Android has become a very popular OS for mobile phone with more and more manufacturers launching Android powered phones. As a result Android app development has become a very popular. Android development requires the Android development environment. In this article, we will show you how you can install Android development environment in Ubuntu.

To install the Android development environment, follow the steps given below:

• Make sure that your system is up-to-date.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

• Install Java and switch Sun to be the default version of Java.

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk && sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

• Make a directory for your work. eg

mkdir ~/android

• Install Eclipse

sudo apt-get install eclipse

• Download the latest Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html, move it into ~/android/ and then unpack it.

mv android-sdk_r04-linux_86.tgz ~/android/

cd ~/android/

tar xzvf android-sdk_r04-linux_86.tgz

• Open the ~/.bashrc file.

nano ~/.bashrc

• Add the following line at the bottom. Save the ~/.bashrc file and exit from nano.

export PATH=${PATH}:/home/matt/android/android-sdk-linux_86/tools

• Run Eclipse.
• Install the Android Development Tool (ADT) for Eclipse. An excellent tutorial on how to do this is found at http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html.
• After the ADT has been installed, do not forget to specify the Android SDK location at Windows -> Preferences in Eclipse. For example, your Android SDK is located at ~/android/android-sdk-linux_86.
• In Eclipse, click Window->Android SDK and AVD Manager. In the resulting window, on the left-hand side will be an Available Packages option. Click on that, then click on the checkbox beside the repository.xml package to select all available packages and then click on Install Selected.

Now you’re ready to create your first Android program.

(Thanks Matt)