Install Android SDK CLI Ubuntu 20.04 WSL2.md

Install Android SDK CLI Ubuntu 20.04 WSL2 (Work in Progress)

Install Java 8

sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk-headless

Android SDK

wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-linux-6200805_latest.zip
mkdir -p Android/Sdk
unzip commandlinetools-linux-6200805_latest.zip -d Android/Sdk

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android/Sdk
# Make sure emulator path comes before tools. Had trouble on Ubuntu with emulator from /tools being loaded
# instead of the one from /emulator
export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"

sdkmanager --sdk_root=${ANDROID_HOME} "tools"

sdkmanager --update
sdkmanager --list
sdkmanager "build-tools;28.0.3" "platform-tools" "platforms;android-28" "tools"
sdkmanager --licenses

sudo apt install gradle

Note: you can get an updated Android SDK link from https://developer.android.com/studio/#downloads

Used a combinaton of these gists: https://gist.github.com/fedme/fd42caec2e5a7e93e12943376373b7d0 https://gist.github.com/jjvillavicencio/18feb09f0e93e017a861678bc638dcb0

Background on the update to command line tools from android sdk https://stackoverflow.com/a/61176718

Super helpful thanks!

Great work Steve, this works like a charm and saved a lot of time.

Great, super helpful, TQ

I`ve struggled a little bit with the step after unzipping and placing the paths into $PATH variable. This thread helped me to figure out the issues: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60440509/android-command-line-tools-sdkmanager-always-shows-warning-could-not-create-se

many thanks!

The latest version of cmdline tools (7302050_latest) seems to have a different directory structure. The folder is now called cmdline-tools instead of tools so when you extract the folder it won't work as expected. sdkmanager also seems to expect to want to be in ${ANDROID_HOME}/cmdline-tools/latest/bin but extracting it in ANDROID_HOME will just give you ${ANDROID_HOME}/cmdline-tools/bin...

So it looks like unzipping the newest version to ${ANDROID_HOME}/cmdline-tools/cmdline-tools will fix this, and remove the need to run sdkmanager --sdk_root.... Easiest way might just be to mkdir -p Android/cmdline-tools and unzip to there & rename the second cmdline-tools to latest

Not sure how this whole forking gists thing is supposed to work but here are the changes I used: https://gist.github.com/jason-s-yu/30375db45c1f71c1259e042d216e4bd3

wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-linux-7302050_latest.zip
mkdir -p Android/cmdline-tools
unzip commandlinetools-linux-6200805_latest.zip -d Android/cmdline-tools
mv Android/cmdline-tools/cmdline-tools Android/cmdline-tools/latest

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android
# Make sure emulator path comes before tools. Had trouble on Ubuntu with emulator from /tools being loaded
# instead of the one from /emulator
export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest:$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"

# don't need this anymore
# sdkmanager --sdk_root=${ANDROID_HOME} "tools"

sdkmanager --update
sdkmanager --list
# find current version
sdkmanager --list | grep build-tools
sdkmanager "build-tools;30.0.3" "platform-tools" "platforms;android-30" "tools"
sdkmanager --licenses

Thank you very much. Very easy to use ❤

I recommend to add the update command and the unzip installation in this steps:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk-headless unzip

Thankyou , it helps me a lot.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46402772/failed-to-install-android-sdk-java-lang-noclassdeffounderror-javax-xml-bind-a
Works better.

@jason-s-yu thanks
it works

That works great @jason-s-yu, thank you very much!

I've found myself into trouble. I'm getting this from Android Studio:

Build-tool 33.0.0 is missing AAPT at \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\arnyminerz\Android\build-tools\33.0.0\aapt.exe
Build-tool 33.0.0 is missing AAPT at \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\arnyminerz\Android\build-tools\33.0.0\aapt.exe

Any clue why this is happenning? I've tried creating symbolic links from aapt.exe to aapt but it fixes nothing 😢

This worked to install the Android SDK. Thanks. Now I'm facing a different issue.

I can't make adb find my devices in WSL2. I have the same version of adb in both windows and wsl (33.0.3-8952118).

The trick of adb tcpip 5555 only worked on WSL1 but it doesn't on WSL2.

I've also tried usbip-win to share the USB port like follows

usbipd wsl attach --busid <BUSID>

But it always fails saying that the device is busy when adb is ON in the device.

Is there any other alternative or step that is required to make adb work in WSL2?

Just in case you want to install Android Studio with functional GUI from snap in Ubuntu 22.04 in WSL2 (Windows 11), follow these steps:

1. Enable systemd
2. Run this

sudo snap install android-studio --classic
sudo apt install openjdk-11-jre-headless libxrender1 libxtst6 libxi6

sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk for the latest release.

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