Setting up your Linux for Android Application Development

AndroidDevLinux

Step 1. Preparation
--------------------
First take care of the dependencies for Android Application Development.
Dependencies are - 
1. Java
2. ant
3. Eclipse and Android Development tools (IDE)
4. Android SDK and NDK
5. adb


1. Java
    For Ubuntu visit the following site for easiest way of installing Java
    http://www.webupd8.org/2012/01/install-oracle-java-jdk-7-in-ubuntu-via.html
    
    For Fedora, the following link gives step by step instructions.
    http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2010/install-sun-oracle-java-jdk-jre-7-on-fedora-centos-red-hat-rhel/
    
    Make sure JAVA_HOME environment variable is set and added to path.
    For linux systems, add the following lines to ~/.bashrc file
    
    export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.7.0_51/bin
    export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME

2. ant
    For ubuntu - sudo apt-get install ant
    For fedora - su -c 'yum install ant'
    
3.  Eclipse and Android Development Tools
    If you are willing to use and IDE, google recommends Eclipse.
    If you wish to do development using just the terminal and text-editor this 
    step is not required. Skip it.
    
    For detailed instructions on setting up Eclipse for android application 
    development visit 
    http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/installing-adt.html
    In short, the steps are - 
    1. Download eclipse
    2. Install Android Development Tools either from an archive or remote repo
    3. Restart
    
4.  Android SDK and NDK
    SDK - Software Development Kit
        a. Download android sdk tools from 
           http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
        b. Extract it to a directory say android_sdk
        c. Set the environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT to point to android_sdk
        d. Add the directories android_sdk/tools and android_sdk/platform-tools
           to your path
    NDK - Native Development Kit
        a. Download android ndk tools from
           http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html 
        b. Extract is to a directory say android_ndk
        c. Set the environment variable ANDROID_NDK_ROOT to point to android_ndk
        d. Add the directories android_ndk to your path
    
    For linux systems the environment and path can be set by adding the 
    following lines to ~/.bashrc file
    
    export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=/path/to/android_sdk
    export ANDROID_NDK_ROOT=/path/to/android_ndk
    export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/platform-tools
    export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/tools
    export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_NDK

5. adb
    If the step 4 is completed, the path would contain adb as well.
    To check, run adb command in terminal. If command not found
    error is received, try restarting. Check if adb is present in
    android_sdk/platform-tools


Step 2 : Check out eclipse and make your first application.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Launch eclipse. Go to File >> New >> New Project >> Android Application Project
Give suitable name and icon. Chose default view and navigation. A default 
hello world application is made. Start android application development.
A valuable resource will be https://d.android.com.

Step 3 : Running adb. 
-----------------------
Adb or Android Debug Bridge is located in android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb
But it rarely works correctly if you are setting everything up for the first 
time. 

The first issue that comes up is that adb is not recognized by the system. 
On executing ./adb the following errors are encountered

Ubuntu Error: No such file or directory
Fedora Error: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory

The reason behind this is that adb included with the other tools in the 
ADT Bundle or SDK Tools, is 32 bit and most probably the system you are 
working on is 64 Bit. To remedy this, run the following command in the terminal.

for Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10      sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
for Ubuntu 13.10 and beyond     sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5\
                                libstdc++6:i386
for Fedora                      su -c 'yum install libstdc++.i686\
                                ncurses-libs.i686 zlib.i686'

This should start the adb.

The available devices can be seen by running :

    adb devices

The next challenge is that the adb doesn't recognise the USB device plugged in. 
The following message shows up on runnning "adb devices" command. 

    ????????????? Permission Denied

To remedy this, run the following commands in the terminal. 

    sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

On opening text editor, paste the following lines in it. Save and exit.

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04dd", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="054c", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0fce", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2340", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0930", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0502", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0b05", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="413c", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0489", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04c5", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="091e", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="05c6", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04da", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0471", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="1d4d", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="10a9", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="19d2", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="201E", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="109b", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="12d1", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="24e3", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2116", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0482", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="17ef", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="22b8", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0e8d", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0409", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2080", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0955", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2257", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

These commands tells the system the Vendor ID of all major android 
manufacturing companies so that adb could be run properly on all devices.

Follow it up by this command :

    chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

Now, almost all devices are recognized by adb.
Refer http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html
for further reference on adb and udev.

You are all set for developing awesome android applications. Go for it.

Thanks for sharing. Very informative and every thing in one place 👍

Addition: You must manually run the SDK manager after downloading / extracting the SDK:

$ /path/to/android-sdk-linux/tools/android sdk

...and pull the platform-tools (without which you have no adb) and whatever else you need, e.g. SDK API levels etc.

The latest download packages do not include these.

The newest ones even don't download android development tools, can you please help?? thanks in advance

Go here to download the tools https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/index.html

After unzipping what's downloaded you can run the command
$ /path/to/android-sdk/tools/bin/sdkmanager "platform-tools"
This will allow you to have access to all adb commands

SDK link is outdated. sdkmanager from snapcraft is more proper https://snapcraft.io/androidsdk.