TL;DR
- Google is adding GPU acceleration for graphical Linux apps to Android’s Terminal app, but the feature is currently exclusive to the Pixel 10.
- This feature relies on Gfxstream, a library that forwards graphics API calls from the guest Linux virtual machine to the host Android device’s GPU for accelerated rendering.
- Though the feature is live for Pixel 10 users in Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3, it’s still buggy and doesn’t yet offer the near-native performance expected.
Back in March, Google introduced the Linux Terminal app to Android, which uses virtualization to run full-fledged Linux programs on Android devices. While the initial release only supported command-line apps, Google is addressing that limitation in the upcoming Android 16 QPR2 update.
Even though Android 16 QPR2 will add support for graphical desktop Linux apps, they will run poorly on most Android devices. This is because the Linux Terminal app currently relies on a software-based renderer called Lavapipe. Lavapipe uses the device’s CPU for complex calculations and rasterization (the process of converting vector graphics into pixels) — tasks that the device’s GPU can perform much more quickly and efficiently.