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0.6Blender, Steam and AI on Snapdragon and MediaTek

Your Android phone.
A real PC.

Two desktops built in. Android, Linux and Windows apps and Steam games in one Apps list, running on the phone itself.

  • Android
  • Linux
  • Windows
  • Steam
  • No root
  • No PC
  • No cloud
  • Desktops included, start offline

Recorded on Xiaomi 15 (Snapdragon 8 Elite) · AYANEO Pocket FIT (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) · vivo X300 (Dimensity 9500, Mali GPU)

Download the APKSee the two desktops ↓Distribution downloads ↓

Latest release · APK · Android 9+ · ARM64

Yibu on a Xiaomi 15: Windows Paint.NET in the main area, Steam Big Picture live in a side slot.
Xiaomi 15 screen recording: Windows Paint.NET in Yibu, Steam pinned at the side.

TWO DESKTOPS, BUILT IN

Pick the desktop
that fits your screen.

Yibu and Classic are both Debian, configured with different desktop appearances and window layouts. Both come inside the APK and start offline, with the same apps available. Keep one or both: each is its own workspace on the start screen.

Yibu on a Redmi phone: Mousepad in the main area, OpenCode and Calendar live in the side slots.
DEFAULT

Yibu: made for a phone screen

  • One app gets the main area; up to three more stay live at the side.
  • Tap a side app to swap it in. Full screen when one app needs all the room.
  • No tiny title bars to hit with a finger.
Guide to every Yibu control →
Classic on a Xiaomi 15: overlapping windows for the file manager, a text editor and a Debian terminal.
BUILT IN

Classic: windows like a PC

  • Free, overlapping windows you move and resize by their title bars.
  • Best with a touchpad, a mouse, a monitor or AR glasses.
  • Add it on the start screen with Add Classic.

FOUR KINDS OF APPS

One Apps list.
Everything you use.

Double-tap the right-edge bar to open Apps. Search across all four kinds, or switch to Settings for touch mode and keyboard.

The Apps window with Linux apps, Windows apps (Paint.NET, Power BI Desktop, Windows Launcher) and Android apps, and the Settings tab.
VLC, Soul browser, Calendar and a terminal in separate windows. ANDROID

Your Android apps, as windows.

The apps already on your phone, in desktop windows: WPS, CapCut, VLC, Edge, Calendar. Type with WeChat Input or Gboard.

Needs Android 11+. Not every app is compatible.

Blender's 3D viewport on a phone. LINUX

Real desktop software.

A full Debian system: LibreOffice, WPS, Chromium, Blender, GIMP, Kdenlive and anything else from apt, on the phone’s GPU.

Blender 4.3 recorded on Snapdragon (Adreno) and Dimensity (Mali) phones.

Windows Paint.NET with a star drawn by finger, on a phone. WINDOWS

Windows apps, too.

Paint.NET and Power BI Desktop install from Apps with one tap. Windows Launcher opens any unpacked .exe from your phone’s storage. Wine runs natively on Android; FEX translates x86 code.

Not every Windows program runs. Tell us what you need.

Steam Big Picture on a Xiaomi 15, showing recent games. STEAM

Steam, with Windows games.

Steam opens in Big Picture. Linux games run through Valve’s FEX; Windows games through ARLinux’s Bionic Wine, picked automatically, so you just press Play. Verified: Brotato, My Little Shark, Lost Castle, LivingBattle.

Valve doesn’t officially support ARM Linux yet. Games with anti-cheat won’t run.

Build Android apps on the phone.

Edit Kotlin or C++ in Geany. Gradle and the NDK compile on ARM64; the new APK opens in a window seconds later.

Blender on an AYANEO Pocket FIT showing a red monkey head and five colored spheres that OpenCode built from one prompt.

Say it. OpenCode does it.

Hold the edge bar and speak, or type. The AI agent runs on the phone itself: it installs apps, opens files, and can write a Blender script, run it and open the scene.

Needs internet and a model; some providers need an account or API key.

Need more room? Plug in a screen.

Connect a monitor or AR glasses and work on the big screen. The phone becomes your touchpad.

