Setting-Up-Android-Studio-on-Ubuntu

Setting Up Android Studio and all dependencies on Ubuntu with troubleshooting

I have faced so many issues while installing Android Studio on my Ubuntu 17.04 64-bit machine. I have done many hacks to get it finally worked. Hence sharing all the steps required to setup Android Studio successfully and running a project with that.

Terminologies

• AS- Android Studio. It is an IDE which will help you to make, build, and run your project.
• AVD- Android Virtual Device. Consider it as a virtual android mobile running on your machine. You'll require a good graphics support to use it.
• Emulator- Requires to run an AVD on your machine.

Install JDK

$sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer
#You can replace java7 with java8, or java9
$sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-set-default
#Replace java7 with whatever the version you specified in above command

Alert : I have observed that Android studio faces some issues with java9 currently. So better to install jdk8. Or if you face NoClassDefFoundError: javax/xml/bind/annotation/XmlSchema then install java8 instead of java9.

Install Android Studio

Download the package. Place it on desire location. You are gonna need it to install Android Studio and run it every time. So better not to leave it in /tmp or ~/Downloads folder. Now Navigate to android-studio/bin/ in and run Android Studio from terminal using

./studio.sh

On first run it'll install Android Studio on your machine.

Alternatively you can install it from command prompt

$sudo apt-add-repository ppa:paolorotolo/android-studio 
$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install android-studio

If you don't change the path then the SDK will be installed in ~/Android/Sdk.

Update Android Studio

Whenever you open Android Studio, update it first. So you'll have to less problems while running your project.

1. Go to Configure > Settings > Updates OR File > Settings > Updates
2. Check "Check for updates in channel"
3. Set the channel to Stable Channel unless you're feeling adventurous.
4. Check Now

Check hardware support for virtualization

Intel's KVM is required for Better AVD Performance. Check if your processor supports hardware virtualization;

$egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

If the output is non-zero, then your machine supports virtualization. Otherwise you'll have to use actual Android device to test your application. Even if the output is 0 , it doesn't mean virtualization is enabled. Let's check it;

$sudo apt-get install cpu-checker
$kvm-ok

If you see:

INFO: Your CPU supports KVM extensions
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used 

Then virtualization is enabled and ready to use otherwise you'll have to enable it from BIOS if you see following;

INFO: KVM is disabled by your BIOS
HINT: Enter your BIOS setup and enable Virtualization Technology (VT),
and then hard poweroff/poweron your system
KVM acceleration can NOT be used

Recheck the above command once you enable VT from BIOS settings.

Now install KVM and add your local user account to the group kvm and libvirtd.

$sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin ubuntu-vm-builder bridge-utils
$sudo adduser your_user_name kvm
$sudo adduser your_user_name libvirtd

In Ubuntu 16.10 and above, the group has been renamed to libvirt instead of libvirtd. In most of the cases, your user name will already be added to libvirtd. Above steps will create one more user in your account "Libvirt Qemu".

Alert Reboot your machine before going further.

Android Studio Requires mksdcard utility to create AVD. If you're running 64-bit Linux OS. It won't have these packages installed by default. Install those packages.

$sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386 libgcc1:i386 zlib1g:i386 libncurses5:i386

Let's verify installation in Terminal using following commans;

sudo virsh -c qemu:///system list

If you see:

Id Name                 State
----------------------------------

installation was successful.

Install SDK Platforms, tools, system images

Open the android Studio from android-studio/bin/studio.sh. Open the SDK manager from tool panel or from File > Settings > Appearance & Behaviour > System Settings > Android SDK. Check following in the below image and install them using "Apply" button.

Now open AVD (Android Virtual Device) Manager from the tool palate or from Tools > Android > AVG Manager

If you already added soem device before you'll see the window like this otherwise empty window asking to create your first AVD.

Create Virtual Device. It'll open a window to configure virtual drive.

Select the type of device. You can create your own device too. And then click next. It'll ask you to select the image. If you haven't downloaded any image before, you can't go next. I have already downloaded 3 images that you can see in below screen.

Click next > Final. Once selected images are downloaded you can check them in ~\Android\Sdk\system-images folder. You can check all the AVDs in "~/.android/avd " folder or using following command;

~/Android/Sdk/tools/emulator -list-avds

Running Emulator

When you will run your application it'll automatically open the emulator with specified AVD. However to open it from command line;

$~/Android/Sdk/tools/emulator @<AVD name>

or

$export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=~/Android/Sdk/ && emulator '@'`emulator -list-avds`

Once the AVD is started using emulator you can even install an APK on that.

$~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/adb install <path_to_your_APK>

To enable GPU Emulation

$~/Android/Sdk/tools/emulator @<AVD name> -gpu on

Troubleshooting

Project not found

Android studio makes project folder by default in home directory until you specify another location. Ensure that you are not running android studio from any other user or from root or sudo. Otherwise it'll create the project directory in home folder of particular user.

Error Installing APKs

If you see following while running your application

09:10	Gradle build finished in 468ms
09:11	Session 'MainActivity': Error Installing APKs

then go to File > Settings > Build, Execution, Deployment > Instant Run and uncheck "Enable Instant Run to ..."

Faulty Emulator

If you see following error while running emulator

libGL error: unable to load driver: i965_dri.so
libGL error: driver pointer missing
:
:

then first check if /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 presents. If not install following;

$sudo apt-get install lib64stdc++6 mesa-utils

Now replace with the file comes with Android emulator.

$mv ~/Android/Sdk/emulator/lib64/libstdc++/libstdc++.so.6 ~/Android/Sdk/emulator/lib64/libstdc++/libstdc++.so.6.bak
$sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 ~/Android/Sdk/emulator/lib64/libstdc++

Device offline

Whenever you get "error: device offline" means that connection with emulator & adb bridge has been broken. stops & start adb bridge again with following commands

adb kill-server

adb start-server

References:

• https://github.com/uw-it-aca/spacescout-android/wiki/1.-Setting-Up-Android-Studio-on-Ubuntu
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4974568/how-do-i-launch-the-android-emulator-from-the-command-line
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38450717/session-app-error-while-installing-apk