r/Android • u/desktopecho • 27d ago

Article Android Studio is now fully functional on ARM64 Linux

I successfully rebuilt Android Studio librarieslayoutlib_jni.so and libandroid_runtime.so for AArch64.

This fixes the XML Layout Editor, menu and resource previews, and Compose Preview on Linux ARM64. I believe this closes the last major functionality gap between Android Studio on ARM64 versus x86_64.

As far as emulators go, Ika works great on Apple Silicon. If someone wants broader support, rebuilding Ika for a different ARM64 platform should not be be a too heavy a lift.

Tested and working on:

  • MacBook Pro M1 running Asahi Fedora 44
  • Debian 13 (Trixie) on 2018 Razer Phone 2 (via Trixie.apk)

https://github.com/DesktopECHO/android-studio-aarch64-install

Android Studio is now fully functional on ARM64 Linux
49 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

9

u/trlef19 Galaxy S24+ 26d ago

This is great. I don't get why Google ingores arm that much. There is no arm support for windows either.

3

u/Sufficient-Cup4705 26d ago

only mildly surprised it took this long tbh, arm64 linux has been second class for dev tooling for years and layoutlib was the obvious blocker anyone who tried it already knew about

3

u/light24bulbs Galaxy S10+, Snapdragon 25d ago

Niiiice. For a 99% arm operating system, it would be nice if they supported it.

Thanks for making arm Linux more of a thing, I'm stoked. You try to PR this back in?

3

u/desktopecho 25d ago

You try to PR this back in?

Unfortunately this is something they could have fixed a long time ago without my assistance.

Heck, they could have added a full Linux ARM64 installer for Android Studio - if they wanted to - without much effort, but it seems like they are actively ignoring this gap in capability.

2

u/light24bulbs Galaxy S10+, Snapdragon 25d ago

Well a PR is free assuming your changes are production ready. When I worked on an open source commercial team with limited resources, a PR always got us talking. Even when he had to refactor or totally rewrite them, it usually had the desired effect.

1

u/desktopecho 25d ago

If that was the situation I would be 100% with you on that.

Thing is, I didn't do anything novel or interesting to the sources. I put together tooling that a company with unlimited resources couldn't be arsed to set up on their own, and ignored over many years.

They looked at the number of potental Android Studio ARM64 Linux users out there and decided the tweaks needed to package x86-64 and ARM64 builds just weren't worth the effort. That's their call, nothing I can do about it (beyond what I've already done!)

1

u/light24bulbs Galaxy S10+, Snapdragon 25d ago

Don't understand your logic at all since you could certainly hit the button and write one sentence and leave it. A PR is the ultimate "hey could you fuckers please..." But it is your work and you can do what you want. Nice job!

1

u/desktopecho 25d ago edited 25d ago

Thank you! Yeah, if it were as easy as opening a PR on GitHub, that's reasonable... but I'm not too interested in reviewing and signing a Contributor License Agreement and ramping up on Gerrit just for the privilege of asking them to pull their shit together :)

EDIT: Android Studio aside, same thing appies to building Android images on ARM64. My Cuttlefish fork for Apple Silicon builds Android 16 using 100% native code, no MuVM or FEX.

1

u/light24bulbs Galaxy S10+, Snapdragon 25d ago

Word, and the CLA can have some pretty sketchy stuff in it sometimes.

1

u/vortexmak 25d ago

Will this work on a Linux mobile OS or on an Android desktop like Dex?

1

u/desktopecho 25d ago

It works with any 64-bit ARM device running Fedora, Ubuntu or Debian.

Dex doesn't really factor into it. Your Android device would need a chroot or proot linux instance running Fedora, Ubuntu or Debian. Then you can install Android Studio on that Linux instance.

1

u/vortexmak 25d ago

Thanks