Installing Bliss OS Multiboot alongside Linux & Windows on Dynabook R734/K Laptop

After dual booting my Toshiba Dynabook R734/K laptop with GNU/Linux and Windows, my thirst of curiosity is not drained yet and now it brings me to multiboot my laptop by adding more Operating System to the hard drive it, how about an Android PC! And from few names, my choice as my first Android PC experience on my Dynabook R734/K laptop falls to Bliss OS.

Licosha — Bliss or Bliss ROM is a well known name, at least for me on years ago when I just got my first Android smartphone as a to-go name if we are looking for a good custom ROM on Android. But other than smatphone, one of popular Bliss project is the Bliss OS for PC.

Bliss OS for PC is a customized Android on PC experience based on the ancestor of most (if not all) Android PC projects today, the Android X86 project.

While the original Android X86 project is bringing the stock, pure Android experience for PC users, Bliss OS and its massive community made the user experience to be more “PC-able” ????, bringing the popular Android and its apps & games ecosystem with more PC productivities built-in.

Steps Installing Bliss OS Android PC on Toshiba Dynabook R734/K (Manual partitioning)

My Environment:

Bliss OS version: 11.13. Link: Download Bliss OS v. 11.13 and older at Sourceforge.
Installed OS: Ubuntu MATE 20 & Windows 10.
Media booting method: Ventoy.

1.) Installing Bliss OS

Download Bliss OS image file from the official website: Bliss OS for PC download
Prepare the Bliss OS installation media. Here I am using Ventoy to turn the Bliss OS image file (iso) into a bootable media.
Prepare new empty partition for where the Bliss OS will be installed. For example on Linux, we can use a GUI app “GParted” to easily split and make a new partition on our hard disk. Typically the space needed for an Android PC should be at least ±32 GB or more recommended, and give it label like “Bliss OS” to make sure we can distinguish it.
It’s a good idea to disconnect all external devices especially storage devices beforehand to ease the installation process (avoiding formatting/erasing mistakes)
Enter Dynabook R734/K “Boot Menu” (BIOS menu): Restart laptop, then when the power LED turned on (but the screen not turned on yet), repeatedly press the F12 until it entered the Boot Menu/BIOS menu.
Now we are in the BIOS Boot Menu. If we haven’t plugged in the Bliss OS installation media (e.g. USB storage stick), now is the time.
The installation media drive should be detected in the boot menu, we can just select it to directly boot into it (In my case here, to the Ventoy boot menu). Alternatively, we can adjust the boot menu to prioritize the installation media so it can boot automatically if the installation media is detected when we restart the laptop by setting it:
1. On the Boot Menu main menu, choose “Enter Setup”.
2. On the side menu, choose “Advanced”, scroll down and choose → “Change Boot Order”.
3. For example here I use a USB storage stick where Ventoy installed and the Bliss OS image file placed, so make “USB Memory” at the top of the “Boot Priority Options”. Don’t forget to click “OK”.
4. On the side menu, choose “Exit” → “Exit Saving Changes”.
Now in Ventoy menu, first we gotta configure some things to the Ventoy before booting the Bliss OS image:
1. Enable “Text mode”: Press F7.
2. Switch to “GRUB2 mode”: Press Ctrl+R.
Next, just select the Bliss OS image file from the Ventoy menu to boot the live media.
After the Bliss OS GRUB menu is appeared, just select “Bliss OS … Installation” from the list to run the Bliss OS installation wizard.
Now we are in Bliss OS installation wizard, first select the partition where Bliss OS will be installed. Before, I have made an empty partition of 20 GB positioned third on my hard disk, so in my case it should be sda3.
Next, select the partition format. Select ext4 to make the partition as native filesystem for Bliss OS.
After partition formatting, “Skip” the GRUB bootloader installation because we will add Bliss OS manually later to the already installed GRUB bootloader.
Then choose whether the Bliss OS /system directory should be writable. If you feel adventurous just like me, choose “Yes”. Wait until the installation done.
After done, we won’t boot the newly installed Bliss OS yet, but we will add it first to the installed GRUB bootloader, in my case alongside installed Ubuntu MATE and Windows 10. Restart and boot our Dynabook R734/K laptop back to BIOS Boot Menu (see step 5 above), unplug the installation media, reorder the boot priority back to prioritize hard drive (see step 7 above), then reboot to Linux OS (in my case Ubuntu MATE).

2.) Adding Bliss OS to GRUB bootloader

OS used: Ubuntu MATE 20, with superuser access.
App used: Grub Customizer.

Steps:

Launch Grub Customizer app.
Click “Paper plus” icon on the toolbar of Grub customizer to add new boot entry to the GRUB.
On the “Name” input, fill it with proper name, which is Bliss OS.
On the “Type” select, choose “Other”.
Next, on the “Boot sequence” textarea, fill it with the boot script which I got originally from the Android X86 project (this Bliss OS based on) with a little bit adjustment:

set root='(hd0,3)'linux /bliss-x86-11.13/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.selinux=permissive acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode SRC=/bliss-x86-11.13initrd /bliss-x86-11.13/initrd.img

0: It is the hard disk position where the Bliss OS installed, in my case I only have one hard disk, 0 means it is the first/main hard disk.
3: It is the partition number where the Bliss OS installed.
bliss-x86-11.13: The directory created at the root of partition when Bliss OS is installed, where the Bliss OS files resides. And yeah, it looks like it is formed of a combination of the OS build name and the version. We can get this value easily by browsing to the partition where Bliss OS installed using file manager.

Click “OK”, then click “Save” on the toolbar to save the boot entry to the GRUB bootloader.
Restart our PC. The next time we reboot our Dynabook R734/K laptop, we should see the Bliss OS entry we just added in the GRUB bootloader menu.

Bliss OS 11.13 homescreen on my Dynabook R734/K laptop

Bliss OS “lockscreen swipe” issue workaround

When I tried the Bliss OS v. 11.13 on my Dynabook R734/K laptop, there is an annoying thing when I try to unlock the screen. The stock Android by default use swipe up gesture to unlock the screen, but apparently the result is a little bit different when it comes to using mouse.

But at the end, thankfully I can find a quick workaround to solve the issue when it comes to unlocking the screen using mouse using the following ways:

“Swipe down” the status bar, then click the “Gear” icon to instantly go to Settings menu.
If there are notification, we can click it to instantly take us to te related menu of the notification.

After the screen has been unlocked, we can then configure the lockscreen method for example changing it to unlock by PIN, etc., or disable it at all.