I was able to install Android-x86 on my Debian 9 box with no real problem. Following are my system details, the articles I followed, commands I used and lastly the settings info of the VM itself.
System:
- Chassis: desktop
- Desktop Environment: Gnome 3.22.2
- Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 9.1 (stretch)
- Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64
- Architecture: x86-64
- Processor: Intel Core i5-4570S CPU @ 2.90GHz × 4
- Processor supports HW virtualization: yes
- Processor supports PAE: yes
- Processor supports long mode: yes
- Processor supports nested paging: yes
- Memory: 15.4 GiB Graphics: Intel® Haswell Desktop
- Disk: 1.1 TB
First I installed VirtualBox 5.1:
$ cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
$ sudo touch virtualbox.list
$ sudo nano virtualbox.list
In nano I typed:
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian
stretch contrib
Then to save and exit nano editor:
ctrl+o
ctrl+x
Then to get keys, update repos and install VB.
$ cd ~/Keys
$ curl -O https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc
$ sudo apt-key add oracle_vbox_2016.asc
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.1
Then I set about installing Android-x86:
First I downloaded Android-x86 6.0-r3 (the third stable release of marshmallow-x86) from here. Then I followed this article: "How to Install Android in VirtualBox"
by Cameron Summerson, dated June 29th, 2017. The only snag I ran into was for mouse support.
The suggestion here didn't work for me but it might work for someone else.
So then I tried the discussion here which instructed to turn off VM which in my case is "Android" and try the command:
$ VBoxManage modifyvm Android --mouse ps2
After turning Android VM back on, I had mouse support.
These are the VM's settings info as retrieved by CLI command:
$ VBoxManage showvminfo Android --details
Name: Android
Groups: /
Guest OS: Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (64-bit)
UUID: a8a28a18-2d9a-4aff-872c-890d72ec9e8f
Config file: /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Android.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Snapshots
Log folder: /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Logs
Hardware UUID: a8a28a18-2d9a-4aff-872c-890d72ec9e8f
Memory size: 6020MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 48MB
CPU exec cap: 100%
HPET: off
Chipset: piix3
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 4
PAE: off
Long Mode: on
Triple Fault Reset: off
APIC: on
X2APIC: on
CPUID Portability Level: 0
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: on
BIOS APIC mode: APIC
Time offset: 0ms
RTC: UTC
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: off
VT-x VPID: on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Default
Effective Paravirt. Provider: KVM
State: running (since 2017-08-04T02:01:58.782000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration:
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
Storage Controller Name (1): SATA
Storage Controller Type (1): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 1
Storage Controller Bootable (1): on
IDE (1, 0): Empty
SATA (0, 0): /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Android.vdi (UUID: a111cb34-b24f-4b38-ac32-bc33428f8b55)
NIC 1: MAC: 080027D5FAC2, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings: MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, receive: 64)
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
UART 3: disabled
UART 4: disabled
LPT 1: disabled
LPT 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: AC97, Codec: AD1980)
Clipboard Mode: disabled
Drag and drop Mode: disabled
Session name: GUI/Qt
Video mode: 1024x768x32 at 0,0 enabled
VRDE: disabled
USB: enabled
EHCI: disabled
XHCI: disabled
USB Device Filters:
Available remote USB devices:
Currently Attached USB Devices:
Bandwidth groups:
Shared folders:
Name: 'shine', Host path: '/home/shine' (machine mapping), writable
VRDE Connection: not active
Clients so far: 0
Video capturing: not active
Capture screens: 0
Capture file: /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Android.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate: 512 kbps
Capture FPS: 25
Guest:
Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB
OS type: Linux26_64
Additions run level: 0
Guest Facilities:
No active facilities.