A systematic guide to building, customizing, and debugging your own Android system

Key Features

• Learn Android system-level programming by integrating, customizing, and extending popular open source projects
• Use Android emulators to explore the true potential of your hardware
• Understand key debugging techniques to create a hassle-free development environment

Book Description

Android system programming requires both hardware and software knowledge to work on system-level programming. As a developer, you'll need to use different techniques to debug different components in target devices. To tackle a variety of challenges, having a relevant understanding of this domain is crucial. With this book, you'll not only understand the concepts and techniques you need for Android system programming, but also be ready to work on projects and develop your debugging skills.

The book starts by helping you explore the basic setup of Android Open Source Project (AOSP), and build and test an emulator image. Next, you'll start building a project and learn how to customize and extend the Android emulator. As you progress, you'll get insights into building your own Android system on VirtualBox. Later chapters focus on how to debug the init process, resolve the bootloader issue, and enable a range of hardware interfaces. Once you have a complete system, you'll learn how to patch and upgrade the system through recovery. In the concluding chapters, you'll grasp useful tips on how to integrate and reuse existing open source projects such as LineageOS (CyanogenMod), Android-x86, Xposed, and GApps in your own system.

By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed in Android system programming and have the skills you need to build your own Android system and work on future projects.

What you will learn

• Set up the Android development environment and organize source code repositories
• Become familiar with the Android system architecture
• Build the Android emulator from the AOSP source tree
• Understand how to enable Wi-Fi in the Android emulator
• Debug the boot-up process using a customized RAMDisk
• Port your Android system to a new platform using VirtualBox
• Find out what recovery is and how to enable it in the AOSP build
• Prepare and test over-the-air (OTA) packages

Who this book is for

This book is for Android system programmers and developers who want to use Android for creating indigenous projects. Knowledge of important operating system and C/C++ concepts is necessary.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Android System Programming
2. Setting up the Development Environment
3. Discovering Kernel, HAL and Virtual Hardware
4. Customizing the Android Emulator
5. Enabling ARM Translator and Introducing Native Bridge
6. Debugging the Boot up Process Using a Customized Ramdisk
7. Enabling Wi-Fi in the Android Emulator
8. Creating Your Own Device on VirtualBox
9. Booting Up x86vbox Using PXE/NFS
10. Enabling Graphics
11. Enabling VirtualBox-Specific Hardware Interfaces
12. Introducing Recovery
13. Creating OTA Packages
14. Customizing and Debugging Recovery

About the Author

Roger Ye has worked in the area of embedded system programming for more than 10 years. He has worked on system programming for mobile devices, home gateways, and telecommunication systems for various companies, such as Motorola, Emerson, and Intersil.Most recently, he has worked as an engineering manager, leading a team of Android engineers to develop mobile security applications at Intel Security. With extensive knowledge and experience in the areas of embedded systems and mobile device development, he published a book called Embedded Programming with Android, Addison-Wesley, in 2015.