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How to build AOSP Oreo for unlocked Xperia devices

On this page you can find guides on how to use our AOSP device configurations to build your own version of Android Oreo, and flash it on your unlocked Xperia device. For some of the Xperia devices, we provide Android Open Source Project (AOSP) device configurations on GitHub. This means that the software is open for you as a developer to use and contribute to. Please note that the software is not intended for daily usage and there are important limitations. For example, there could be stability issues, and important functions may be disabled.

Build AOSP Oreo 8.0 kernel 4.4

This guide assumes you run Ubuntu (we used Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), but it should work in a similar way on any Linux-based system. To use these instructions, you should be familiar with Android development. Follow the steps below to build Android Oreo on an unlocked Xperia device. The instructions will guide you through each step from how to prepare your environment and install all necessary tools to downloading and configuring the code, before you can finally build AOSP images and flash them on your device.

Prepare your Java environment

To prevent errors generated by having the wrong version of Java installed on your computer, we will start by removing any conflicting Java version and adding the correct version. Java 8 is needed to build Android 8.x.x.

On your computer: In a terminal window, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get purge openjdk-\* icedtea-\* icedtea6-\*

A guide will appear on the screen. Follow the instructions to remove Java.

Once Java is removed, install the correct version of Java by entering the following commands in a terminal window:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

java -version

You should now see something similar to the following in your terminal window:

java version "1.8.0_91"

OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_91-8u91-b14-0ubuntu4~14.04-b14)

OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.91-b14, mixed mode)

Install the necessary tools to make an Android build

To be able to build the images that you will later flash on your device, you need to install a set of software packages and libraries which give you the tools to compile source code into binary files that can run on your device.

In a terminal window, enter the following commands, all at once:

sudo apt-get install bison g++-multilib git gperf libxml2-utils make zlib1g-dev:i386 zip

Now you have the tools you need to compile and build a flashable AOSP image. Follow the steps below to learn how to do this.

Download Repo tool and set PATH

In order to access and use the source code available on the Sonyxperiadev GitHub, you need to install the Repo tool that is provided by Google.

In a terminal window, enter the following commands to download and install Repo, and set the right access rules for it:

mkdir ~/bin

curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo

chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

Open the bashrc file included in the repo tool:

sudo nano ~/.bashrc

To set the right path for your local bin folder, paste the following code to a new line at the very bottom of the bashrc file, and then save the file using Ctrl+X:

export PATH=~/bin:$PATH

Reload bash variables to include the new path:

source ~/.bashrc

Now you have all the tools you need and can move on to initializing the AOSP code and Xperia device configurations. Learn how to do this below!

Initialise the AOSP tree

The next step is to create a folder on your computer, and then download the Android source code to it. Follow the steps below to do this.

In a terminal window, enter the following commands:

mkdir ~/android

cd ~/android

repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-8.0.0_r15

Note! The downloaded data is around 20 GB, and for a successful build you need 100 GB free hard disk space. Depending on your Internet connection, it can take quite a long time to download the source code. When the download has finished you have the basic AOSP source code on your computer.

Clone the local_manifests from GitHub using the following commands:

cd .repo

git clone https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/local_manifests

cd local_manifests

git checkout master

cd ../..

Note! These repos include a precompiled kernel. If you want to change or improve the kernel, you can recompile a new kernel. The new kernel binary should be placed in the corresponding device repository along with new kernel modules for wireless hardware. For more information, see the page how to rebuild kernels for flagship Xperia devices.

To download the code into the device repos created above, run the command:

repo sync

Cherry-pick the upstream patches

./repo_update.sh

Build AOSP images that can be flashed

Now you are ready to build AOSP images that can be flashed to a device. To do this, you have to point out your specific device and then start building the images.

Enter the following commands:

source build/envsetup.sh && lunch

When prompted, pick the number corresponding to your device in the list displayed and press enter.

To start the build, type:

make –j <insert the cpu thread number of your computer>

This step will take a long time. It may take up to several hours, so go grab a coffee or play a game while you wait. When it’s done, AOSP images that can be flashed to a device will be ready.

Flash AOSP image to your device

Before you flash the images that you built in the previous step, you must make sure your device is unlocked through Sony’s unlock boot loader service. Then you can flash the AOSP images on your device by following these steps:

On your device: Connect the device to your computer in Fastboot mode, by pressing volume up while inserting the USB cable. When the device is in Fastboot mode, the LED on the device will be illuminated in blue.

On your computer: Flash the boot, system and userdata images by entering the following commands in a terminal window:

fastboot –S 256M flash boot out/target/product/<device>/boot.img

fastboot –S 256M flash system out/target/product/<device>/system.img

fastboot –S 256M flash userdata out/target/product/<device>/userdata.img

Note!It’s not necessary to re-flash the userdata every time you flash your device, but sometimes the new software is incompatible with previous content, which might result in a device that doesn’t boot. If you experience this, try to re-flash only the userdata again.

Now when you disconnect your device from the computer and start it, it will be running AOSP.

Flash vendor image to your device

Download the vendor image corresponding your device from List of devices and resources.

Unpack the vendor zip file to obtain the vendor image.

unzip SW_binaries_for_Xperia_AOSP_O_MR0_4.4_<release version>_<platform>.zip

Note: Release version should be equivalent to the latest downloaded image version, and platform should match your device.

On your device: Connect the device to your computer in Fastboot mode, by pressing volume up while inserting the USB cable. When the device is in Fastboot mode, the LED on the device will be illuminated in blue.

On your computer: Flash the vendor image by entering the following commands in a terminal window:

fastboot flash oem SW_binaries_for_Xperia_AOSP_O_MR0_4.4_<release version>_<platform>.img

Note: Release version should be equivalent to the latest downloaded image version, and platform should match your device.

We hope this tutorial will help you get started building your own version of Android for Xperia devices. Feel free to contribute your work back to our repositories on our Sonyxperiadev GitHub account. We will review and merge your code as soon as possible.

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