The “Getting Started” section describes how to set up your local work environment, how to use Repo to get the Android files, and how to build the files on your machine. To build the Android source files, you will need to use Linux or Mac OS. Building under Windows is not currently supported.
Note: The source is approximately 2.6GB in size. You will need 10GB free to complete the build.
For an overview of the entire code-review and code-update process, see Life of a Patch.
To see snapshots and histories of the files available in the public Android repositories, visit the GitWeb web interface.
The Android build is routinely tested in house on recent versions of Ubuntu (10.04 and later), but most distributions should have the required build tools available. Reports of successes or failures on other distributions are welcome.
Note: It is also possible to build Android in a virtual machine. If you are running Linux in a virtual machine, you will need at least 8GB of RAM/swap and 12GB or more of disk space in order to build the Android tree.
In general you will need:
Python 2.4 -- 2.7, which you can download from python.org.
JDK 6 if you wish to build Gingerbread or newer; JDK 5 for Froyo or older. You can download both from java.sun.com.
Git 1.5.4 or newer. You can find it at git-scm.com.
(optional) Valgrind, a tool that will help you find memory leaks, stack corruption, array bounds overflows, etc. Download from valgrind.org.
Detailed instructions for Ubuntu 10.04+ follow.
The Sun JDK is no longer in Ubuntu's main package repository. In order to download it, you need to add the appropriate repository and indicate to the system which JDK should be used.
Java 6: for Gingerbread and newer
$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner" $ sudo add-apt-repository "deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu lucid partner" $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
Java 5: for Froyo and older
$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy main multiverse" $ sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-updates main multiverse" $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk
To set up your development environment, install the following required packages:
$ sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential \ zip curl zlib1g-dev libc6-dev lib32ncurses5-dev ia32-libs \ x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev lib32readline5-dev lib32z-dev \ libgl1-mesa-dev g++-multilib mingw32 tofrodos python-markdown \ libxml2-utils
Under GNU/linux systems (and specifically under Ubuntu systems), regular users can't directly access USB devices by default. The system needs to be configured to allow such access.
The recommended approach is to create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules (as the root user) and to copy the following lines in it. must be replaced by the actual username of the user who is authorized to access the phones over USB.
# adb protocol on passion (Nexus One)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e12", MODE="0600", OWNER="<username>"
# fastboot protocol on passion (Nexus One)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0bb4", ATTR{idProduct}=="0fff", MODE="0600", OWNER="<username>"
# adb protocol on crespo (Nexus S)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e22", MODE="0600", OWNER="<username>"
# fastboot protocol on crespo (Nexus S)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e20", MODE="0600", OWNER="<username>"
Those new rules take effect the next time a device is plugged in. It might therefore be necessary to unplug the device and plug it back into the computer.
This is known to work on both Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04.x LTS) and Lucid Lynx (10.04.x LTS). Other versions of Ubuntu or other variants of GNU/linux might require different configurations.
To build the Android files in a Mac OS environment, you need an Intel/x86 machine running MacOS 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), or 10.6 (Snow Leopard). The Android build system and tools do not support the obsolete PowerPC architecture.
Android must be built on a case-sensitive file system because the sources contain files that differ only in case. We recommend that you build Android on a partition that has been formatted with the journaled file system HFS+. HFS+ is required to successfully build Mac OS applications such as the Android Emulator for OS X.
If you want to avoid partitioning/formatting your hard drive, you can use a case-sensitive disk image instead. To create the image, launch Disk Utility and select “New Image”. A size of 12GB is the minimum to complete the build, larger numbers are more future-proof. Using sparse images saves space while allowing to grow later as the need arises. Be sure to select “case sensitive, journaled” as the volume format.
You can also create it from a shell with the following command:
# hdiutil create -type SPARSE -fs 'Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+' -size 40g ~/android.dmg
This will create a .dmg file which, once mounted, acts as a drive with the required formatting for Android development. For a disk image named “android.dmg” stored in your home directory, you can add the following to your ~/.bash_profile to mount the image when you execute “mountAndroid”:
# mount the android file image
function mountAndroid { hdiutil attach ~/android.dmg -mountpoint /Volumes/android; }
Once mounted, you'll do all your work in the “android” volume. You can eject it (unmount it) just like you would with an external drive.
Install XCode from the Apple developer site. We recommend version 3.0 or newer. If you are not already registered as an Apple developer, you will have to create an Apple ID in order to download.
Install MacPorts from macports.org.
Note: Make sure that /opt/local/bin appears in your path BEFORE /usr/bin. If not, add
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:$PATH
to your ~/.bash_profile.
Get make, git, and GPG packages from MacPorts:
$ POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 sudo port install gmake libsdl git-core gnupg
If using Mac OS 10.4, also install bison:
$ POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 sudo port install bison
There is a bug in gmake 3.82 that prevents android from building. You can install version 3.81 using MacPorts by taking the following steps:
Edit /opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf and add a line that says
file:///Users/Shared/dports
above the rsync line. Then create this directory:
$ mkdir /Users/Shared/dports
In the new dports directory, run
$ svn co --revision 50980 http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/dports/devel/gmake/ devel/gmake/
Create a port index for your new local repository:
$ portindex /Users/Shared/dports
Finally, install the old version of gmake with
$ sudo port install gmake @3.81
On MacOS the default limit on the number of simultaneous file descriptors open is too low and a highly parallel build process may exceed this limit.
To increase the cap, add the following lines to your ~/.bash_profile:
# set the number of open files to be 1024 ulimit -S -n 1024
Your build environment is good to go! Proceed to downloading the source....