Needs Android 12+ and a phone, cable and adapter with video output.

See supported AR glasses →

NEW IN 0.6

More desktop.
Held in place as you turn.

Connect supported AR glasses and select their output on the start screen. Turn on Extra-large spatial screen to look around a desktop that stays in place with 3DoF tracking. Leave it off to use an ordinary external screen.

5760 × 2160 by default. Three 1920 × 1080 panels across, two high. The information button lets you change the workspace resolution and enable single buffering for improved hover stability. Double buffering is the default for wider device compatibility.

Use the phone as your touchpad, and recenter with the small top-right icon. Unplug the glasses to continue on the phone; plug them back in to restore the spatial output.

Blender scene seen in the AR glasses: a red monkey head and colored spheres.
Blender spread across the 5760 × 2160 workspace.
The same Blender scene after the wearer turned their head: the window edge has moved into view.
Turn your head: the window stays where it was.
The Apps window appears rotated because the glasses lie tilted on a desk.
Glasses lying tilted on a desk: the desktop stays level in the room.

Recorded from the display output of XREAL XBX A01 glasses on an AYANEO Pocket FIT.

Supported models, by brand

XREAL

Air · Air 2 · Air 2 Pro · Air 2 Ultra · One · One Pro · 1S · XBX A01 · XBX A01 Plus · Light

RayNeo

Air 1s · Air Plus · Air 2 · Air 2s · Air 3 · Air 3s · Air 3s Pro · Air 4 · Air 4 Pro · GT · GT Max

VITURE

One · Lite · Pro · Luma · Luma Pro · Luma Cyber · Beast · Pro 2 · Ultra

Rokid

Air · Max · Max 2

GOOVIS

G3 Max · G3X · G3X Pro · Art (A1)

Brand marks identify compatible devices and belong to their respective owners; no endorsement is implied.

SEE IT IN 30 SECONDS

Real screen recordings.
Not mock-ups.

More on YouTube ↗
Longer demos: office work, AI coding, Android apps, Omarchy

Recorded on a Redmi phone before Yibu became the default desktop. English narration and English subtitles.

GET STARTED

Three steps.
About five minutes.

  1. 1

    Install the APK

    Download on your phone and open it from Downloads. If Android asks, allow your browser to install apps.

    Download ARLinux
  2. 2

    Tap Start desktop

    Yibu and Classic are inside the APK. The first launch unpacks the desktop on the phone; no download needed. Leave a few GB free.

  3. 3

    Touch it, or use a touchpad

    Tap the desktop directly, or turn the screen into a touchpad with two pointers (switch in Apps → Settings). The thin right-edge bar: tap for the keyboard, double-tap for Apps, hold to talk to AI.

    How the controls work ↓

ARM64 Android 9+ · Android apps in windows: Android 11+ · External screens: Android 12+ · No root, no Shizuku, no second computer.

CONTROLS

Two ways to control it.
Switch in Apps → Settings.

Default on tablets

Touchscreen: touch directly

Tap a button to click it. Swipe to scroll. Hold, then move to drag or select text.

Default on phones

Touchpad: two pointers

Precise clicks on small desktop controls. Handy when you look at a monitor or AR glasses instead of the phone.

In touchpad mode, here is where to touch. The edge bar works in both modes.

① Lower-left: left thumb

Moves the orange pointer.

② Everywhere else: right thumb

Moves the cyan pointer. Tap to click, tap twice to double-click. Two fingers: tap to right-click, slide to scroll.

③ Right-edge bar

Tap for the keyboard, double-tap for Apps. Hold, speak, release: your words go to OpenCode.

Step-by-step guide with real screenshots

New: the start screen and Yibu, explained with fresh screenshots →

MEASURED ON A PHONE

Not yet another PRoot.
A different runtime. Measured.

ARLinux uses tawcroot, not PRoot. Its Linux compatibility work happens inside the application process, instead of using PRoot’s ptrace-based tracer. Both run ARM64 code on the phone’s CPU; neither needs to emulate that CPU. The difference shows up in the work around system calls.

Build Python on the same phone.

CPython 3.13.13, configure + make -j4. Median of three fresh builds per runtime. Less time is better.

