Genymotion on SteamDeck Install Before you start Some quick house cleaning before you get started trying to get Genymotion installed. First, do a backup. The best practice is to always backup before you mess with the OS and file system in a way you are not familiar with. I’d recommend using a live USB like Clonezilla, and backing up a full copy of your main storage device to another drive, so you can restore everything if needed. Or not. Its your Deck, you do you, :D I’ll let you explore the plethora of videos on how to do that on YouTube. Second, remember that the guide and installation testing were done by a person who was excessively bored and wanted to find another way to say screw Windows. This is a PoC with some pleasant surprises and I hope you can find some enjoyment in it as well, and if you have an inside guy with one of the big android emulation tools, tell them to stop being lazy and make something proper for the Deck. Third, if you brick it, YOU are the one who bricked it. For those new to Linux/file systems, don’t be afraid beyond all reason. To avoid being afraid, do some research. The arch Linux man pages (manual pages) are very helpful in explaining what the commands are and what they do. Be sure you are comfortable with the instructions before doing so. With that said, if you like to live dangerously and just run random code and script from the internet, then skip to page 4, copy and paste it to your terminal and let it rip. :D again, you do you. Now, to the fun stuff. Set your user password If you have never made a password for your user, then you will need to do so by running the below command # set the password for the current user passwd Follow the prompts, which pretty much is just entering the password you want to use for your user when you request sudo (superuser do) level access with different commands. This is a need. Unlock the OS File system After that, you will want to unlock your file system. Sounds scarier than it really is, but be sure to lock it after you are done. Run the following command first to disable the lock on your steamos file system. If you don’t do this, then Genymotion and other dependencies will fail to install due to being denied access to write the files to the directories that it needs to, such as opt and usr. # unlock the file system sudo steamos-readonly disable Oh, and that password you set earlier? Yeah, it will ask you for that here, since only a superuser has permission to do it and your password is proof that you are who you say you are and that you are willing to commit that command. This is a need. Fix pacman and the keys This is the one step that you MAY be able to skip, but I’d recommend doing it anyway to avoid issues later on. After you unlock your file system you will want to fix up your PGP(GPG, same thing) keyring by re-initializing and populating it with valid keys. If you get a lot of messages historically about packages being corrupt or not able to identify the security/PGP key during an installation of some application, then it is likely your keyring needs to be cleaned up. I recommend just cleaning it at this point, just in case you have a bunch of out-of-date/corrupted/missing key associations. # sync the keyring sudo pacman -S archlinux-keyring # initialize pacmans keys with entropy sudo pacman-key --init # setup and populate/load the keys sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux This could take a little bit of time, but shouldn’t be too bad. Be sure to move your mouse around or finger across the trackpad during the second command to ensure that enough “randomness” is being generated for the key’s entropy. If you don’t know what that is, that is fine, but feel free to look up PGP encryption sometime if you are bored, and it should give you a good rundown on encryption and entropy in general. All your developer packages are belong to us* Now you can start to install some of the needed packages. If you try to skip this step and install Genymotion, you will likely get errors due to fakeroot not being available on your system yet. Run the below command to install any missing dev packages that are used for building/compiling. # installs all missing developer packages by default, just hit enter sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel Fair warning that this could take a little bit of time depending on what you are missing. If you get any errors at this stage that results in it failing to install the needed packages, then you likely did not run all of the commands before this one. I’d recommend going back to the three commands before base-devel failed and ensuring that all three ran without an issue. Once you do that, you can then re-run the base-devel command, BUT you may need to change it slightly as below. This version will reinstall ALL of the base-devel packages, which may not be a bad idea in case any of them were corrupted or affected by the failed command earlier, but shouldn’t be needed if you fixed the keys earlier. # installs all developer packages by default. not just missing. hit enter sudo pacman -S base-devel Install Genymotion Once you have base-devel installed, you can install genymotion, which fortunately is pretty easy! Run the following command and follow any prompts you are given. # almost there! Installs genymotion and its dependencies yay -Sy --noconfirm genymotion Once that is complete you can start up genymotion by either typing genymotion into the terminal, or by going to the taskbar and searching for it in your main menu and running it from there. For the lazy and trusting among you An all-in-one script that should take care of this stuff for you right here. Nothing complicated in it, just save it as a script file (test.sh, something.sh, cool_script_with_a_name_you_decide_on.sh, etc), and then run it. If you already have your password set for your user, then comment out the first command naturally. Save it somewhere else too if you want to quickly rerun it ever for whatever reason. #!