Which distro for android development could you suggest to try, other than Ubuntu?
Will Arch, Slackware, Backtrack, Mint, Fedora work?
I'm using Backtrack, but just in case of tools included, its based on ubuntu too but this one isn't best for everyday use.
I have Mint on CD, Ubuntu via Wubi, Arch via VirtualBox, and just downloaded Slack, now waiting for new Fedora too and I'm cofused of all of this distroch, which would be good for everyday use to switch from Windows7.
I used Fedora 12 on old PC and I had problems with drivers, where Ubuntu was just fine.
Ubuntu now has Unity which I hate, thats the main reason why I want change.
Arch, I've installed it just on VirtualBox as I can't describe myself as complete Linux expert, nor beginner (I dont want to mess up partitions) but its working pretty fast and need a lot of time to set it up, but everyone tells its nice and I can't feel really why its better than another distros, most linux are the same but Pacman here is nice tool.
I've used Mint but there most confusing problem for me is that it's based on Ubuntu so its 2nd remake (mean Debian>Ubuntu>Mint), which can be unstable, because first Ubuntu days wasn't best and its young distro and I don't want to switch in a month to another distro due to unstability or errors but I really enjoyed using it.
Well, since you said other than Ubuntu, I'll have to recommend Fedora.
Oh I forgot that if other GUI is viable for development I can also switch to Kubuntu or other KDE/LXDE/XFCE desktop distro - I hate Unity the most in Ubuntu.
I was getting prepped to get my unlock code and was finding out how to install Android sdk and adb on this site:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html
Went to System Requirements and for Windows it only lists XP And 7.
Would that be only if you're going to actually write something for Android? Atm the only windows computer I have up and running is my Vista laptop. I suppose I could try pulling out my old XP desktop system but I don't think it can even use my new monitors. I do have a nice Mac desktop running Snow Leopard but I prefer to do my hobby stuff on Windows as I'm much more comfortable with tinkering on that. I'm much more mystified by OS X than Windows.
I'm running 64-bit Vista and had no problem with ADB. The .zip I got was "android-sdk_r16-windows" and had a flawless unlock/ root process.
That said, I did have to do some more advanced settings within Windows. If you have any troubles let me know and I'll hunt down the ADB tutorial that I followed.
I've been using it on a 32 bit vista. Works fine
sent from my newly unlocked Rezound
A lot of the development that has (is) taken place for our Nook's is performed by the developers in Linux. As such there are a few posts in the development thread that offer "Linux Only" solutions.
We already have the Original ClockWorkMod (CWM) installation instructions, AdamOutlers Ubuntu Recovery and others.
People have also been recommended to re-format their bootable SD Cards using a program in Linux called Gparted. I can verify that this program works great but I'm sure I'm in the minority with having access to a Linux Machine. This thread is here to offer some suggestions.
To my knowledge you have these options:
1. Run Linux in a Virtual Machine (VM)
2. Create and boot from a Live CD/DVD
3. Create and boot from a USB Stick
4. Install Linux on a separate machine
5. Dual Boot
I personally run a MAC and run Linux in a VM. I use a program called Parallels. This is NOT a free solution but if any of you run a MAC I can recommend this program highly. However this thread is dedicated to those Windoze Users so let's press on.
Virtual Machines
VM's are great tools that allow you to try almost all available OS's on your machine with no damage being done to the actual file system of the "Host" operating system which in this case is your windows machine. The "Guest" operating system is typically contained in one single file or a single folder so the entire machine can be backed up easily. This method may be a little more advanced then the method's I will outline below but in my opinion it is well worth it. VM's are fun and once you get the hang of them you will be installing a bunch of new operating systems just to "fiddle".I have a version of Dos 6 running in a VM just because I can. LOL
Virtual Box is a free VM for Windows and I believe they even offer pre-built Linux Distro's that you simply download and open once the main VM software is installed.
VMware Player is also free.
Live CD's/DVD's
Live CD's are great for a quick format job's such as those found here in the Forum's. The downside is that they are a little slower and changes you make while the system is running are lost.
Knoppix
Ubuntu is the distribution recommend most. This link brings you to a download page where you can select either a Full Install Version, a Live CD Version or a Flash Drive version.
The LiveCD List Too many to mention. Check it out.
USB Stick
Advantages to a USB stick is that you can make the file system mountable and changes you make to the system can be made persistent meaning the next time you boot your changes will be saved. It is also a tad bit faster then the live CD but a little more difficult to make. Not much though
Ubuntu same link as above.
Linux Live USB Creator is a cool application that you install and it talks you through the steps. Once Installed I believe it will even provide you with a list of available distributions and download it for you. It will then use the download to create a bootable USB stick.
