Android is a opensource Mobile Operating System targeted mainly towards smart phones and tablets. Since its debut in 2008, it has been the strong contender for Apple iOS. With currently more than 45% share in smart phones market in U.S., Android is becoming the defacto smart phone/tablet O.S.
From a programmers perspective, Android is a Java framework. Actually, it is quite easy to get started with Android development. Even if you get in to any trouble, being open-source, there are millions of contributors/users out there who are ready to help you out.
In this post I will be discussing about how to install Android Development Environment on Ubuntu 11.10.
Setting up Android Development Environment is a two-step process:
- You need to install eclipse with ADT plugin.
- Install Android SDK with necessary platforms.
Installing Eclipse
with ADT
plugin
- Download and install
Eclipse Classic Version
orEclipse Java Developers Version
from this site:http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. - After downloading is completed, extract the contents.
- Navigate to the extracted folder and double-click on
eclipse
file. - Go to
Help ->Install New Software
and click onAdd
button. A Dialog will pop up. Fill the fields as follows:If the above site doesn’t respond, change
https://
tohttp://
- Click
Ok
to close the dialog. Now you will seeDeveloper Tools
check box. Mark the box and clickNext
. - Click
Next
in the next window as well. - Accept the license agreement and then click on
Finish
. - After downloading the plugin, restart eclipse.
Installing Android SDK
- Download the latest
SDK
package from the site: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. - After the download is finished, extract the contents of the .tar.gz file
- Now its time to install Android platforms. Go to the
tools
folder inside the extracted folder and double-click onandroid
file. - A new window will pop-up with a list of available platforms and libraries.
- Select the platform you want to target and click on Install. If you have trouble finding the required platform, you have a
Sort by
option at the bottom. Just selectRepository
, then you will be able to locate platforms more easily. - Now you need to configure
ADT Eclipse plugin
. OpenEclipse
gotoWindow -> Preferences
and click onAndroid
in the left pane. Fill theSDK Location
to point to the location where you’ve extracted the SDK.
If every thing went well, you’ve successfully installed Android Development Environment in your system.
In the next post I will talk about Android Emulator
and how to write basic HelloWorld.apk