Jada Moureen

My experience setting up a react-native environment on Ubuntu OS

Moureen Caroline's photo
Moureen Caroline
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3 min read

Am a few months old into serious programming with a background in java that I recently had to change to python due to the application that was assigned to me so am busy trying to understand python and how it works and boom little did I know then I was put on the team building a react- native application, now let’s get this clear I have not done anything in java-script or ES6 nor have I done any react of sorts, yeah confusing right? yeah, I surely was. Now it reaches a time to set up a react native environment on my Intel Pentium machine. So I get access to the react-native documentation and the instructions looked pretty straight forward, so I was like let’s do this!!!! The very thing was going on awesomely until I reached the step that had Android SDK tools that’s where everything became real right before I even wrote a single line of “Hello World ” in react-native. Tried everything possible on the internet but still, things were not working out for at least 5 good days straight and the fact that I was installing on an Ubuntu machine did make anything easier since there are a few documents on the same errors that I was facing trying to set up the environment. But I finally got the breakthrough at the end. Before proceeding, be sure to install the latest version of the following on Linux ( Ubuntu 18.04):

  • Node (V 12.10 as of writing)
  • Npm (V 6.10.3 as of writing)
  • Android SDK tools
  • Yarn
  • Git
  • Genymotion
  • Virtual-box others :
  • USB cable
  • Mobile phone After installing the virtual-box and confirming that it’s up and

react1.png

Creating the environment for the Android SDK tools;

react2.png

Confirm that Android SDK is installed run the following

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After one has configured an environment variable called ANDROID_HOME, run the following command to accept all the licenses.

```yes | $ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin/sdkmanager — licenses


In case one is using Java version 10 and above, you will have trouble running the command above.First, run the;


```sudo update-alternatives — config java

To downgrade the Java to Java version 8 so that you can be in a position to run the command once again to get all the SDK licenses up-to-date.

Open up two different terminals

  • Run react-native start
  • Run react-native run-android

One will notice the execution is at 99% and it's stuck at

why!! Cause it's running the Genymotion Android Tools (default). You need to change the radio button to Use custom Android SDK tools ( put the path of your sdktools) As shown below;

react4.png

react5.png

walalalalalalala we got it baby and we are good to GO. React-Native Here we come BABY!!!