PenDriveLinux is the same premise as Linux Live. It will talk you through the steps.
Full Installation
This method is obviously for more advanced users and requires a computer that you will dedicate to running linux. If you fit these qualifications it is a rather fun experience and a great learning tool.
Ubuntu I'm linking this again because it is the same area you would obtain the Full Version of the software to download.
Linux Distro Watch contains a complete list of the most recent Linux Distro's. Pick a flavor and read up on how to install.
Dual Boot
AdamOutler has suggested that this Section be added. Dual booting is an option that replaces your boot loader with an "option" screen allowing you to select which OS you wish to boot. I honestly can't recommend this to beginners and even though I consider myself more of an advanced user, I have experienced issues with this in the past. Simply put if that boot-loader somehow gets corrupted you can render the entire machine inaccessible. Mind you it has been a LONG time since I used a dual-boot solution and I'm sure the methods have improved significantly over the years. Adam has mentioned that the Live-CD and USB-Stick versions offer you the option to install the boot-loader now. Like I said, once I went to VM's I haven't looked back but this IS a viable option if you are so inclined. The advantage would be that your Linux Distro would run at full speed and would be just like having your own Linux workstation without the need to purchase or obtain additional hardware. Simply select the OS you wish to run (Windows, Linux, ETC.) and boot into that OS. Adam's post can be viewed HERE. Thanks Adam!
User Suggestions
Wubi was recommended by Veronica (Lavero.Burgos). It looks like it may be a pretty easy (and Cool) option. Give it a shot! Thanks Veronica!
Know-Fear has offer some additional Instructions in This Post. Good Information there. Give him a thanks!
Birdsbeaks recommends NOT taking the easy road if you are truly interested in "learning" Linux. He suggests that you start with a distro that has a "steeper learning curve". One of his recommendations was Slackware. He also prefers MINT over Ubuntu as he feels it is less "proprietary". You can read his full comment HERE.
By no means is this list even close to complete. I simply wanted to give you a starting point and the rest is up to you. I have tried a few of these solutions in the past but since moving to a VM solution that is where I stand. Since it has been awhile, your mileage may vary (YMMV) but this should get you started.
If you have questions feel free to post them and I will do my best to help you along but the best way to learn is to experiment on your own.
If anybody has tried other versions or solutions feel free to post them and I will update the Original Post (OP).
Have fun and good luck!
****Reserved*******
I choose to dual boot windows 7 and Ubuntu.
All the options you mentioned work. Probably a live CD or USB would be the best bet for most people, since most probably wont spend alot of time on it.
@LandMaster you forgot Wubi, also have anyone tested Ubuntu 12.04 LTS alpha? So far im researching about Cinnamon Linux Mint 12 which looks promising .
~ Veronica
lavero.burgos said:
@LandMaster you forgot Wubi, also have anyone tested the new 12.04 LTS alpha of Ubuntu? So far im researching about Cinnamon Linux Mint 12 which looks promising .
~ Veronica
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Added. Thanks!! Looks cool. I had never heard of it
What is this Windows you speak of.
don't forget to add in the full installation that most Live CDs and USB sticks will give you the option to run "side-by-side" or "Dual-boot". Personally, I'd just wipe Windows from the computer, if you need it back for some reason just use your quick restore disks.
I run a dual boot on my netbook because I have some hardware that requires Windows. Other than that, I can run about 3 separate virtual machines at the same time within Linux and everything works fine... Windows xp, Windows 7 and OS-X Lion all run fine in virtual machines within Linux. With guest additions, you can make them full-screen or share your desktop with the virtual machine so "Windows" windows appear in the same space as the Linux windows.
AdamOutler said:
don't forget to add in the full installation that most Live CDs and USB sticks will give you the option to run "side-by-side" or "Dual-boot". Personally, I'd just wipe Windows from the computer, if you need it back for some reason just use your quick restore disks.
I run a dual boot on my netbook because I have some hardware that requires Windows. Other than that, I can run about 3 separate virtual machines at the same time within Linux and everything works fine... Windows xp, Windows 7 and OS-X Lion all run fine in virtual machines within Linux. With guest additions, you can make them full-screen or share your desktop with the virtual machine so "Windows" windows appear in the same space as the Linux windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I added a dual-boot section to the OP. I'm out of thanks for the day. I'll hook you up later.
Totally agree about Windoze. I have a really good laptop that runs Win 7 and it would take me about an hour just to clean the dust off of it.
As this guide is for "beginners" I didn't really want to tell them to forego windows and wipe their boxes. Hopefully they will come around once they have a chance to experiment with Linux.
