Android Development Environment

VAR-SOM-MX6 - Android Nougat N7.1.1 - Creating an Android Development Environment

Host PC requirements

The host development environment for Android is based on Ubuntu and Debian, please install one of the following

• Ubuntu version 14.04/16.04 64bit LTS
  • Ubuntu LTS 14.04 64 bit - Download it from : http://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/ubuntu-14.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso
  • Ubuntu LTS 16.04 64 bit - Download it from : http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/ubuntu-16.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso
  • Ubuntu LTS 16.04 64 bit - Download it from : https://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/ubuntu-18.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso
  • Ubuntu LTS 20.04 64 bit - Download it from : https://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/ubuntu-20.04.5-desktop-amd64.iso

Minimum hardware requirements for the build machine (A physical build machine is recommended):

• CPU: Intel / AMD 2.3 GHz Quad Core
• RAM: 16GB
• Free storage: 500 GB (SSD recommended)
• Internet connectivity

Notes:

• The build process requires ~135GB of free storage space. Before starting a build, make sure you have adequate free space available.

You can create a bootable USB drive for installing the host OS. E.g.

• Using Windows: https://rufus.ie
• Using Linux: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

Install required packages on host PC

Before you begin, make sure you installed correct version of build OS on your build machine. You can verify by using below commands

$  uname -a | grep "x86_64"

You should get output like below

Linux user-desktop 4.15.0-72-generic #81~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 26 16:34:21 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Notice the "x86_64" string, if you have installed other (32 bit version) such OS flavor for Android build is not supported currently.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y install gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential zip gcc-multilib g++-multilib 
$ sudo apt-get -y install libc6-dev-i386 lib32ncurses5-dev x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev lib32z-dev
$ sudo apt-get -y install ccache libgl1-mesa-dev libxml2-utils xsltproc unzip bc
$ sudo apt-get -y install uuid uuid-dev zlib1g-dev liblz-dev liblzo2-2 liblzo2-dev lzop git curl
$ sudo apt-get -y install u-boot-tools mtd-utils android-tools-fsutils device-tree-compiler gdisk m4 libz-dev

Install the OpenJDK

Android Nougat requires OpenJDK 8.

To install it:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

If your Ubuntu version is missing the package (which shouldn't happen), add the PPA repository and run the previous commands again:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa

Update the default Java version by running:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config java
$ sudo update-alternatives --config javac

Using a docker container

Variscite provides Docker containers that can be used for a development environment as an alternative to using a virtual machine or a dedicated computer.

To learn more, please see Variscite's Docker Build Environment guide.