-06

Posts: 487

Re: Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

Try this: edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom and change:

menuentry "Android-x86" {
set root='(hd0,1)'
linux /android-5.1-rc1/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=generic_x86 acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode SRC=/android-5.1-rc1
initrd /android-5.1-rc1/initrd.img}

so it looks like this:

menuentry "Android-x86" {
set root='(hd0,1)'
linux /android-5.1-rc1/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=generic_x86 acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode SRC=/android-5.1-rc1
initrd /android-5.1-rc1/initrd.img
}

I haven't tried this dual-boot but I do know that's not the proper way to close a function. Also, did you read here https://www.android-x86.org/installhowto.html there's this:

Multi-Boot

To boot other operating systems, you have to add items for them to /grub/menu.lst. For example, to boot Windows, add the following:
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

This assumes Windows is installed to the first partition of the first hard disk. Alternatively, you need to change rootnoverify to the appropriate value. See Grub Manual for details.

Hope this helps!

Last edited by Tolkem (2021-02-26 19:32)

chickenlittle

Member

Registered: 2021-02-21

Posts: 5

Re: Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

Hi Tolkem, thank you for your help.

After numerous hours of research I found what the problem was. I was on the verge of giving up but got lucky because the last thing I had up my sleeve worked.

After writing my original post, I did not know where to start so I started by removing Q4OS and installing only Android-x86 5.1 on the Asus Eee PC. After the installation from the bootable USB, I was able to use Android-x86 because I selected to run the OS instead of rebooting the computer. So, I played around with the OS and at some point decided to restart the computer. When I restarted the computer, I got the following message: "GRUB loading, please wait...Error 17". I concluded that the problem was not the Android-x86 OS or the Linux OS. There was a discrepancy in accessing Andorid-x86 from the boot menu. I reinstalled Q4OS and Android-x86.

Long story short, after googling for hours and trying different things with the code in "/etc/grub.d/40_custom", I discovered that I had to change the "device hardware name" (I don't know what the technical term is).

androidboot.hardware=generic_x86 was the part that needed to be corrected.

Instead of "generic_x86", I tried "eeepc", "asus_laptop" as per suggestions on some websites but still nothing.

And then somehow, I stumbled accros a website that suggested to use "android_x86" instead of "generic_x86".

And that worked. It's just too bad that the Asus Eee PC hardware is not strong enough for Android-x86 versions of 6 and higher. And versions 4 and 5 are quite limited.

chickenlittle

Member

Registered: 2021-02-21

Posts: 5

Re: Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

One thing is for sure, Q4OS is much faster than Windows 7 Starter on this netbook. What a difference!

Tolkem

Member

Registered: 2019-10-06

Posts: 487

Re: Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

One thing is for sure, Q4OS is much faster than Windows 7 Starter on this netbook. What a difference!

Yeah, Q4OS is pretty fast on my HP notebook too. How much RAM does your machine have? I was looking this thread with interest as I too would like to run android on this HP. Have tried VMs but the only one which "works" is KitKat and that one is way too old.

chickenlittle

Member

Registered: 2021-02-21

Posts: 5

Re: Q4OS and Android-x86 Dual Boot

The Asus Eee PC X101CH has 1 GB of RAM. The processor is Intel Atom N2600 @ 1.60GHz.

The computer freezes during the setup of android versions 6 and above after the installation.