Some time ago, I noted that despite multiple attempts with different Linux distros, Windows 11 remained the best experience for a tablet PC (outside of fully mobile OSes like iPadOS or Android). Linux just isn't properly adapted to have very natural interactions with touchscreens, and while Windows 11 is far from perfect, it's definitely better.

But recently, I wondered: what if I could use Android in tablet mode and Linux in laptop mode? It would be the best of both worlds. And then I remembered a solution for that already exists: it's called Waydroid, and I decided to give it a fair shake. And as it turns out, this might just be the best way to use your 2-in-1 PC.

What is Waydroid?

Android on Linux is better than you might think

Right off the bat, you might want to know what Waydroid is and why it's so great. Running Android on your PC is nothing new, and Windows users can do it relatively easily with solutions like Bluestacks. Even Microsoft created a solution for this and managed to keep it in development for two whole years before discontinuing it for some reason.

But the problem with all those implementations is that they're essentially virtual machines, or emulators, for Android. Your interactions with the Android experience don't feel as natural because everything is emulated, and the emulators are still generally designed for mouse input, so using it on a tablet isn't really the ideal solution. And on top of that, running an emulator like this is very resource-heavy, so any standard Windows laptop will fire off the fans when you start using Android (if it wasn't already), making it obnoxiously loud, making it get warmer, and draining the battery more quickly.

Waydroid is different, though. Because Android is essentially a Linux distro, you can run it inside a Linux operating system using what's called a Linux container, or LXC. This is a much more lightweight solution compared to a full emulator, allowing everything to run far more smoothly, plus supporting more natural interaction with touch. This makes it a perfect solution for a 2-in-1 PC. Waydroid is available on most Linux distros, and it's fairly easy to get started.

How I set it up

Starting with the right Linux distro

In attempting to do this, I wanted to find a fast way to get a desirable result, but there are plenty of ways you can approach it depending on your needs and preferences. As an Arch Linux fan, I started there and tried setting up my tablet with KDE Plasma, but unfortunately, I was not able to easily set up a touch keyboard that functioned as intended on the SDDM (the included display manager) sign-in screen, which meant that if I wanted to use it as a tablet, I'd always need to boot up in laptop mode first to sign in.

Instead, I reinstalled Arch but this time using GNOME as the desktop environment, which also defaults to GDM as the display manager. This works a lot better for touch, as all you need to do is enable the accessibility option to show the touch keyboard on the sign-in screen, and you're good to go. GNOME also supports some basic touch gestures for navigation, so getting to Waydroid is relatively easy this way. For this experiment, I didn't significantly customize GNOME, but if I were to, I might just use a few GNOME extensions to make the OS a bit more similar to Windows, like what you see in AnduinOS. Either way, the desktop part isn't the focus here — I've already praised Arch Linux quite a bit anyway, and even though I normally use KDE Plasma, GNOME is fine. I could also just install KDE and use that while keeping the GDM sign-in screen for its accessibility.

Setting up Waydroid itself is very easy on Arch, as it generally is on other distros too. You'll probably want to use the device in laptop mode for this initial setup, but it may be doable with just the touchscreen if you're patient. There's a Waydroid documentation page detailing how to install it on different distros, but for Arch, you start with this command to install Waydroid:

sudo pacman -S waydroid

If you're using Android, you probably want it to have access to the Google Play Store, which means you need to set it up with GApps. Before launching Waydroid for the first time, enter this command:

sudo waydroid init -s GAPPS

This will download the Waydroid image with Google apps and services included so you can still use the experiences you're accustomed to. However, when launching Waydroid for the first time, you may then notice that the Play Store doesn't actually work because the device isn't Play Store certified. Also, you'll want to mute your laptop at this point because the notification warning you about this is incessant and just keeps appearing as a new notification every two seconds. To fix this permanently, you need to do some work. In your terminal in Linux, run this command:

sudo waydroid shell -- sh -c "sqlite3 /data/data/*/*/gservices.db 'select * from main where name = \"android_id\";'"

This will return a result that looks like this:

android_id|4051212843526034972

You'll need to copy the string of numbers and paste it in the text field on this page to link the device with your Google account. The changes can take some time to take effect, but after a while, you can use the terminal one last time to stop Waydroid:

waydroid session stop

After this, you can relaunch Waydroid, and the error should be gone, letting you use the Play Store normally. I recommend waiting about 30 minutes before restarting Waydroid so you can be sure it will be working, but it shouldn't take that long. If it isn't fixed yet, you can always just wait a while longer. It will go away eventually.

It's almost perfect

Some small hiccups hinder the experience

So, after all that, is Waydroid a good Android experience? Believe it or not, yes, it's pretty great, though it might depend on your needs for it. Once things were set up with the Play Store, I was able to install most of the apps I care about. I got my browser (Vivaldi), Beeper, YouTube, an email client (K-9 Mail), and a couple of other things such as the Nintendo Switch App, and it all works quite well. Running Android through Waydroid feels almost native in terms of using it with touch, so it makes for a very pleasant experience overall. And because it's an LXC, my tablet didn't get significantly loud while running Android, either. Everything just worked, and it didn't feel like the tablet was struggling.

There are some exceptions to this, though. Most notably, I couldn't get the Reddit app to work, as it barred me from logging in using any of the methods. Neither my username and password, Google account, or email link worked, despite the same credentials working fine in a web browser. So that's what I ended up doing: pinning the Reddit website to my homepage so I can access it. Considering the Reddit app is horribly optimized for tablets, the website is honestly a better use of space anyway. But there are more serious problems, like the Amazon Prime Video app not being available to download, and Widevine support isn't included by default, though there is an easy way to set it up.

One annoying issue I've had is that sometimes when I want to swipe down to bring up the notification shade, I sometimes drag the Waydroid window down and make it impossible to interact with the lower half of the Android screen. I can't really fix this without restarting Waydroid, which is a bummer, but it seems like it might be a quirk specific to GNOME, and I may be able to get around it with a different desktop environment or some tweaks to the GNOME desktop.

A couple of things worth noting include the fact that auto-rotation doesn't work directly in Android, though if you change the rotation in Linux, that should make Android usable in that orientation. I also wasn't able to get the camera to work in Android.

I love this setup

While all of these are downsides, none of them really breaks my usage of this device as a tablet. Most of the time, I just need a relatively light device I can use to message my friends and look stuff up on the internet while playing a game on the TV, or maybe doomscroll for a bit. This setup is perfect for that, even if not every single app works out of the box. I would much rather use this than an Android emulator in Windows, and if you've been thinking of the best way to use a 2-in-1 PC, I would argue this is it. It's definitely better than the standard Linux experience for touch devices, but notably, I'd say it's even better than Windows 11 is with touch. I'll be using this a lot more than I would a Windows tablet, that much is for certain.