It all started when I decided to start creating Android apps. I’ve been with Android since ’11 and it was time to join the fray. After some research, I found Android Studio was the key software for writing Android apps.

With this, I could take my Java skills to the mobile world (and possibly make some side cash) It was so exciting! I was pumped to get the process underway. Until I started installing the software.

Now, I had recently set up Eclipse Neon on my Asus Transformer Book T100 running Windows 8. Figured I’d set up Android Studio on there as well and make it my official programming device. I started by downloading the installer file for Android Studio.

The file was about 1.2GB in size, but the download speed would slowly drop to a mere 50 KB per second, then shoot back up to 2 MB/s, and back down again.

Like a shooting star containing my hopes and dreams of mobile apps and skrilla…

After a quick 23 minutes, I watched in anticipation as the Firefox download window whispered “A few seconds remaining”.  It was such a rush! And sure enough, a few seconds later Firefox proudly proclaimed that my download..failed!

Oh.

It was upsetting. And after four additional attempted downloads that ended in a fashion similar to that of a sneeze climax, I sought alternative methods for installing Android Studio.

Now, my PC dual boots Linux Mint 17.2 and Windows 7. But since I prefer the Linux Mint interface and I can still access my files in the Windows partition while logged in, I typically use Mint.

Maybe 98% of the time

I Installed VirtualBox to setup a virtual machine running Windows 7 with 1 GB memory of dedicated memory. My PC has 4GB of memory so I don’t exactly have too much wiggle room when setting aside RAM.

This was possibly the slowest I’ve ever seen my computer move. A snail sprinted past me, laughing as I spent the weekend installing Android Studio in this slow-motion virtual environment. The good news is I was able to download the Android Studio installer file. I ran the file, set up the installation and finally…

Apparently I also needed the Java JDK…

I headed to the Oracle website, downloaded the JDK, and installed it. Now I was OFFICIALLY ready to start Android development! I only needed to install a few updates for Android Studio and I was on my way. I fell asleep as Windows crawled through what I assumed was a few GB of downloads.

I awoke to the sun in my face and the Android Studio window staring me down. It was time. I started a new project, named it, chose the right activity and then-

I received an error that it needed a minimum of 2GB ram to run Android Studio…

The whole reason I use Linux Mint is because it’s faster and uses less memory than Windows 7. If I’m going to set up a virtual machine with maximum memory allocation, it would make more sense to use the Windows 7 installation already on my hard drive (which I didn’t want to do).

I returned to the Android Studio website to find more information, and wouldn’t you know, is compatible not only with Windows, but Mac OS and Linux!

Peaceful in action, manic in thoughts.
Coding Fanatic

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