Android-x86, a port of the Android operating system for the x86 platform that allows users to experience a mobile OS as a desktop experience, has been updated to version 4.4-r4 and is now ready for testing.

Android-x86 is a Linux distribution that gives users an experience identical to that of the regular Android OS from Google. It’s not just an imitation of that OS; it’s Android running on a PC. The difference is that it’s modified to use a proper Linux kernel, mouse, and keyboard.

If you think about it, Android is a Linux distribution under all those clothes. The biggest difference is that it’s not using the regular Linux kernel, but it’s not hard to imagine that porting the OS to the regular desktop is not a big stretch.

What's changed in latest Android-x86

Android-x86 looks just like the vanilla Android that you can find on Nexus phones, but that’s the point of the distribution. Sure, it works on large displays, but it’s also a perfect base for other projects, like Remix. Since this is an upgrade for the 4.4 branch, don’t expect to see any major changes. It’s still using Android 4.4 Kit Kat as the base, so this has remained the same.

"The Android-x86 4.4-r4 is based on the 4.4-r3 release. It mainly addresses the hazi fonts issue of Mesa 10.5.9 found in some GPUs. Besides, the EFI ISO support is back-ported to this release. That means the ISO is bootable from a UEFI device. The kernel is updated to 4.0.9 with patches to support more peripherals like MS Surface series,” the official announcement reads.

The developers have also explained that it’s probably the last one in the series, so the next one will be based on Marshmallow instead.

You can download the Android-x86 4.4 R4 Linux distribution from Softpedia if you want to take it for a spin. You can use this Linux distribution in Live mode, and you don't need to install it.