Install Android Emulator on Centos 6

Why would I want to have the Android Emulator? Well, I needed to test several custom Android  Packages and also develop apps for Android. This meant, I could keep testing the Android Packages without having to install on a physical Android phone such as the Sony Ericsson X10 or Samsung S3.

I have written on this topic for Centos 64bits, before and seems like it still depends on 32bit libraries:

• http://tboxmy.blogspot.com/2012/04/installing-java-on-centos-6.html
• http://tboxmy.blogspot.com/2012/07/develop-android-apps-with-eclipse-on.html

A good reference for everything Android is at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Here are steps for Centos 6.4 (64bits), open up a terminal as root;

Step 1: Install Java development kit (JDK)
# yum update
# yum install java-1.7.0-openjdk-devel.x86_64

Verify installation with following command:
# javac -version

Step 2a: Install library for 32bits 
yum install glibc.i686 ncurses-libs.i686 libstdc libstdc++.i686 libzip.i686 SDL.i686 gegl.i686  mesa-libGL.i686

Note: Optional package to install: 
libX11.i686 libXrandr.i686

Step 2: Install the Android SDK and ADT
Get the latest Android ADT from the Android Developer site or use following:
wget http://dl.google.com/android/adt/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20130729.zip

This will provide us with (Size if 440MB):

1. Eclipse + ADT plugin
2. Android SDK Tools
3. Android Platform-tools
4. The latest Android platform
5. The latest Android system image for the emulator

Note: If you are in Malaysia and cant download because of Internet problem (Some day this will improve) and really have no other way of getting the ADT and JDK for Centos 6 64bits, just email me your contact details (e.g. address) and we can work something out.

Allow groups named devel to access development. Create the directory /opt/android and extract adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20130729.zip

# mkdir /opt/android
# useradd -m devel
# chown devel.devel /opt/android
# chmod g+rwsx,+t /opt/android
# unzip -d /opt/android/ adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20130729.zip

Step 3: Post installation.
What can we do after installation? Well, you can run the Eclipse IDE to develop application and there is also the Android Emulator (to test APK). Info on the Android Emulator can be found at http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html

I suggest that you login as the devel user or a user with that group access to continue (Represented as $ in steps below).

Start Eclipse with
$ /opt/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64/eclipse/eclipse

Starting with the emulator
1. Listing the available emulators
$ cd /opt/android/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64/sdk/tools
$ ./android list targets

Available Android targets:
----------
id: 1 or "android-18"
     Name: Android 4.3
     Type: Platform
     API level: 18
     Revision: 1
     Skins: WSVGA, WVGA800 (default), WVGA854, WQVGA432, WQVGA400, WXGA800, QVGA, WXGA720, HVGA, WXGA800-7in
     ABIs : armeabi-v7a

2. Creating an instance of the emulator
Here it is called practiceandroid4.3 with the target id 1 (as above). Items in RED are optional. For further details see http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/managing-avds-cmdline.html
$ android create avd -n practiceandroid4.3 -t 1 --skin WVGA800
$ emulator -avd practiceandroid4.3


APK can be installed into the Android emulator
$ adb install bin/MyFirstApp-debug.apk


Trouble shooting:

• If there is a problem running Eclipse or the Emulator, try the Step 2a above.
• For error "./emulator: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory", ensure the step 2a is done.
• When upgrade Centos 6.3 to Centos 6.4 on Virtualbox, it hangs at the boot progress bar. Fix is at http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=6306