How To Run Apks on Linux

Last updated: June 18th, 2020

For Android development on Linux, we need following...

1. Java 8
2. Android studio for the (apk) app development
3. Android Emulator for (apk) app testing

Bonus Section:

1. How to install APKs on Anbox

Make sure you have Java 8 installed. You should see following message once you have Java 8 installed.

java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_242"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_242-b08)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.242-b08, mixed mode)

How to install Android Studio on Linux

To install Android studio, first download the Android Studio Linux package from following link.

android-studio-ide-193.6514223-linux.tar.gz

https://developer.android.com/studio

Untar the file and create the following link...

tar -xvf android-studio-ide-193.6514223-linux.tar.gz
mv android-studio /opt
ln -s /opt/android-studio/bin/studio.sh /usr/local/bin/android-studio

Ok now let us test it by running following command...

android-studio

If you see following GUI, it means. Android studio is successfully running on your Linux.

How to install Android Emulator Anbox on Linux

To install Anbox, we need to install snap first. Snap is a package manager for different software installations on Linux. We can install snap using yum as shown below.

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install snapd
sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket
sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap

Once you have snap installed and enabled. Do following to install Anbox

sudo snap install anbox --beta

Well Anbox, doesn't come with Google Play Store, Therefore we need to install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) to install APKs in Anbox's virtual box.

How to install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) on Linux (Centos)

sudo yum install android-tools

Ok now we have ADB out of the way. Let us see now how we can download and install APKs in Anbox

How to download, upload and install APKs on Anbox

Go to apkmonk.com. You can upload as well download any APK. To download, go to apkmonk.com and go to the apk download page. Right click on the download button and copy the apk link, for example as shown below...

https://www.apkmonk.com/download-app/com.pubg.krmobile/4_com.pubg.krmobile_2020-04-27.apk/

Now on your Linux machine, run following command to download the app.

wget https://www.apkmonk.com/download-app/com.pubg.krmobile/4_com.pubg.krmobile_2020-04-27.apk/

How to install APK using ADB

Once you have the desired apk downloaded. Fire up the ADB server like this...

adb devices

The above command will start the ADB service and list Anbox as one of the emulators.

Now run the following command to install apk on the emulator.

adb install name-of-your_app.apk