Android Development — Basic Setup in 2 Minutes

This is a mini-crash-course for setting up a development environment for Android in less than 3 minutes (given you’ve got broadband). And there are no installations required, just download and extract.

What do you need?

• Internet access
• A running Linux, OSX or Windows

Let’s get started!

Download the Android SDK 1.1 and Eclipse 3.4.1. You’ll like Eclipse for developing android apps — trust me on that one. Both downloads are available for Linux, Windows and OSX:

• Android SDK 1.1 Release 1 (~ 80 MB)
• Eclipse Classic 3.4.1 (~ 150 MB)

Extract both the SDK and Eclipse to the directory you want it to be, as this is the installation, and no further steps are required (might be different on windows). Now Eclipse is ready to use, as is the Android SDK with the emulator and a set of tools (directory /tools/).

Installing the ADT Eclipse Plugin
The last installation step before starting to code is the ADT Eclipse Plugin (Android Developer Tools):

1. Start Eclipse (start the executable with the name eclipse in the extracted folder)
2. Open the menu: Help > Software Updates > Available Software > Add Site…
3. Enter http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
4. OK > Install > Next > Finish, Restart Eclipse
5. Go to menu: Window > Preferences > Android
6. Select your previously extracted SDK folder and click on Apply and OK

That’s the setup! You’re now ready to write your first Android app!