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Linux Installation Guide

Genymotion Desktop cannot run in a Linux virtual machine or hypervisor.

Server systems are not supported.

Genymotion Desktop is only available for Linux 64-bit (x86_64, amd64).

Supported distributions

Gnome, KDE and MATE desktop environments are fully supported. Other environments may not work correctly.

Due to the high number and variety of Linux distributions, it is impossible for us to test Genymotion Desktop on each and every one of them. For this reason, only the following distributions are officially supported:

  • Ubuntu 22.04LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
  • Debian 11 (Bullseye)
  • Fedora Workstation 38

Hypervisor

3.3.0

Genymotion Desktop requires an hypervisor to run the Android system. From Genymotion Desktop 3.3.0 onwards, it is possible to choose between QEMU or VirtualBox.

QEMU is included with Genymotion. It requires kvm which is installed by default on our supported distributions.

You should not need to install anything if you choose this hypervisor.

VirtualBox is not included in our installer and needs to be installed prior to Genymotion Desktop:

Secure Boot

If Secure Boot is enabled on your host machine, VirtualBox installer will try to sign its kernel modules during installation and you will need to set a password to your Secure Boot. A full reboot of your system is mandatory to apply the change after installation.

You will then be prompted at startup by Secure Boot to input the password you set.

  1. Download VirtualBox 7.0.8 .deb package for Ubuntu 22.04 and place it in the ~/Downloads directory.

  2. Perform a global update and reboot:

    sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo reboot

  3. Install the downloaded package:

    sudo apt install ./virtualbox-7.0_7.0.8-156879~Ubuntu~jammy_amd64.deb

    Press Y and press ENTER to confirm. VirtualBox 7.0.8 dependency packages are being downloaded and installed. It may take a while to complete.

  4. Add your user to the vboxusers group:

    sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER

  5. Reboot your PC.

To verify your installation, run the following commands in a terminal:

groups | grep vboxusers

If this command does not return anything, then your user account is not in the vboxusers group. To solve this, run sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER, then log out and in again - or reboot your PC.

Next, verify that VirtualBox kernel modules are properly installed and working:

lsmod | grep -i vbox

If successful, it should return the following:

$ lsmod | grep -i vbox
vboxnetadp             28672  0
vboxnetflt             28672  0
vboxdrv               524288  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

If not, try to force VirtualBox kernel modules compilation:

sudo vboxconfig

And reboot your PC.

It is assumed that your user account is a member of group sudo. If not, you will have to run the following commands as root.

  1. Download VirtualBox 7.0.8 .deb package for Debian 11 and place it in the ~/Downloads directory.

  2. Perform a global update:

    sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo reboot

  3. Install the downloaded package:

    sudo apt install ./virtualbox-7.0_7.0.8-156879~Debian~bullseye_amd64.deb

    Press Y and press ENTER to confirm. VirtualBox 7.0.8 dependency packages are being downloaded and installed. It may take a while to complete.

  4. Add your user to the vboxusers group:

    sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER

  5. Reboot your PC.

To verify your installation, run the following commands in a terminal:

groups | grep vboxusers

If this command does not return anything, then your user account is not in the vboxusers group. To solve this, run sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER, then log out and in again - or reboot your PC.

Next, verify that VirtualBox kernel modules are properly installed and working:

lsmod | grep -i vbox

If successful, it should return the following:

$ lsmod | grep -i vbox
vboxnetadp             28672  0
vboxnetflt             28672  0
vboxdrv               524288  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

If not, try to force VirtualBox kernel modules compilation:

sudo vboxconfig

And reboot your PC.

  1. (optional, recommended) Perform an OS upgrade:

    sudo dnf -y upgrade && sudo reboot

  2. Add the RPM Fusion repository:

    sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

    Validate the prompt to accept the PGP key.

  3. Refresh dnf local cache:

    sudo dnf update --refresh

  4. Install VirtualBox and all dependencies:

    sudo dnf install VirtualBox kernel-devel-$(uname -r) akmod-VirtualBox

    Then:

    sudo akmods && systemctl restart vboxdrv

  5. Finally, add your user to the vboxusers group:

    sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER

  6. Close your session and log in again to apply the change. To verify, use the groups command; you should see vboxusers in the returned list:

    john@johnPC$ groups
john adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev input lpadmin lxd sambashare vboxusers

If the installation fails, please refer to RPM Fusion Howto for more details and instructions.

It is recommended to reboot your PC after installing VirtualBox.

To verify that VirtualBox kernel modules are properly installed and working, run the following command:

lsmod | grep -i vbox

If successful, it should return the following:

$ lsmod | grep -i vbox
vboxnetadp             28672  0
vboxnetflt             28672  0
vboxdrv               524288  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

If not, try to force VirtualBox kernel modules compilation:

sudo /sbin/vboxconfig

And reboot your PC.

Genymotion Desktop Installation

  1. Open a terminal and move to your home Download folder1:

    cd ~/Download

  2. Give run permission to the Genymotion installer binary file:

    chmod +x genymotion-X.Y.Z-linux_x64.bin

  3. Run the installer. PATH is the install target path2:

    ./genymotion-X.Y.Z-linux_x64.bin -d PATH
Global installation (not recommended)

It is possible to install Genymotion globally with the sudo command:

sudo ./genymotion-X.Y.Z-linux_x64.bin

This will install Genymotion in /opt/genymotion, however we do not recommend this as it may cause issues due to access permissions.

  1. It is assumed that downloaded files are in your home Download folder. If not, replace ~/Download with the appropriate path in the command lines. ↩

  2. If the installer is run without -d option, Genymotion will be installed in your current folder, in genymotion/. ↩

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