How do I install an Android emulator on Fedora Budgie, or if possible, Android x86 within a virtual machine on Fedora Budgie?
The Android Studio development environment includes the official Android emulator and can be installed either as a Flatpak from Flathub, using the Linux package provided by Google (installation instructions), or via the JetBrains Toolbox application, since Android Studio is co-developed by JetBrains and Google.
You don’t need a JetBrains subscription to download and install Android Studio using their Toolbox application. I use it since I have a subscription for their other development tools.
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To add to what Linh mentioned, another option is Genymotion Desktop (free for personal use). Under the hood, I think the emulator that’s running might be the same but Genymotion uses different images and has some nicer quality of life features that the Android Studio emulator is lacking (i.e. window maximizing & fullscreen modes). Another option is Waydroid if you want something that integrates nicely with your desktop environment.
Note: If you are using an Nvidia GPU Waydroid will not be able to use it for graphics acceleration and will fallback to software rendering. Android Studio’s emulator and Genymotion both support Nvidia GPUs.
If you’re going to be using any ARM-based applications, I highly recommend just going with the Android Studio emulator as the images Google provides for Android 11 and greater have ARM translation tooling baked in. With Genymotion/Waydroid you need to sort that out yourself and you’ll likely be stuck with Android 11 or earlier. That being said, if you do want to try Genymotion with ARM-based apps (particularly for gaming), I made a guide for myself when I used it. For Waydroid (though I have not used it) I believe this is the go-to guide for setting up ARM support among other things.
Hope something here is helpful!
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I saw your post asking about the OTA field. In case you still need it, take a look at the Fedora section of the setup guide.
Sure Eric