Installing PostmarketOS on a desktop computer because I wanted to test it.

The installation process was a bit sparse but surprisingly simple and straightforward.

Using a terminal and the tail command to follow the installation log was useful because I got confused about why the installation took longer than expected.

After that was done it turned out to be a plain Gnome desktop with Alpine Linux underneath it. For some reason I had expect a mobile OS to have a dialer app but then I remembered that it does not come with one ISO installer file but specific ones for devices.

Installing Waydroid was also pretty easy for me because I had experience with that. I can imagine that when Waydroid is brand new for you it can take some time to get it up and running because it can be a little rough at the edges sometimes.

As usual the ArchLinux wiki (yes, ArchLinux) can be useful no matter which Linux distribution you are running. In this case https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Waydroid#Usage

$ waydroid session start

and

$ waydroid show-full-ui

can be two useful commands to know about for Waydroid.

Using adb with Waydroid can be useful.

https://docs.waydro.id/faq/using-adb-with-waydroid

Conclusion : If you have a laptop with touchscreen installing PostmarketOS and Waydroid can be beneficial and rewarding depending on your goals.

I’ve seen some people complain about Alpine Linux using “apk add <package name>” (unlike the expected “apk install <package name>”) but this can’t be a show stopper.

Of course you can probably install any Linux distribution on a laptop with touchscreen and have Waydroid on it as a Linux tablet but if you would want to volunteer to help with the development of PostmarketOS maybe this is the way.