What's new

Ika runs on Windows (WSL2)

Ika now runs on x86-64 Windows PCs, in a WSL2 distribution. One line in PowerShell installs it:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DesktopECHO/ika/main/ika-wsl.ps1 | iex

The installer sets up whatever WSL2 still needs (the WSL package, the Virtual Machine Platform, Windows' hypervisor) behind one permission prompt. It then installs Debian 13 as a distribution named Ika, with Mesa 26.1 or newer and Ika's packages, and starts Ika.
ika-wsl-setup readies WSL2 for Ika: nested virtualization, cgroup v2, systemd, the clock, and Ika's groups. When Microsoft's kernel lacks vhost-vsock, vhost-net or udmabuf, it builds a WSL kernel with them.
The GPU through Mesa's Dozen (Vulkan) and D3D12 (OpenGL): Android's graphics, and the console and app windows, are hardware-accelerated.
Android's sound plays through WSLg.
Android apps and the Ika console are in the Start menu, with full-size icons. They get task bar buttons with right-click actions, and Windows 11 title bars.
Android's storage shows in Explorer under This PC as "Android (Ika)". Windows Terminal gets an "Android (Ika)" profile that opens Android's shell.
Under WSL, Android gets all of WSL's CPUs and its memory less 1.5 GB, backed by huge pages.

Android has a TV interface as well as the desktop, in the same ROM. Switch with Desktop/TV in the app menu: TV mode has Android TV's system UI, Settings and keyboard, the Google Play Store for TV, and the gamepad as the remote.

New GPU modes: venus (Android's Vulkan on Mesa's Venus, including on Apple Silicon and Intel) and guest_lavapipe (the guest renders on its CPU). The default, gpu_mode = auto, picks Venus where it works.
The ROM's Mesa is 26.3.0-rc3, with Vulkan 1.4. gfxstream and virglrenderer are updated, and ASTC textures work on GPUs that lack them.
A low-CPU mode on weak hosts: 30 Hz, no blurs, shorter animations.

Hardware video decoding: Android gets a V4L2 decoder backed by the host's VA-API (Intel, AMD), with direct decoding into guest memory on Intel.

App windows show their app on a display of their own, straight from the VM: sharper, and they open sooner.
Opening a game sends the other games to the background.
The keyboard and mouse can act as a gamepad, with a mapping window per app. Each app has a tabbed Startup Options window: display density, fullscreen, gamepad emulation, start with the camera.
ika install FILE.apk and ika remove NAME install and remove apps; the file manager gets an "Ika APK installer" action.

~/ika/ika.ini holds every default, in commented sections.
ika backup and ika restore save and restore your apps, their files and settings.
Android's shared storage is mounted on the host while Ika runs.
adb runs over vsock, about 25 times faster for file copies.

Prebuilt packages for Arch Linux ARM.
Host tools from Cuttlefish 1.58 (development).
Many fixes: starting and stopping, sound, Desktop/TV switching, video playback, memory use, and Fedora installs.