Installing android SDK on Ubuntu 10.04

This little step by step guide will help you to install a running android SDK. We’ll use Eclipse as our IDE.

If you follow the guide properly and are able to accomplish each step you’ll have in the end a “ready-to-develop” android developing kit on your Ubuntu.

Even though “Ubuntu 10.04″ is written in this post’s title, it should also be possible to install the kit on other “Ubuntu’s” (even other distributions) following this guide.

First of all install Eclipse via “Ubuntu Software Center”:

Application->Ubuntu Software Center->”Search for Eclipse”

As we will use the option to install Eclipse plugins you’ll also need the “eclipse-platform” and “eclipse-pde” packages, if you don’t install them you’ll get this error every time you try to install the android plugin:

The artifact file for osgi.bundle,org.eclipse.cvs,1.0.400.v201002111343 was not found.

To install those packages open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install eclipse-platform eclipse-pde

Now that Eclipse has been successfully installed go to the android page and download the SDK. Open a Browser and navigate to “http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html” you’ll see this website:

Here you download the last package “android-sdk_r06-linux_86.tgz”.

After the download open a terminal and extract the archive:

cd Downloads
tar xzvf android-sdk_r06-linux_86.tgz
mv android-sdk-linux_86 android
sudo mv android /usr/local/bin/
sudo chown -R yourUser:users /usr/local/bin/android

Exchange “yourUser” with your own username. You should have now a user accessible folder called “/usr/local/bin/android” with the whole SDK tools inside.
Now it’s time to open Eclipse:

Applications->Programming->Eclipse

After Eclipse has started click on “Help->Install New Software…”. There click on “Add…” and fill the form like shown here:

For those who like copy/paste: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

Now you can select this new repository from the dropdown menu, once selected you should see this:

Click to select “Developer Tools” and hit “Next”, the installing wizard will start, just continue clicking “Next”, “Accept All” and in the end “Finish”.

Now Eclipse will ask you to restart, do so.
After the restart, your plugin installation is completed, now we’ll only need to configure it. Click on “Window->Preferences->Android” and browse there the “SDK Location:” to “/usr/local/bin/Android”:

Before you can start programming you have to add some android targets to your SDK, this for click “Window->Android SDK and AVD Manager->Available Packages->Select the repository->Refresh”:

Here you select all the Android Plattforms you want to have and install them (“Install Selected”).
Now we’re almost finished, just create a new AVD (Virtual Device) for each target you want to develop for and you are ready to develop!

If you run into any troubles using this guide don’t hesitate to ask!