Android
KDE Software on Android
Android is currently the mobile platform regarding market share and number of provided applications. Hence, it is a platform very well suited to increase the availability and usage of applications by the KDE community. In the following, we give an overview of the technical steps required to setup a build system for cross-compiling a Qt5/KF5 based Android application, the necessary steps to deploy it, and a reference list of the porting steps by different applications/people.
If you enter the field of cross-compiling and Qt on Android for the first time, the best start is to follow our tutorial:
Build Environment
There are different ways to setup a build environment:
- Use Ready-to-Build Docker Container - This is the most convenient way to setup a system. It also brings the advantage to have a clear separation between your Linux build system and your cross-compile system; in particularly when you require several cross-compiled libraries for your application.
- Setup your Build Environment Manually - This tutorial for setting up the cross-compiling environment requires considerably more time and brings the disadvantage to make no clear separation between your system and the cross-compile environment.
Building
Example: Building Marble
cd /opt/android
git clone kde:marble
mkdir marble/build
cd marble/build
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/PATH/TO/ECM/toolchain/Android.cmake -DECM_ADDITIONAL_FIND_ROOT_PATH=${Qt5_android} -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../export ..
make install/strip
Note:
/PATH/TO/ECM/toolchain/Android.cmake
must be replaced with the actual path to toolchain/Android.cmake, if using the docker image it probably is at /opt/android/kde/install/share/ECM/toolchain/Android.cmakemake install/strip
strips build symbols from the binaries and reduces sizes considerably
Building with KDESRC-BUILD
For building the below mentioned frameworks on Android, you can use the following kdesrc-buildrc config file:
cd /opt/android
git clone git://anongit.kde.org/scratch/cordlandwehr/kdesrc-conf-android.git
mkdir -p extragear/kdesrc-build
git clone git://anongit.kde.org/kdesrc-build extragear/kdesrc-build
ln -s extragear/kdesrc-build/kdesrc-build kdesrc-build
ln -s kdesrc-conf-android/kdesrc-buildrc kdesrc-buildrc
./kdesrc-build extra-cmake-modules frameworks-android
Packaging and Deployment of APKs
See ECM Android Toolchain documentation.
KDE Frameworks 5 & Third Party Libraries
KDE Frameworks 5
- supported frameworks are listed at [1]
Third Party Libraries
- libintl-lite: is required for KI18n, since BIONIC does not fully support gettext
Further References
References:
- Phabricator Project
- Extra-CMake-Modules Toolchain: API documentation
Application specific build instructions:
- Marble: build instructions
Blog posts about building for Android (careful: instructions may be outdated)
- 2015-09 - Dennis Nienhüser: Announcing Marble Maps for Android Open Beta
- 2015-04 - Péterffy Gábor: Marble is coming to Android
- 2015-01 - GCompris Devels: GCompris is now released on Android
- 2014-06 - Alex Pol: KDE Software on Android
Contact
If you want to join us the best place is the IRC channel and mailing list:
- #kde-devel channel on irc.freenode.net (currently no separate channel)
- [email protected] mailing list: subscribe, archives