Building Local Desktop used to mean juggling a lot of tools: x build in one terminal, adb logcat in another, a third-party debugger extension pinned to an old CodeLLDB, GitHub's Actions tab for builds, and a Google Chat room that nobody opened.

Today we're bringing all of it into one place: Local Desktop Dev, a VS Code extension that covers the whole loop, from pressing F5 to shipping a release. It also works in Cursor, VSCodium and other VS Code based editors.

Meet elementary-mobile, an experimental fork of Local Desktop that ships elementary OS instead of Arch Linux. Install one APK, tap the icon, and you land on the Pantheon desktop. No download on first launch, no package installation, no internet connection at all.

Googlebook is coming in fall 2026. Google calls it a new kind of laptop designed for Gemini Intelligence, with features like Magic Pointer, Cast My Apps, and Quick Access. In plain words: Android is moving toward laptops.

This is a huge validation of what we have believed from the beginning: Android devices are not just phones. They can be real computers.

Local Desktop started as my hobby project, now the contributors list looks a lot less lonely, and that genuinely makes me very happy 🥰🎗️🙏

A special thank you to:

• @EzeKoren for Docker-based APK builds 🐳
• @HugJax for better touch input and two-finger scrolling 👆
• @FBarrca for the keyboard accessibility service and a PRoot update ⌨️
• @ArcheoCodix for fixes around Onboard, PRoot PTYs, and Gradle 9 compatibility 🛠️

More people, more momentum, more fun 🚀 Once again, I'm truly grateful to everyone who stepped in to help Local Desktop grow 🌱

...on their phone

Pull request #170 added the ability to build localdesktop.apk directly on your phone. But why would we want to do that? As we want to support as many devices as possible, we'd like to call for more contributors. I believe Local Desktop's own users are the most motivated to become maintainers and contributors — and coding has always been the highest barrier to entry. However, with the rise of AI and agentic coding tools like Codex, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and others, that barrier no longer exists. And with the ability to build an APK right on your phone, you don't need a PC or even any prior coding experience to contribute to this project.

Local Desktop just crossed 1,000 stars on GitHub 🌟⭐️💫🥂🎉🎊🪅

I'm super surprised as I started this project as a hobby, but now it has grown into something much bigger than I imagined. Of course there is more pressure to keep the community satisfied, but in the end, I'm super grateful for the interest the community has shown towards this project.

Since the 100 GitHub stars milestone, there hasn't been much development except for the support of Android storage mount point. I recently relocated from Vietnam to Germany, and in the small allocated time I have left, I'm reading about processes in Linux and understanding how audio works in Linux, similar to how I spent time researching how the graphics stack works with Wayland. And that's what I'm working on:

• Audio support, either via PulseAudio or PipeWire.
• Native PTrace in Rust, you can think of it like a built-in PRoot. With this, I expect to fix the most reported issue: "Device Unsupported!" 😂

Also as the project grows, it becomes hard to maintain by just one person. So I'm welcoming everyone, regardless of whether you are a developer, or wanting to become one, or just interested in the project, to help:

• Work on code
• Improve documentation
• Clean up duplicate issues

Feel free to join our Google Chat space.

One more time, thank you for your support 🙏 Looking forward to a future where Android can do almost anything.

We're excited to announce that our experiments with KDE Plasma have yielded positive results, both the X11 session via XWayland and the Wayland session.

How to​

Please visit this document for detailed instructions. In simpler terms, just add the following configuration to your localdesktop.toml file:

[command]
try_check = "pacman -Qg plasma"
try_install = "stdbuf -oL pacman -Syu plasma --noconfirm --noprogressbar"
# X11 session via Xwayland
try_launch = "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp Xwayland -hidpi :1 2>&1 & while [ ! -e /tmp/.X11-unix/X1 ]; do sleep 0.1; done; XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11 DISPLAY=:1 dbus-launch startplasma-x11 2>&1"
# Wayland session
try_launch = "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0 /usr/lib/plasma-dbus-run-session-if-needed startplasma-wayland 2>&1"

The outcome has been so promising that we're considering setting KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment in Local Desktop. This aligns with our long-term goal: replacing XWayland with a native Wayland session for better performance. We'd love to hear your thoughts on our GitHub repository, and toss us a ⭐️ to help keep us motivated to improve KDE Plasma compatibility!

According to Android Authority, Android Canary 2507 now supports native GUI Linux apps.

After installing the July 2025 Canary build, a new icon appears in the Linux Terminal app that opens a display activity. Inside it, running weston launches a full Wayland-based Linux desktop session. It even has GPU acceleration and audio support 🤯

This is exactly, and technically, what we're building. I believe we had the same approach: Wayland, as I haven't checked the code, but the fact that they shipped weston says everything.

In some way, we just got sherlocked, since people are less likely to pick a third-party app if there's a built-in alternative (at least that's what I would do). However, as an Android user, I'm actually delighted. It's a win-win situation: this validates what we've believed all along: Android devices can be more than phones. With official support, more people will explore desktop-style workflows, and more manufacturers will build hardware to support them.

This built-in feature will likely be available starting from Android 16, but Local Desktop will continue to do its best to support all devices from Android 5 and beyond. We've always been about unlocking possibilities before they go mainstream - and we're not stopping now.

Please star our GitHub repository and follow our adventure 🐻‍❄️

I'm excited to share and express my gratitude for Sentry's approval of our application to their Open Source Sponsorship Plan 🎉

If you're maintaining an open-source project, you can apply here. Having Sentry for telemetry helps more than you might expect. Before using Sentry, we had to ask users to connect their devices to a PC via USB, capture logcat output, and send it to us via email or GitHub. Now, panic reports are automatically sent to us with detailed context, helping us quickly identify which assumptions or expectations went wrong, and take timely action.

We also plan to make further use of Sentry by leveraging traces and spans to monitor FPS and frame delays. This will help us optimize the app's smoothness even more. Follow our progress on GitHub!

Local Desktop just reached 100 stars on GitHub 🎉 What surprised me even more was a sudden wave of traffic from Brazil. Obrigado 🇧🇷

Your support means the world to us, and we will keep working hard to make Local Desktop better every version. We are working on handling better mouse/trackpad input, and our next plan is to support an Android storage mount point.