Installing ADB

Android Debug Bridge, or ADB, is essential for deep-level communication with your phone’s operating system, and fastboot deals with communicating with your phone’s bootloader.

Head to a terminal window on a machine running a 64-bit OS (there’s no longer 32-bit support) and download the tool package containing both with wget https://dl.google.com/ android/repository/platform-tools-latest-linux.zip, then unzip it with unzip platform-tools-latestlinux.zip. Now edit your bash user profile file by running sudo nano ~/.profile and add the

following to it to ensure the adb and fastboot commands are available from everywhere: if [ -d “$HOME/platform-tools” ] ; then

export PATH="$HOME/platform-tools:$PATH” fi

Reboot your machine, and the Linux side of things should be done – now it’s time for you to set your smartphone or tablet up.

On your device, open Settings > About and then dig down through its menus until you find the Android build number. Tap this seven times, then head back out to the main Settings screen to see a new entry near the bottom: Developer options. Select this, scroll down, and then switch on USB debugging.

Plug your smartphone in to your PC and a connection should be established; type adb

devices in a terminal window, and tap OK on your phone to allow the connection.

If all has gone well, running adb devices again should list your smartphone as ‘device’ rather than ‘unauthorised’, and you can also run adb

shell to pull up a limited Linux shell and control that device. Easy.