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Can you convert an android apk to a linux package? (mander.xyz)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz to c/android

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Supposing we have an open source android app, (how) could one convert it to a linux distro package? (Like for debian, nixos, etc.)

Android is essentially a linux distro if I get it correctly, a heavily modified one.

Many android apps are written with java and the newer ones tend to go with kotlin, which I think should be able to run cross-platform.

Would hard of an attempt would this be?

Edit: Thank you people! From what I gather android is very far from the rest of linux distros (practically having in common only a few parts of the kernel) and the fact that apps tend to be written in java/kotlin doesnt have much of a difference if they are not built in a way that makes the cross-platform compatible (like godot engine does). Those apps will probably need to do many system calls to the android OS, soI can't just compile them for a different architecture. I'd either need an android translation layer or an emulator to run them.

Unrelated, but cool to see some familiar usernames:)

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[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You can't directly convert the app to make it natively android; android is too different for that. The app is built to use the whole android OS, not just the kernel (which is forked from linux). That means the android app is designed to run on mobile processors (usually ARM), and will be making calls to the android OS for everything.

You can't repackage it directly as a linux app. However there are emulators and translation layers that cannbebused to run android apps within linux.

Waydroid for example allows android apps to run using android containers in linux. Anbox is also a container approach to running android apps. Both these approaches essentially translate for the android apps, and reduce the overhead asnthey dont have to emulate everything and can directly pass instruction to the linux host system. You can also use full virtualization to emulate an android device and run a whole virtual device. This would have a bit more overhead though.

I'm not aware of tools that can be used to compile android apps from source in to linux apps. It could be done in theory but would be complex due to the degree of translation of android APIs needed. Again compiling into some kind of container approach (I. E. Compile to include anbox or waydroid) might be doable but would bloat the app. I dont think there is the demand for that kink of approach when building in containers into Linux (and Windows) allows direct reuse of the android apks.