Friday, November 30, 2012

AndroVM Android Virtual Device

After much trial and error, the best solution for my slow Mac is to find an alternative to the QEMU emulators bundled with Android Developer Tools (ADT).

For me, the solution was AndroVM running on VirtualBox.  This will give you a nice fast Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android with the ability to install your apps from the Google Play Store as well as a place to run and test your own apps.

First Download and install VirtualBox from: https://www.virtualbox.org/

Next Download and install the latest AndroVM from: http://androvm.org/
There are several .ova files to choose from for Tablet, Phone and Table or Phone only, with or without the built in Google Apps.  I selected the Phone only version (vbox86p) with Goofle Apps & Houdini.

From VirtualBox, select File -> Import Appliance and select the AndroVM .ova file.
You will now have a VM in VirtualBox ready to run.

If you select Network Settings for this VM, you will notice that there are 4 network adapters.  The first network adapter is not attached and the 2nd adapter is attached to NAT.  Adapters 3 and 4 are not enabled.  In order to connect to this device (once it is running) with the Android developer tools, you will need to attach Network Adapter 1 to "Host-only Adapter"



Fire up the Virtual Android device from VirtualBox by clicking the "Start"
If all goes well, the VM will start and Android will boot up and you will be greeted by the welcome screen asking you to start setting up your new Android (virtual) device.



Run through the setup and you will end up on the home screen where you can start running apps on the new virtual device.



Run the Browser to ensure you have internet connectivity via the NAT Network Adapter.



Now that we have our Virtual Device set up, the next post we will deploy (copy) our HelloGalaxy.apk file onto the virtual device and run our first app.





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