Config the Android 5.0 Build Environment

In this document

    Choosing a Branch
    Setting up a Linux build environment
        Installing the JDK
        Installing required packages (Ubuntu 12.04)
        Installing required packages (Ubuntu 14.04)
        Installing required packages (Ubuntu 10.04 -- 11.10)
        Configuring USB Access

This section describes how to set up your local work environment 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 download is approximately 8.5GB in size. You will need over 30GB free to complete a single build, and up to 100GB (or more) for a full set of builds.

For an overview of the entire code-review and code-update process, see Life of a Patch.
Choosing a Branch

Some of the requirements for your build environment are determined by which version of the source code you plan to compile. See Build Numbers for a full listing of branches you may choose from. You may also choose to download and build the latest source code (called "master"), in which case you will simply omit the branch specification when you initialize the repository.

Once you have selected a branch, follow the appropriate instructions below to set up your build environment.
Setting up a Linux build environment

These instructions apply to all branches, including master.

The Android build is routinely tested in house on recent versions of Ubuntu LTS (12.04), but most distributions should have the required build tools available. Reports of successes or failures on other distributions are welcome.

For Gingerbread (2.3.x) and newer versions, including the master branch, a 64-bit environment is required. Older versions can be compiled on 32-bit systems.

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 16GB of RAM/swap and 30GB or more of disk space in order to build the Android tree.

See the Downloading and Building page for the list of hardware and software requirements. Then follow the detailed instructions for Ubuntu and MacOS below.
Installing the JDK

The master branch of Android in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) requires Java 7. On Ubuntu, use OpenJDK.

Java 7: For the latest version of Android

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

Optionally, update the default Java version by running:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config java
$ sudo update-alternatives --config javac

If you encounter version errors for Java, set its path as described in the Wrong Java Version section.

To develop older versions of Android, download and install the corresponding version of the Java JDK:
Java 6: for Gingerbread through KitKat
Java 5: for Cupcake through Froyo

Note: The lunch command in the build step will ensure that the Sun JDK is used instead of any previously installed JDK.
Installing required packages (Ubuntu 12.04)

You will need a 64-bit version of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 12.04 is recommended. Building using an older version of Ubuntu is not supported on master or recent releases.

$ sudo apt-get install git gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential zip curl libc6-dev libncurses5-dev:i386 x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev:i386 libreadline6-dev:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-dev g++-multilib mingw32 tofrodos python-markdown libxml2-utils xsltproc zlib1g-dev:i386
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libGL.so

Installing required packages (Ubuntu 14.04)

Building on Ubuntu 14.04 is experimental at the moment but will eventually become the recommended environment.

$ sudo apt-get install bison g++-multilib git gperf libxml2-utils

Installing required packages (Ubuntu 10.04 -- 11.10)

Building on Ubuntu 10.04-11.10 is no longer supported, but may be useful for building older releases of AOSP.

$ 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 xsltproc

On Ubuntu 10.10:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib32/mesa/libGL.so

On Ubuntu 11.10:

$ sudo apt-get install libx11-dev:i386

Configuring USB Access

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. <username> must be replaced by the actual username of the user who is authorized to access the phones over USB.