Android SDK Installation and Usage – PART 1

Please follow the steps mentioned below to install Android SDK and eclipse IDE to get started with application development.

Preparing your development machine

Your development system should first download some software before you can program for it. The first one is the JDK which you can download from -

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

As this book is targeted towards beginners we suggest using Eclipse and ADT plug-in to develop for android.  You can switch to different tool chain once you are familiar with the Android APIs.

You can download eclipse from here -    http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

You can use any eclipse IDE above 3.4 but you should always use the latest version.

Note: Make sure you first install the JDK before installing the Eclipse.

Google Recommends

Operating Systems

• Windows XP (32-bit), Vista (32- or 64-bit), or Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit)

• Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later (x86 only)

• Linux (tested on Linux Ubuntu Hardy Heron)

• 64-bit distributions must be capable of running 32-bit applications. For information about how to add support for 32-bit applications, see the Ubuntu Linux installation notes.

Supported Development Environments

• Eclipse IDE
• Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede) or 3.5 (Galileo)

Caution: There are known issues with the ADT plugin running with Eclipse 3.6. Please stay on 3.5 until further notice.

Eclipse JDT plugin (included in most Eclipse IDE packages)

If you need to install or update Eclipse, you can download it from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

Several types of Eclipse packages are available for each platform. For developing Android applications, we recommend that you install one of these packages:

• Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers
• Eclipse IDE for Java Developers
• Eclipse for RCP/Plug-in Developers
• Eclipse Classic (versions 3.5.1 and higher)
• JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
• Android Development Tools plugin (optional)

Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)

Other development environments or IDEs

• JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
• Apache Ant 1.6.5 or later for Linux and Mac, 1.7 or later for Windows

Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)

Note: If JDK is already installed on your development computer, please take a moment to make sure that it meets the version requirements listed above. In particular, note that some Linux distributions may include JDK 1.4 or Gnu Compiler for Java, both of which are not supported for Android development.

Hardware requirements

The Android SDK requires disk storage for all of the components that you choose to install. The table below provides a rough idea of the disk-space requirements to expect, based on the components that you plan to use.

Component type	Approximate size	Comments
SDK Tools	50 MB	Required.
Android platform (each)	150 MB	At least one platform is required.
SDK Add-on (each)	100 MB	Optional.
USB Driver for Windows	10 MB	Optional. For Windows only.
Samples (per platform)	10M	Optional.
Offline documentation	250 MB	Optional.

Note that the disk-space requirements above are in addition to those of the Eclipse IDE, JDK, or other prerequisite tools that you may need to install on your development computer.