Sunday, June 12, 2011

Just a little talk about a side project

Since I have been working more on Linux and Android together, I just wanted to keep people up to date on what I've been doing with my projects and the website. I managed to get the VLC source code compiled into an APK and working. It runs smoothly for various formats, I'd like to do a write up on how I got that working soon and also make an automated script to download the lasted script from their git repository. My hope is to allow the user to learn about it and also give them a quick alternative to updating their APK for the phone that they can swap out for the latest build of VLC while it's still in the alpha state.

The other thing I've been working on is automating as much of the Android SDK / Eclipse process as possible for people that want to start programming and are afraid to come to Linux. I want to do this because I love the idea of an open source community, be it in Linux or Android and really want them to thrive. Linux can be intimidating when you first start using it and can require you to format your computer every time you screw up your system. At least until you figure out the file system and then you can fix almost every problem pretty easily. Google however, seems to make it fairly difficult for a first time person coming to Linux to start programming and I'd like to try to bridge that gap by automating as much of the Eclipse set up as necessary to get more developers working on Android in a Linux environment. I don't know if I'll be able to automate everything required to get a system installed with ADB, but possibly one or two steps away and just requiring GUI interaction in Eclipse (I'm still researching this part, to see if I can do any of this).

In the mean time, if you'd like to make any suggestions for write-ups I'll gladly take suggestions in the comments section or on twitter at @ArchDukeDoug (still waiting for the title to be granted in any country, probably not going to happen). Suggestions allow me to help you and also help myself, so don't be shy with them. If I'm able to do them I will definitely try.

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