/bin/bash # set the password for the current user passwd && # unlock the filesystem sudo steamos-readonly disable && # sync the keyring sudo pacman -S --noconfirm archlinux-keyring && # initialize pacmans keys with entropy sudo pacman-key --init && # setup and populate/load the keys sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux && # installs all developer packages by default. not just missing. hit enter sudo pacman -S --noconfirm --needed base-devel && # almost there! Installs genymotion and its dependencies yay -Sy --noconfirm genymotion && # lock that filesystem down again sudo steamos-readonly enabled Genymotion and Android Configuration Things you need At this stage you should now have a functional Genymotion desktop client. Pat yourself on the pack, pop open a beer (or whiskey, joint, whatever floats your boat), and relax knowing that you didn’t fubar your Deck. See? Wasn’t so scary. Now the fun part is seeing what it can do for you. Below are links to a few items that I highly recommend you leverage, and install in the order they are presented here as well. ARM Translation Packages: https://github.com/m9rco/Genymotion_ARM_Translation If you want to do anything, you pretty much need this. Installs the translation packages needed to execute programs that rely on the ARM architecture, specifically armv7 32-bit instruction which many (not all unfortunately) android apps require. Aurora Store: https://files.auroraoss.com/AuroraStore/Stable/AuroraStore_4.1.1.apk An alternative Play Store with Device and API spoofing features. Connects to Googles API to download the packages. 95% of apps will work with no issue, though google specific apps tend to misbehave…who would have guessed? OpenGapps: Built into Genymotion, just click the magic button that shows up in the instructions below! The setup Watch the video or follow the instructions below. The Videos Had to split it because it was too long to upload 😑 Genymotion setup: https://streamable.com/svhf3h Emulator setup: https://streamable.com/krovj8 The Written Word First things first, click the big pink button in the top right to begin creating an AVD (Android Virtual Device, essentially the VM) which you will be using to play all the games. I would recommend, but you do not have to do it naturally, that you select the Amazon Fire HD 8 as the device that the initial specs are based on. It has the correct resolution for the SD, an acceptable DPI, and you can up the core/memory, etc on it as well still. The main reason why I recommend this device though is because out of the 10 or so I have tested, this device seems to still have a fairly well-supported amount of applications in the play store by default, and a custom device would not work with the play store at all without some black magic. Before you ask, sorry but no, I won’t show you how to make a custom device work. It gets into the weeds if you want to have all play services supported and I can’t support the masses of people that would likely have issues. So follow the KISS method, and just start with the Amazon Fire HD 8. Or not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My settings are as follows in the screenshots, feel free to duplicate for now so you have a baseline, and then make a second AVD later with tweaks if you want to see how different settings affect your performance. BE SURE TO SELECT ANDROID 9 DURING THE SETUP! YOU CAN NOT CHANGE THE ANDROID VERSION OF THE DEVICE AFTER IT IS CREATED! Instead, you will have to start over and waste another minute of your life setting it up again. 😀 General System Display Android Options Android Configuration Immediately after following the steps above it will start the machine for you. The first boot could take a bit longer than usual, don’t worry about it. If it takes more than 5 minutes, kill it and start it again. Eventually, you will see this screen. Translation Package Once you do you will want to ensure that you downloaded both the translation package and the Aurora store package from the links on page 5. See below for what the files should look like when you have downloaded them. Got them? Good! Now have both your downloads folder up on one side of the screen, and the android emulator running on the other side. Then drag-and-drop the translation package ONLY onto the emulator's window. Doing so will begin the process of installing it. Accept the prompts, and have it restart when completed. Aurora Store So is the Aurora Store needed? No, but yes. No, because you can use the play store app that can be installed via the Open GAPPS installation to download a plethora of games and titles. HOWEVER! The play store doesn’t like it when you want to play a game or use an app that wasn’t made for your device, so it won’t show all of the titles that you could play. Also, if you don’t want to associate your Gmail account with the emulator as much, or flat-out don’t have a google account, then the Play store probably isn’t for you. So here enters the Aurora Store. It connects to Google's API and source to download the applications from the play store for you, and it allows you to spoof your device type/API level as needed to get those games that the play store won’t let you see. I recommend giving it a go. Some applications, like browsers or anything that is Google based, should be downloaded from the Play store or direct from the provider on the internet because they have some extra hidden dependencies (typical) that you can only really get from them directly or the play store, so there is that. But for all of your gaming needs, both stores should give you access to everything you are after! To install, drag and drop the file onto the emulator window and follow the prompts. GAPPS If you need to install GAPPS, then click on the button on the right-hand side called Open GAPPS. This will install the Open GAPPS package which is a collection of Google services that make the android VM serviceable. See the screenshot if you can’t find it. After you have done that, it will again ask you to confirm, and then select restart when the installation finishes so it will restart your VM for the final time. When it finishes restarting, drag and drop the Aurora store package onto the emulator, and follow its install prompts. Grant it access to all the things, sign in anonymously, and voila! You now have the emulator ready to go! Emulator in Action ARKNIGHTS: https://streamable.com/bgiiwq Pokemon Unite: https://streamable.com/zbyl1y Sonic 2: https://streamable.com/xigzel Fate of the Grand Order: https://streamable.com/fnr7vr Tales of the Rays: https://streamable.com/2ihiro Plants V Zombies 2 (Sorry accidentally muted audio): https://streamable.com/y8ypzi Starwars Galaxy of Heros: https://streamable.com/mzcp7m
