# Introduction If you would like to contribute to the Android app, but find the build documentation a little daunting, this guide lets you copy-paste your way to a successful APK build. ### Estimated build time 25 - 40 minutes (depending on Internet connection speeds) ### What do you need? * A computer running [Ubuntu 18.04](https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop) * Internet access to download modules and packages. * At least 15GB of free disk space. * Alternatively, Docker. You can skip steps 1 through 5 if you make use of the `lbry/android-base` Docker base image. Scroll down to [Fast Track](#Fast-Track) at the bottom of the page if you would prefer to use Docker. ### Step 1 of 10 Install all the apt packages required by running the following commands. You can copy-paste this directly to your terminal. ``` sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 sudo apt-get -y update sudo apt-get install -y curl ca-certificates software-properties-common gpg-agent wget sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa -y && \ curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | apt-key add - echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list sudo apt-get -y update && apt-get -y install autoconf autogen automake libtool libffi-dev \ build-essential python3.7 python3.7-dev python3.7-venv python3-pip ccache git libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 \ libgtk2.0-0:i386 libpangox-1.0-0:i386 libpangoxft-1.0-0:i386 libidn11:i386 python2.7 python2.7-dev \ python-pip openjdk-8-jdk unzip zlib1g-dev zlib1g:i386 m4 libc6-dev-i386 yarn gawk nodejs npm ``` ### Step 2 of 10 Install a couple of packages using the Python package installer ``` sudo -H pip install --upgrade cython==0.28.1 setuptools ``` ### Step 3 of 10 Install [buildozer](https://github.com/lbryio/buildozer.git), a tool for creating the apk package using the python for android toolchain. ``` git clone https://github.com/lbryio/buildozer.git cd buildozer && python2.7 setup.py install && cd .. ``` ### Step 4 of 10 The Android SDK needs to be setup for buildozer. This requires creating a few directories and downloading a number of files. Run the following commands to create the buildozer directory, download the required archives and extract them into their proper destination folders. ``` mkdir -p ~/.buildozer/android/platform wget 'https://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r23-linux.tgz' -P ~/.buildozer/android/platform/ && \ wget 'https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-28_r06.zip' -P ~/.buildozer/android/platform/ && \ wget 'https://dl.google.com/android/repository/build-tools_r26.0.2-linux.zip' -P ~/.buildozer/android/platform/ tar -xvf ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk_r23-linux.tgz -C ~/.buildozer/android/platform/ && \ mv ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-linux ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23 && \ unzip ~/.buildozer/android/platform/platform-28_r06.zip -d ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/platforms && \ mv ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/platforms/android-9 ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/platforms/android-28 && \ mkdir -p ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/build-tools && \ unzip ~/.buildozer/android/platform/build-tools_r26.0.2-linux.zip -d ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/build-tools && \ mkdir -p ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/licenses && \ echo $'\nd56f5187479451eabf01fb78af6dfcb131a6481e' > ~/.buildozer/android/platform/android-sdk-23/licenses/android-sdk-license ``` ### Step 5 of 10 Install the react-native-cli npm package. ``` sudo npm install -g react-native-cli ``` ### Step 6 of 10 Install the Crystax NDK which is required for building Python 3.7 for the mobile app, and a number of native C / C++ modules and packages used by the app. Run the following commands to download and extract the NDK. ``` wget 'https://www.crystax.net/download/crystax-ndk-10.3.2-linux-x86_64.tar.xz' -P ~/.buildozer/android/ && \ tar -xvf ~/.buildozer/android/crystax-ndk-10.3.2-linux-x86_64.tar.xz -C ~/.buildozer/android/ && \ rm -rf ~/.buildozer/android/crystax-ndk-10.3.2/platforms/android-9 && \ ln -s ~/.buildozer/android/crystax-ndk-10.3.2/platforms/android-21 ~/.buildozer/android/crystax-ndk-10.3.2/platforms/android-9 ``` ### Step 7 of 10 Clone the [lbryio/lbry-android git repository](https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-android), initialise submodules and create your `buildozer.spec` and `google-services.json` files. The provided `buildozer.spec.sample` contains defaults provided you followed steps 1 through 5 exactly as described. You can also customise the spec file if you want to. The `google-services.sample.json` can be used to ensure the build completes successfully. ``` git clone https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-android cd lbry-android git submodule update --init --recursive cp buildozer.spec.sample buildozer.spec cp p4a/pythonforandroid/bootstraps/lbry/templates/google-services.sample.json p4a/pythonforandroid/bootstraps/lbry/templates/google-services.json ``` ### Step 8 of 10 Install the npm packages required for the app's React Native code, and create the React Native app bundle. ``` cd app npm install ./bundle.sh cd .. ``` ### Step 9 of 10 Copy a couple of required files from the repository for the build to be successful. ``` cp scripts/build-target-python.sh ~/.buildozer/android/crystax-ndk-10.3.2/build/tools/build-target-python.sh cp scripts/mangled-glibc-syscalls.h ~/.buildozer/android/crystax-ndk-10.3.2/platforms/android-21/arch-arm/usr/include/crystax/bionic/libc/include/sys/mangled-glibc-syscalls.h ``` ### Step 10 of 10 If you made it this far, you're finally ready to build the package! You just have to run a single command to generate the APK. ``` buildozer android debug ``` ### Fast Track Install Docker and start a container using the `lbry/android-base` image, which is about 1.72GB in size. Run the following commands for Ubuntu and then follow steps 6 through 10 in the container's bash prompt. ``` sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker run -it lbry/android-base:latest /bin/bash ``` **Pro Tip:** You can also make use of Docker to run your builds on macOS or Windows.