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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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WhatsApp running through android-translation-layer (no container!) on Linux desktop (lemmy.kde.social)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Since https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1gdhy7u/experimental_flathub_release_of_newpipe_on_linux/ got a bit of traction yesterday, this is WhatsApp straight from Meta running on Linux desktop using android-translation-layer.

android-translation-layer (ATL) is a Wine-like approach to run Android applications on Linux. Rather than running an Android container like for example Waydroid does this instead implements the Android API. Note that right now it's very much work in progress and almost no app will work yet, but the fact that they have apps like Newpipe and WhatsApp running already is very promising!

Join the Matrix chat at #android-translation-layer:matrix.org and follow along!

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

I think installing all those dependencies by hand is not a good solution in the long run.

Well, no. "In the long run" this gets packaged by distributions so you don't have to compile anything. Right now it's available for Alpine Linux and there is an AUR package for Arch.

Wasn’t there supposed to be a flatpack container to be downloaded somewhere?

There is a Flatpak (no c in that name!) base app available, and Newpipe has been packaged with that as a Flatpak, see https://flathub.org/apps/net.newpipe.NewPipe Ideally we get more stuff packaged up once more works but I don't think it's feasible to repackage everything out there so for a lot of applications you'll just have to have a locally installed ATL outside of Flatpak.