Android 4.0 Source Code is Now Available

Google has just released Android 4.0.1 source code in AOSP.

There are 3 main branches:

• android-4.0.1_r1: the release branch, ITL41D, that is expected to ship on Galaxy Nexus. That’s the one you want to be using to port to devices.
• ics-mr0: ICS development branch. It contains a few changes that aren’t in the release branch, so it might not be as stable. That’s the one you want to use if you plan to contribute to CTS.
• master: usual master branch, it contains all of ics-mr0 plus a few extra changes. That’s the branch that you should use if you want to contribute to the platform.

The release and development branch require the “classic” host configurations (Ubuntu 10.04, or MacOS 10.6 with XCode 3). The master branch had a few tweaks to make it work better on newer systems  (Ubuntu 11.10, Mac OS 10.7 with XCode 4.2) but it’s not 100% there yet.

In addition to the usual emulator targets and Galaxy Nexus (a.k.a. maguro), the master branch works experimentally on PandaBoard too (a.k.a. panda).

Proprietary binaries for 4.0.1 are available at http://code.google.com/android/nexus/drivers.html.

Instructions to get the code can be found at http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html.

If you have already installed the tools, you just need to run:

If you have a Pandaboard and want to try Android 4.0, then use the master branch instead:

and be patient…

Once you want to code, you may want to build and run it. Instructions to build and run Android 4.0 on the emulator, Galaxy Nexus and Pandaboard are available at http://source.android.com/source/building.html.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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