AdamOutler said:
don't forget to add in the full installation that most Live CDs and USB sticks will give you the option to run "side-by-side" or "Dual-boot". Personally, I'd just wipe Windows from the computer, if you need it back for some reason just use your quick restore disks.
I run a dual boot on my netbook because I have some hardware that requires Windows. Other than that, I can run about 3 separate virtual machines at the same time within Linux and everything works fine... Windows xp, Windows 7 and OS-X Lion all run fine in virtual machines within Linux. With guest additions, you can make them full-screen or share your desktop with the virtual machine so "Windows" windows appear in the same space as the Linux windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice!. Adam i have a question for you, i have a netbook as well HP110CA(that gave to bf) 1GB of ram and im having issues with linux on it. It came with windows XP off course and i had to format it twice because it got viruses while in Canada, so i just wiped out and put ubuntu 10.10 in that time. At first was running ok but eventually it started to freeze, later on upgraded to 11.04 and it messed things up so i decided to try other "light" distro and i put Jolicloud(based on ubuntu) again started running fine but keeps freezing and more often, now i don't know what else to put in i was thinking on Puppy linux lol but im not sure why it freezes that much. When i had it with windows it never froze though but i don't want to go back to windows only if its my last resource. What would you recommend? im starting to think its a hardware failure and that linux is too much for that poor machine .
~ Veronica
Hell yeah but I think I messed up bc i. Put the disk in and restarted and it to me to a black screen with cursor so i even up have to goto bios or cmos one of those and change first boot to dvd so hopefully after I'm done with this I. Can get back to windows hopefully my drive order is correct
___________________________________________
Sent from my PG86100-EVO3D-using Tapatalk Born Jan 5th 84 and still getting it in eeee
Anon9mouz said:
Hell yeah but I think I messed up bc i. Put the disk in and restarted and it to me to a black screen with cursor so i even up have to goto bios or cmos one of those and change first boot to dvd so hopefully after I'm done with this I. Can get back to windows hopefully my drive order is correct
___________________________________________
Sent from my PG86100-EVO3D-using Tapatalk Born Jan 5th 84 and still getting it in eeee
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup... When booting from a USB drive or CD the boot order must be set in the bios. I recommend just leaving it as:
1. DVD/CD Rom
2. USB
3. C drive
This way here if 1 & 2 are not attached it will boot from the "C Drive"
I would unplug the hard drive if I were the noobs just in case. That way the noobs wont accidentally wipe their Hard drive
My recommendation for "beginners" would be to try Ubuntu in a Virtual machine ( i use Vmware and love it, has never let me down) and you can still work in your Windows interface, it is also easy to share files between windows and your virtual machine.
It is enough for all the sdcard mods and even adb if you want to set it up there too. I prefer this way rather than Wubi because i can work faster that way, i don't need to reboot to boot into windows, i have all i need in the same place .
~ Veronica
I prefer running either zen-mini or pclos gnome in virtualbox myself
Anon9mouz said:
Hell yeah but I think I messed up bc i. Put the disk in and restarted and it to me to a black screen with cursor so i even up have to goto bios or cmos one of those and change first boot to dvd so hopefully after I'm done with this I. Can get back to windows hopefully my drive order is correct
___________________________________________
Sent from my PG86100-EVO3D-using Tapatalk Born Jan 5th 84 and still getting it in eeee
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This happens when you use a 64 bit Linux on a 32 bit system. Also when you have a bad copy. Burn at a lower speed. Try redownloading.
AdamOutler said:
...
I can run about 3 separate virtual machines at the same time within Linux and everything works fine... Windows xp, Windows 7 and OS-X Lion all run fine in virtual machines within Linux.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been a couple years since I tried running OSX on non-apple hardware / in a vm. Can you point me to a good resource for this?
I don't always use virtual machines, but when I do, I use VirtualBox. Mostly because it's free.
I have ubuntu 11.10 on my netbook and, while I like the interface, it seems like things get a little slugish at times. Anybody out there know of a good distro for netbooks?
RadicalAns said:
I don't always use virtual machines, but when I do, I use VirtualBox. Mostly because it's free.
I have ubuntu 11.10 on my netbook and, while I like the interface, it seems like things get a little slugish at times. Anybody out there know of a good distro for netbooks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't always drink beer, but when I do... Oh wait .... getting sidetracked..
I just did a quick search and believe it or not Ubuntu leads the ranking's on This Page
I remember putting the "Netbook Remix" on an older netbook and it ran OK but not great from what I recall. From quickly glancing at this article it sounds like that version has been merged with the main distribution. You may be able to locate a copy of it though and try it out.
