3 2. Installing and setting up the Android environment
4 3. Getting the source code
5 4. Installing the required Ubuntu packages
7 6. Installing XBMC in an Android system
8 7. Running and debugging XBMC in an Android system
12 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
14 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
16 We currently recommend Ubuntu Natty (11.04) or later. Current work has been
17 done here. Additionally, building from OSX Snow Leopard is working.
19 NOTE TO NEW USERS: All lines that are prefixed with the '#'
20 character are commands that need to be typed into a terminal window /
21 console (similar to the command prompt for Windows). Note that the '#'
22 character itself should NOT be typed as part of the command.
24 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
25 2. Installing the required Ubuntu packages
26 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
27 These are the minimum packages necessary for building XBMC. Non-Ubuntu
28 users will need to get the equivalents.
30 # sudo apt-get install build-essential default-jdk git curl autoconf \
31 unzip zip zlib1g-dev gawk gperf cmake
33 If you run a 64bit operating system you will also need to get ia32-libs
35 # sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
38 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
39 3. Installing and setting up the Android environment
40 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
42 To develop XBMC for Android the Android SDK and NDK are required.
44 --------------------------------------------------------------------
45 3.1. Getting the Android SDK and NDK
46 --------------------------------------------------------------------
48 To get the Android SDK, go to http://developer.android.com/sdk and
49 download the latest version for your operating system. The NDK
50 can be downloaded from http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/
52 [NOTICE] Compiling XBMC for Android requires at least Android NDK
53 Revision r8e. Android NDK Revision 7 and earlier do not work
54 properly for our cause.
56 After downloading the SDK and NDK extract the files contained in the
57 archives to your harddisk.
59 Make sure you have a recent JRE and JDK installed otherwise the
60 Android SDK will not work.
62 --------------------------------------------------------------------
63 3.2. Installing Android SDK packages
64 --------------------------------------------------------------------
66 After having extracted the Android SDK to <android-sdk> you need to
67 install some android packages using the Android SDK Manager:
69 # cd <android-sdk>/tools
70 # ./android update sdk -u -t platform,platform-tool
72 --------------------------------------------------------------------
73 3.3. Setup the Android toolchain
74 --------------------------------------------------------------------
76 To be able to compile XBMC and the libraries it depends on for the
77 Android platform you first need to setup an Android toolchain using
78 the Android NDK which you earlier extracted to <android-ndk>. The
79 following commands will create a toolchain suitable for the most
81 The --install-dir option (and therefore the <android-toolchain> value)
82 specifies where the resulting toolchain should be installed (your choice).
87 # ./make-standalone-toolchain.sh --ndk-dir=../../ \
88 --install-dir=<android-toolchain>/android-14 --platform=android-14 \
89 --toolchain=arm-linux-androideabi-4.7
91 Make sure to pick a toolchain for your desired architecture. Currently only
92 gcc 4.7 and gcc 4.8 toolchains are supported, anything else will likely fail to build.
94 --------------------------------------------------------------------
95 3.4. Create a (new) debug key to sign debug APKs
96 --------------------------------------------------------------------
98 All packages must be signed. The following command will generate a
99 self-signed debug key. If the result is a cryptic error, it
100 probably just means a debug key already existed, no cause for alarm.
102 # keytool -genkey -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -v -alias \
103 androiddebugkey -dname "CN=Android Debug,O=Android,C=US" -keypass \
104 android -storepass android -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000
106 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
107 4. Getting the source code
108 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
111 # git clone git://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git xbmc-android
113 # git submodule update --init addons/skin.touched
115 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
117 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
119 Compiling XBMC for Android consists of compiling the libraries XBMC depends
120 on with the Android toolchain and creating an Android Application Package
121 (APK) which can be installed in an Android system.
123 --------------------------------------------------------------------
124 5.1. Building dependencies
125 --------------------------------------------------------------------
127 # cd $HOME/xbmc-android/tools/depends
131 Run configure with the correct settings for you local configuration.
132 See tools/depends/README for examples.
134 Anyone working on the dependencies themselves will want to set the
135 environment variables specified in ~/.bashrc or similar, to avoid
136 having to input these with each configure.
140 This build was designed to be massively parallel. Don't be afraid to
141 give it a 'make -j20' or so.
143 Verify that all deps built correctly (it will tell you so) before
144 continuing. You will get crazy build errors otherwise.
146 --------------------------------------------------------------------
148 --------------------------------------------------------------------
150 # cd $HOME/xbmc-android
151 # make -C tools/depends/target/xbmc
155 After the first build (assuming bootstrap and configure are successful),
156 subsequent builds can be run with a simple 'make' and 'make apk'.
