I’ve seen in the Android Developers page that the SDK requires an x86 computer. Is there someway to use an ARM Based linux machine running Ubuntu to develop for Android?
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I’ve seen in the Android Developers page that the SDK requires an x86 computer. Is there someway to use an ARM Based linux machine running Ubuntu to develop for Android?
This depends to some degree on what you mean by “to develop for android”.
There are a number of scripting tools and frameworks which can be used to create applications on android, without actually compiling any java code. Some of these are intended even for development on the android device itself.
In terms of traditional SDK apps, most of the android toolchain is open source and potentially build-able for any posix-ish platform. The problem is the java jdk – you would need to obtain something to fill that role in the toolchain which would run on your ARM system. Something which compiles another language to dalvik opcodes and thus bypasses the need for the jdk could also be a possibility.
Presumably porting the NDK gcc & binutils along with the android packager is possible, which could make available either the official “native activity” option of more recent android releases, or some custom solution in which the java portion is a pre-generated wrapper and only native code is written for the interesting parts that would have to change during routine app development.
Finally, we aren’t far from the point where it would theoretically be possible to emulate an “older” x86 system on a cutting-edge ARM one; potentially the x86 jdk could be run in such a virtual environment, albeit inefficiently.
Since this answer was written, solutions for doing Android Java->Dalvik development on the device itself have become available. As these work at least on ARM-based Android devices, that would qualify as developing for Android on an “ARM based computer”. Presumably the same ideas could be applied to an ARM-based netbook or “chromebook” type of system.