Ubuntu Touch Emulator not working

I decided to try out Ubuntu Touch using the ubuntu-emulator to see if I like it. Eventually I will use this to make and test Ubuntu apps.

I ran these commands to install, create and run ubuntu-emulator:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-emulator
sudo ubuntu-emulator create myinstance
ubuntu-emulator run myinstance

The first two worked fine and when I ran the third, a virtual phone appeared however the virtual screen was blank. I waited and waited, but nothing happened, the screen remained blank/black (on the virtual phone). Then I notice I have to log in terminal. I entered phablet then phablet and logged in fine.

Now I have the terminal logged in and a virtual kernel of the phone but the screen is blank. How can I start the graphics?

Also, once I've got the screen working, can I reduce the window size (it doesn't all fit on one desktop)?

Solution 1:

First of all, currently, the Ubuntu Touch Emulator is only available for Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr and because of this sudo apt-get install ubuntu-emulator command will work only if you have already upgraded to Ubuntu 14.04 which make the question off-topic at the moment.

Anyway, I will try an answer. One of the minimal requirements for the emulator is that the graphics card to has OpenGL support. To test if your graphics card has OpenGL support or not, you can use the glxinfo command as follow:

glxinfo | grep render

You will understand from the output if your graphics card has OpenGL support or not.

Note: mesa-utils package must to be installed in order to use glxinfo.

Another two things from the minimal requirements:

• 512MB of RAM dedicated for the emulator
• 4GB of disk space

Now, if these minimal requirements are met, I'm sure that you can start using Ubuntu Touch emulator with success. Just wait some (maybe several) minutes to come up the graphics.

Sources:

• EXPERIMENTAL UBUNTU TOUCH EMULATOR RELEASED

• Getting the emulator