Installing apps on Live Android

After playing around with the liveandroid instance on my Virtualbox VM, it was time to try out installing some apps.

Few basic things first:

1. For switching to the console mode / terminal screen press : Alt-F1
2. For switching back to the GUI mode from console mode press : Alt-F7

I read about how to install apps here.

Android apps are files ending with .apk. And all that is needed to install the app is to copy the *.apk file to the /system/app folder. Image-1 shows how my /system/app folder looks like after I have installed a few apps.

So the only task remains is downloading the apps and copying them to the /system/app folder. For downloading apps try any of the following:

1. Download the AndAppStore Client – and use this client to browse and install apps. I find this as the best way.
   1. Either wget http://download.funkyandroid.net/SoftwareDirectory-1_3_0.apk
   2. Or, click on http://andappstore.com/AndroidApplications/apps/125845!download
   3. Ensure that the SoftwareDirectory-1_3_0.apk is copied to the /system/app folder
   4. Switch back to the GUI view (Alt-F7) and go to the menu screen, and you can see the AndAppStore Client – Seen as Software Directory (See image-2)
2. You could also browse apps at http://www.cyrket.com/
   1. Download the apps directly from the browser
   2. The apk file is downloaded to /sdcard/download
   3. Switch to console mode (Press Alt-F1 )
   4. cp /sdcard/download/* /ststem/app/
   5. chown 1000:1000 /system/app
   6. Switch to the GUI mode (Press Alt-F7) – That is it, you should be able to see your app !

image-1

image-2

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Live-Android 0.3 on Sun Virtualbox

I had read about the live-android which is a live cd version of the Google Android mobile platform, and decided to give it a try.

Downloaded the iso image from http://code.google.com/p/live-android/downloads/list.

Had to download the two files liveandroidv0.3.iso.001 and liveandroidv0.3.iso.002, created a single iso using cat:

cat liveandroidv0.3.iso.001 liveandroidv0.3.iso.002 > liveandroidv0.3.iso

Created a virtual machine using virtualbox and there we go.

Did not get a chance to install any apps. Will try that sometime later and see how it goes. If all works fine, I might install it on my old laptop which just has 256mb RAM.