ARLinux
101.3 s
Termux PRoot
184.4 s
Rooted chroot¹
82.4 s

45% less build time than PRoot. Still 23% longer than the rooted Linux baseline—not zero overhead.

What else did we measure? All six workloads, not just the wins.
Median milliseconds per batch · 12 samples per runtime · less is better
WorkloadARLinuxTermux PRootChroot¹
2,000 file accesses46.55595.8321.38
Spawn 40 tiny processes115.86109.1446.77
10 Python starts + imports408.21609.07390.22
5 Git status calls78.34241.7244.85
Compress 1,000 files with tar + gzip20.9077.359.05
SHA-256 compute control151.15180.98164.47

Not every operation wins: tiny-process spawning was about 6% slower than PRoot. These tests do not establish a CPU-compute advantage, faster games or smoother graphics.

Xiaomi 15 · Android 17 · 10 October 2026 · installed ARLinux 0.2.3 Release runtime vs official Termux PRoot 5.1.107.96, with its seccomp accelerator enabled. Same physical rootfs, programs and Android UID; warm cache. Rooted ADB test entry, not normal Activity startup. CPU frequency and temperature were not locked. This is not a comparison with native Termux, Termux:X11 or an entire proot-distro setup. ¹Rooted chroot is a lab baseline only; ARLinux itself does not require root.

Every Python build sample ↗Every workload sample ↗Open-source runtime ↗How PRoot works ↗

DISTRIBUTION DOWNLOADS

Download another Linux desktop.

Yibu and Classic are both Debian with different desktop appearances and window layouts, and both are included in the APK. Yibu uses a main area and side slots; Classic uses freely overlapping windows. No separate Debian ZIP is needed. For other systems, download a ZIP below, choose Import distribution in ARLinux and select it. Leave it zipped. Arch, Omarchy and KDE Plasma include desktop dependencies for offline first start.

LXQt 0.1.4Panels and menusDownload ZIP ↓ KDE Plasma 0.1.1Debian · offline desktop setupDownload ZIP ↓ Arch 0.1.5Rolling release · offline setupDownload ZIP ↓ Omarchy 0.1.6Tiling · offline setup (unofficial adaptation)Download ZIP ↓

These distribution ZIPs require ARLinux 0.6.4 or newer.

Known ARLinux 0.6.4 issue: the right-edge Apps shortcut does not reopen Apps on Arch or Omarchy. Omarchy's menu → Apps → Apps works; on Arch, exit and restart the desktop to reopen Apps.

HELP

Good questions.

Is this an emulator or a remote desktop?

Neither. ARM64 Linux programs run directly on the phone, inside the ARLinux app, through our open-source tawcroot runtime. Only x86 code is translated: Windows programs run in Wine with FEX, and x86-64 Linux games in Steam use Valve’s FEX.

Which Steam games work?

Verified so far: Brotato (Linux build) on a vivo X300 and Xiaomi 15, and My Little Shark (Windows build) on a vivo X300. Windows games use ARLinux’s Bionic Wine automatically. Many games won’t run yet, and games with anti-cheat almost certainly won’t. Tell us what works for you.

The first start is slow.

The first launch unpacks the desktop on the phone. Keep ARLinux in front and check free storage. Later starts reuse it.

Android closed my desktop.

Android can limit child processes and memory. Follow the in-app guide to the developer option often called “Disable child process restrictions”. Its name varies by phone.

Will updating replace my workspace?

No. Updates keep your workspaces, apps and files. To get the newest built-in system in an existing workspace, choose Reinstall on the start screen: it replaces the Linux system but keeps your home folder and shared data. Or add a new Yibu or Classic workspace.

OPEN SOURCE

The Linux side is open source.

The runtime, compositors, graphics and distribution recipes are on GitHub. Build your own distribution as an importable ZIP.

tawcrootRootless Linux runtime anhyprlandCompositor behind Yibu anlabwcStacking compositor libhybrisPhone GPU drivers MesaGraphics arlinux-rootfsDistribution builder
Distribution guide ↗

Built on tawc, libhybris, Omarchy and their contributors. Each repository keeps its own license.