158 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
159 6. Installing XBMC in an Android system
160 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
162 To install XBMC through the previously built APK in an Android system you can
163 either install it on a real device (smartphone/tablet/...) running Android
166 --------------------------------------------------------------------
167 6.1. Installing XBMC on the Android device
168 --------------------------------------------------------------------
170 Make sure your Android device is connected to your computer through
171 USB. Furthermore you have to enable the following option in your
172 device's Android settings:
177 # cd $HOME/xbmc-android/tools/android/packaging
179 # adb -s <device-id> install -r images/xbmcapp-debug.apk
181 The <device-id> can be retrieved from the list returned by the
182 "adb devices" command and is the first value in the row representing
185 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
186 7. Running and debugging XBMC in an Android system
187 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
189 After installing XBMC's APK in an Android system you can start it using its
190 Launcher icon in Android's Application Launcher.
192 --------------------------------------------------------------------
194 --------------------------------------------------------------------
196 To be able to see what is happening while running XBMC you first need
197 to enable USB debugging in your Android settings (this is already done
198 when using the emulator):
205 To access the log output of your Android system run (the -s parameter
206 and the <device-id> may not be needed when using the Android emulator)
208 # adb -s <device-id> logcat
211 --------------------------------------------------------------------
213 --------------------------------------------------------------------
215 GDB can be used to debug, though the support is rather primitive. Rather than
216 using gdb directly, you will need to use ndk-gdb which wraps it. Do NOT trust
217 the -p/--project switches, as of ndk7b they do not work. Instead you will need
218 to cd to tools/android/packaging/xbmc and execute it from there.
220 # ndk-gdb --start --delay=0
222 This will open the installed version of XBMC and break. The warnings can be
223 ignored as we have setup the appropriate paths already.
225 --------------------------------------------------------------------
227 --------------------------------------------------------------------
229 During the early days of the android port, xbmc was launched via a stub lib
230 that then dlopen'd libxbmc. This was done to get around bionic's poor handling
231 of shared libs. We now compile everything into libxbmc itself so that it has
232 no runtime dependencies beyond system libs. Done this way, we're able to launch
233 into libxbmc directly.
235 But we still hit Bionic's loader's deficiencies when we dlopen a lib. There are
236 two main issues to overcome for loading:
238 1. Bionic imports all symbols for a lib as soon as it is loaded, and it will
239 refuse to open a lib if it has a single unresolved symbol
241 2. It does not search recursively during the resolve. So if liba depends on
242 libb, dlopen'ing liba will _not_ pull in missing symbols from libb. This is
243 particularly nasty considering #1.
245 To work-around these problems we use our own recursive loader in place of
246 dlopen. This loader mimics expected behavior. Using the example above, loading
247 libb before liba will mean that everything will resolve correctly.
249 Additionally, Android does not use versioned solibs. libfoo.so.1 which is
250 typical on linux would not be found by the loader. This means that we must
251 strip the SONAME and NEEDED values out of the libs as well as changing the
252 filenames themselves. The cleaner solution would be to patch libtool/cmake/etc
253 to not add versioning in the first place. For now, we use the brute-force
254 approach of modifying the binary and blanking out the versions.
256 See here for more info:
257 http://www.bernawebdesign.ch/byteblog/2011/11/23/creating-non-versioned-shared-libraries-for-android/
259 As a final gotcha, all libs must be in the form of ^lib.*so$ with no
260 exceptions (they won't even install otherwise), and the soname must match.
261 So we have to do some renaming to get some of our self-built libs loaded.
264 Typical android native activities are built with ndk-build which is a wrapper
265 around Make. It would be a nightmare to port our entire buildsystem over, so
266 instead we build as usual then package ourselves. It may be beneficial to use
267 ndk-build to do the actual packaging, but for now its behavior is emulated.
270 Presently we are targeting armv7a+neon for arm, and i686 for x86. Note that x86
271 builds successfully but has not been tested.
273 --------------------------------------------------------------------
275 --------------------------------------------------------------------
277 Below are a few helpful commands when building/debugging. These assume that pwd
278 is 'tools/android/packaging' and that the proper sdk/ndk paths are set.
280 -Install a new build over the existing one
281 # adb -e install -r images/xbmcapp-debug.apk
283 -Launch XBMC on the emulator without the GUI
284 # adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n org.xbmc.xbmc/android.app.NativeActivity
286 -Kill a misbehaving XBMC
287 # adb shell ps | grep org.xbmc | awk '{print $2}' | xargs adb shell kill
289 -Filter logcat messages by a specific tag (e.g. "XBMC")
290 # adb logcat -s XBMC:V
292 -Enable CheckJNI (BEFORE starting the application)
293 # adb shell setprop debug.checkjni 1