Get Android source

Get source

This document 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.
Related reading:

• For an overview of the entire code-review and code-update process, see Workflow.
• For reference details about Repo, see Using Repo and Git.

What's in the source?

For a description of all the projects that make up the Android source code, see Project layout. To see snapshots and histories of the files available in the public Android repositories, visit the GitWeb web interface.

The source is approximentely 2.1GB in size. You will need 6GB free to complete the build.

Setting up your machine

To build the Android source files, you will need to use Linux or Mac OS. Building under Windows is not currently supported.

Linux

The Android build is routinely tested on recent versions of Ubuntu (6.06 and later), but reports of successes or failures on other distributions are welcome.

Ubuntu Linux (i386)

To set up your Linux development environment, make sure you have the following:

• Git 1.5.4 or newer and the GNU Privacy Guard.

$ sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg

• JDK 5.0, update 12 or higher.

$ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

• The following packages: flex, bison, gperf, libsdl-dev, libesd0-dev, libwxgtk2.6-dev (optional), build-essential, zip, curl.

$ sudo apt-get install flex bison gperf libsdl-dev libesd0-dev libwxgtk2.6-dev build-essential zip curl libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev

• You might also want Valgrind, a tool that will help you find memory leaks, stack corruption, array bounds overflows, etc.

$ sudo apt-get install valgrind

Ubuntu Linux (amd64)

This has not been as well tested. Please send success or failure reports to [e-mail].

The Android build requires a 32-bit build environment as well as some other tools:

• Git, JDK, flex, and the other packages as listed above in the i386 instructions:

$ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk git-core gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential zip curl

• Pieces from the 32-bit cross-building environment:

$ sudo apt-get install lib32z1-dev gcc-multilib g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 lib32ncurses5-dev ia32-libs

Other Linux

There's no reason why Android cannot be built on non-Ubuntu systems. Please send any success or failure reports to [e-mail]. In general you will need:

• Python 2.4, which you can download from python.org .
• JDK 5.0, update 12 or higher, which you can download from java.sun.com .
• Git 1.5.4 or newer. You can find it at http://git.or.cz/ .

Anything missing from this list? Please let us know!

Mac OS

Requirements:

• To build the Android files in a Mac OS environment, you need an Intel/x86 machine. The Android build system and tools do not support the obsolete PowerPC architecture.
• We recommend that you build Android on a partition that has been formatted with the "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" file system:
  • A case-sensitive file system is required because the sources contain files that differ only in case.
  • Journaled systems are more robust. (This is optional, but recommended.)
  • HFS+ is required to successfully build Mac OS applications such as the Android Emulator for OS X.

To set up your Mac OS development environment, follow these steps:

1. Install the XCode version 2.4 or later from http://developer.apple.com . We recommend version 3.0 or newer.
2. Install MacPorts. To do this:
   1. Download the tar file from http://www.macports.org/ and untar the files.
   2. Run the following:
      $ ./configure
      $ make
      $ sudo make install
      $ sudo port selfupdate
   3. View your path:
      $ echo $PATH
      Make sure that /opt/local/bin is in your path before /usr/bin. If not, edit $HOME/.bash_profile and add the line "export PATH=/opt/local/bin:$PATH" (or the equivalent for other shells) after any other PATH-related lines. To verify that your path is now correct, open a new terminal and run echo $PATH again.
3. Upgrade GNU make to 3.81 or later by running
   $ sudo port install gmake
   $ sudo ln -s gmake /opt/local/bin/make
4. Install libsdl by running
   $ sudo port install libsdl
5. Set an appropriate per-process file descriptor limit. To do this, add the following lines to your .bash_profile file:
   # set the number of open files to be 1024
   ulimit -S -n 1024
6. Install Git and the GNU Privacy Guard:
   $ sudo port install git-core gnupg
   (You will need Git 1.5.4 or newer.)
7. Install these optional packages, if you want to:
   $ sudo port install xemacs +sumo
   $ sudo port install gimp

Note: If you get errors from port install, prefix your commands with POSIXLY_CORRECT=1, for example:
$ POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 sudo port install package-name

Installing Repo

Repo is a tool that makes it easier to work with Git in the context of Android. For more information about Repo, see Using Repo and Git.

To install, initialize, and configure Repo, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you have a ~/bin directory in your home directory, and check to be sure that this bin directory is in your path:
   $ cd ~
   $ mkdir bin
   $ echo $PATH
2. Download the repo script and make sure it is executable:
   $ curl http://android.git.kernel.org/repo >~/bin/repo

$ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

1. Create an empty directory to hold your working files:
   $ mkdir mydroid
   $ cd mydroid
2. Run repo init to bring down the latest version of Repo with all its most recent bug fixes. You must specify a URL for the manifest:
   $ repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git
3. When prompted, configure Repo with your real name and email address. If you plan to submit code, use an email address that is associated with a Google account.

A successful initialization will end with a message such as
repo initialized in /mydroid
Your client directory should now contain a .repo directory where files such as the manifest will be kept.
What will my name and email be used for?
To use the Gerrit code-review tool, you will need an email address that is connected with a registered Google account (which does not have to be a Gmail address). Make sure this is a live address at which you can receive messages. The real name that you provide here will show up in attributions for your code submissions.

What is a manifest file?

The Android source files are divided among a number of different repositories. A manifest file contains a mapping of where the files from these repositories will be placed within your working directory when you synchronize your files.

Getting the files

To pull down files to your working directory from the repositories as specified in the default manifest, run
$ repo sync

For more about repo sync and other Repo commands, see Using Repo and Git.
The Android source files will be located in your working directory under their project names.

Building the code

To build the files, run make from within your working directory:
$ cd ~/mydroid
$ make

If your build fails, complaining about a missing "run-java-tool", try setting the ANDROID_JAVA_HOME env var to $JAVA_HOME before making. E.g.,

$ export ANDROID_JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_HOME

Troubleshooting

ImportError: No module named readline

Mac users getting this should install Python 2.5.2.

Linux users that installed Python from source, make sure the dependancies for libreadline are installed and rebuild Python.

What's next?

To learn about reporting an issue and searching previously reported issues, see Report bugs. For information about editing the files and uploading changes to the code-review server, see Contribute