I ran the gauntlet of trying to setup an IDE for developing Droid apps on my Ubuntu system and hit a major snag along the way. Don't get me wrong; the Android Developer site has extensive info, but does not elaborate on all contingencies that one may encounter when trying to develop in a Linux OS. We are of course the minority. Most of what follows is paraphrased from
this.
Here are some instructions that worked for me. I hope they help you.
1. Install an applicable JAVA SDK that conforms to both your OS AND the version of Eclipse you will be using. You can go to
Oracle's site or through the Software Center (see below)
2. Install Eclipse IDE from Software Center. This is the development environment which will employ the Android development kit which we will install after.
3. Download and extract the
Android SDK to a suitable directory.
Now the hang up that I ran into is that the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin would not properly configure free of incident. The solution which is not mentioned on the Android site, is that for Ubuntu users (especially Karmic, but occasionly Maverick and Natty) when they install Eclipse, some key pre-requisite libraries that ADT needs to function properly are not installed by default.
To do so, open Synaptic Package Manager, and search for eclipse. Look for any packages named eclipse that have not been installed. I just installed any and all that looked applicable (so I am not even exactly sure which one is the key). After installing this, the ADT plugin should configure without the 1 hour headache that I experienced. I found many solutions to many problems. If you know of any solutions similar to this posted anywhere else written by those who are more articulate and/or knowledgeable than I, please post a link below.
4. Now install ADT Plugin for Eclipse. This step can be done by following these
instructions.
Enjoy your Android developing and hope that Google acts soon to save us from the tribulations of platform fragmentation!