Yeah I really like 11.10 for my netbook. I think I may end up just upgrading the ram on the little bugger. It's nice having a Linux machine that I can muck around on while watching TV w/ the wife.
lavero.burgos said:
Nice!. Adam i have a question for you, i have a netbook as well HP110CA(that gave to bf) 1GB of ram and im having issues with linux on it. It came with windows XP off course and i had to format it twice because it got viruses while in Canada, so i just wiped out and put ubuntu 10.10 in that time. At first was running ok but eventually it started to freeze, later on upgraded to 11.04 and it messed things up so i decided to try other "light" distro and i put Jolicloud(based on ubuntu) again started running fine but keeps freezing and more often, now i don't know what else to put in i was thinking on Puppy linux lol but im not sure why it freezes that much. When i had it with windows it never froze though but i don't want to go back to windows only if its my last resource. What would you recommend? im starting to think its a hardware failure and that linux is too much for that poor machine .
~ Veronica
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can someone help me with this one plz i don't know what else to install it lol oh well maybe i end up going back to windows XP.. sigh
~ V
Hi everyone,
So I've got my Lumia 920, and I want to start developping some stuff... I registered to a developper account.
I'm working on Windows 7 (x64) computer, using Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone 2010.
WP8 SDK CANNOT be installed on a Windows 7 machine. So, no problem, I'll try with WP 7.1 applications.
The problem is:
- Zune CANNOT detect the lumia 920 on Windows 7 machine (maybe neither on a Windows 8 machine)
- Visual Studio NEEDS Zune to detect my phone in order to deploy application.
So basically, I just can't deploy anything on my phone on windows 7 can I ?
Aanze said:
Hi everyone,
So I've got my Lumia 920, and I want to start developping some stuff... I registered to a developper account.
I'm working on Windows 7 (x64) computer, using Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone 2010.
WP8 SDK CANNOT be installed on a Windows 7 machine. So, no problem, I'll try with WP 7.1 applications.
The problem is:
- Zune CANNOT detect the lumia 920 on Windows 7 machine (maybe neither on a Windows 8 machine)
- Visual Studio NEEDS Zune to detect my phone in order to deploy application.
So basically, I just can't deploy anything on my phone on windows 7 can I ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah you're pretty much not able to do it. You can install Windows 8 as dual boot or in a VHD and do it that way. I don't think you can do it in a virtual machine because WP8 SDK requires to be installed on Windows 8 as the host OS in a Hyper-V environment. Easiest way to do it though is just to upgrade to Windows 8.
petard said:
Yeah you're pretty much not able to do it. You can install Windows 8 as dual boot or in a VHD and do it that way. I don't think you can do it in a virtual machine because WP8 SDK requires to be installed on Windows 8 as the host OS in a Hyper-V environment. Easiest way to do it though is just to upgrade to Windows 8.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the answer, that's what I thought... no real workaround then..
I'm using my work's computer, so I don't really have OS's choice (and having a W8 virtual machine running on it is not something I can consider)..
That's a shame though, that after buying a Lumia, buying a developper account, having a computer on Windows 7 I'm still unable to develop the way I want.. Anyway, nothing more to do except complain
I guess I'll just be coding at home.
You CAN deploy apps to WP8 on Windows 7 if you install Windows 8 as virtual machine. I have done this myself using VMWare Workstation.
Obviously, your PC have to support Hyper-V.
P.S.: You need to switch to "Exclusive mode" in the virtual machine and then Windows 8 will detect your USB connection.
boshko said:
You CAN deploy apps to WP8 on Windows 7 if you install Windows 8 as virtual machine. I have done this myself using VMWare Workstation.
Obviously, your PC have to support Hyper-V.
P.S.: You need to switch to "Exclusive mode" in the virtual machine and then Windows 8 will detect your USB connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's good to know thanks !
Though I'm not sure my company would let me run a Windows 8 with my own licence on a VM. But maybe I'll find a way, thanks for the tip !
Recently I have been having to use Linux more and more, I was thinking about just switching to Linux in general and for Android development. I have some general questions;
1. OpenJDK or Oracle JDK?
2. I know how to use Linux but have never attempted to use Android SDK and Eclipse in Linux, is it pretty straight forward/similar to Windows?
3. I recall in the past having trouble with dex2jar in Linux, maybe I was naive then but are there any issues/useful tips I should know or read up on before making the switch?
4. Is there a recommended distro that I should use? By that I mean is there one used by more of the android development community and thus easier to find/ask support for? I was thinking of just sticking to Ubuntu because of its large support community.
It doesn't matter, actually.
Yes.
-
Any distro will be ok, if you like Ubuntu, the use it (personally, I prefer Linux Mint or Arch Linux).