Valve’s Android compatibility layer now has its official name, Lepton, and a cute frog logo.
https://www.theverge.com/news/837524/valves-android-compatibility-layer-now-has-its-official-name-lepton-and-a-cute-frog-logoOpen linkView original on lemmy.world373
Comments45
pls fork android and bring android back to it's glory days.
No, make a Linux phone. With this compatability layer there's no more issues of not having enough apps, like what largely killed the Windows phone.
It's a bit rude demanding things this way, try: sudo Katy make Linux phone pacman
I'm seriously considering getting a Legion Go and using it as a Linux Tablet. Sure it's bulky and definitely won't have the power efficiency to be a useful phone, but I can love with tethering to a phone for connectivity for now.
That would be cool to be able to run some apps in a sandbox on a PC just because it would be far easier to circumvent the increasingly intrusive data collection.
Unfortunately the trend is that those apps usually require play integrity api https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide#apps-banning-grapheneos which requires that the app is running on a verified android(stock) device and custom ROMs can't run it same for waydroid.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/android-now-allows-apps-to-block-sideloading-and-push-a-google-play-version/
and its just starting, its about to get even worse https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html?m=1
I treat it mostly the same I treat games on linux, if your game doesn't run, because of spyware-like DRM, looking at you EA, then I guess it's not for me. Play integrity api is the same in that regard.
Had to switch my mom to a PWA for one of her apps though.
McDonald's is doing you a service there. So what's the problem?
Oh boy, I’m waiting for the day I can flash a gnu/linux os on my phone and run this compatibility layer. My life will then be complete.
for 45 minutes straight
Stop it, don’t ruin the good dream 🛌
This made me wonder, with FEX couldn't Valve release steam for android? Steam library on your phone sounds good to me.
They said they'll start with Steam OS for ARM via their partner program. Same as with their x86 partnerships.
Yes, you can do this manually, and actually play video games from steam. There are also a few apps that facilitates this by having configured this already. Like winlator. Sadly maintaining something like this is huge work, so winlator doesn't ship video drivers for my Samsung S25, but there are some other similar programs, like the Chinese spyware gamehub. Gamehub is aimed at spying on you, and letting you run steam games with cloud saves and all.
Thankfully, someone is maintaining a stripped down version of gamehub, that removes spyware functions. This is called gamehub lite.
What's the performance. Its not amazing, but its not bad either. Haven't tested much, only hades 2 runs in full speed, without getting my phone hot.
Also on the same chip as my phone, read dead redemption 1 for PC runs faster than the newly released android port of the game.
These examples are not very demanding games, other games will very much be a ymmw situation
Given that they did have a beta for Steam on x86 Chromebooks, and Google seems hellbend to replace ChromeOS with an modified version of Android ("AluminiumOS") these days, it seems likely that Valve will also consider a release for that. I wouldn't expect them to make an official release for phones though.
https://www.androidauthority.com/run-desktop-linux-apps-on-android-how-to-3586539/
I guess that is a streamlined version of Waydroid?
No, Waydroid merely used other projects wrapped in some crappy Python scripts & had a multitude of issues. If it is anything like Waydroid then I'll lose respect for Valve.
We know that it started as a fork of Waydroid
But:
That is all really useful info to have. Google Play Games for Windows uses their own crosvm sandbox, which has a couple---but not many---hack-a-rounds to run regular apps & for Houdini (ARM translation). And Android source code makes multiple mentions of a container-based Android sandbox. What sucks is that Microsoft discontinued WSA & that Google won't release a modern standard desktop-based Android layer because it is so "security-concious" (aka fragile) that they are worried about users abusing the APIs it exposes.
After finishing to read the interview it does indeed sound different, but it is odd that this isn't open-source somewhere like Proton and Fex always were.
Oh shit?? 🐸
Whaddup?
I always enjoy recognizing a specific developer's handwriting in a finished product. Luckily, Valve's misyltoad, a proud inhabitant of "Frog Cult", United Kingdom, makes this very easy. From their work on frog-fifo-v1 for Mesa, to frog-color-management-v1 and frog protocols for Wayland, to their talk Rainbow Frogs: HDR + Color Management in Gamescope/SteamOS, they seem to follow a very strong theme. I'd bet they're responsible for this frog as well!
They're even wearing a 100 gecs - Frog on the Floor shirt in their Rainbow Frogs talk. (better view here)
So... How can I use this to run Android apps on Linux?
https://waydro.id/ is the basis for Lepton.
Thanks, I may try this out!
Asking the real questions.
we already had that, this is for the opposite use case.
No it's not. This is for their ARM VR headset. They want 0 effort ports to SteamVR from the Meta Quest which runs Android.
you're hired!
... Run Linux apps on Android?
Why would you want to do that? What advantage?
more specifically, it's for running x86 linux applications on android. and windows applications, i think.
No, it's not.
no, it's not. pulled that out of my ass apparently.
Why does the name and logo seem familiar...? I am getting vague memories of a brand for one of those toy "computers" that had educational material as the programs when I look at the little frog logo.
Valve/Leapfrog collab?
Huh. Popular name:
That's because it just sounds cool... But for Valve, I assume the reason is that it's like the counterpart to Proton (protons are in the nucleus, and electrons are leptons)
Because if you're around frogs you might get lept on? Genius.
you're hired!
Please have the ability to run in old environments! I want to play shadowrun and chaos rings again!!!
The minute I saw the Steam Frame was arm based and running Linux, that means a Linux distro for arm processors should get a lot better. I'm hoping this implementation is some what backwards compatible so I can try to put it on a rooted phone.
Electron was already taken.