Compiling Android from sources

Getting Project Source Code

Our project is hosted at http://gitorious.org/picopc-android-eclair/
Follow below steps, it shows how to set up the building environment, how to download android source code and how to build it from scratch.

Precondition: Sun JDK

You would need Sun JDK version 1.5 to build Eclair. However, Sun JDK version 1.5 is known to be EOL (End-Of-Line), and Ubuntu Linux 9.10 no longer ships with sun-java5-jdk.

If you are using Ubuntu Linux 9.10, just add these two line in file /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates multiverse

If you are using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx), add this line to file /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ir.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-updates main multiverse

and install Sun JDK 1.5:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk

To set the system to use Java 5, you need to update your java alternatives by running

$ sudo update-alternatives --config java

Choose java-1.5.0-sun and it should be done.

Precondition: git and repo

Before you download the source, you will need git and repo tools.

On an Ubuntu 9.04 host, you can do the following:

Getting git:

$ sudo apt-get install git-core

Getting repo:

$ curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
$ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

For reference details about Repo, see Using Repo and Git.

Get picoPC-android source

Android Gingerbread

Download the picopc android gingerbread source code (sources available here):

$ mkdir picopc-android-gingerbread
$ cd picopc-android-gingerbread
$ repo init -u git://gitorious.org/picopc-android-gingerbread/manifest.git 
$ repo sync

Android Eclair

Download the picopc android eclair source code (sources available here):

$ mkdir picopc-android-eclair

$ cd picopc-android-eclair
$ repo init -u git://gitorious.org/picopc-android-eclair/manifest.git 
$ repo sync

Archive (warning might get outdated use git):

https://arm.mini-box.com/releases/android-gingerbread-2.3.4-src.tgz with the md5sum: 057cc88e1a374f68e3b992ca64fe612f

Warning: the size of the archive it's 3,264Gb

Build picoPC-android from source

Android Gingerbread

Setup picopc configurations:

$ cd picopc-android-gingerbread
$ . build/envsetup.sh

Start the building process by executing android build system 'm' command

$ make update-api (only on first compilation)
$ TARGET_PRODUCT=picopc m

Android Eclair

Setup picopc configurations:

$ cd picopc-android-eclair
$ ln -sf build/buildspec.mk buildspec.mk
$ . build/envsetup.sh

Start the building process by executing android build system 'm' command

$ m

Installing picoPC-android files

Android Gingerbread

Once successfully built you can use the picopc-tools to extract the rootfs and system images by running the script in:

$ picopc-tools/android-tools/rootfs-creator/android-2.3/rootfs-generator.sh

The resulting files from the latest/ folder can be copied in the rootfs partition on microSD

Android Eclair

Once successfully built you can use the picopc-tools to extract the rootfs and system images by running the script in:

$ picopc-tools/android-tools/rootfs-creator/android-2.1/rootfs-generator.sh