How to run a C program in android-x86 terminal?

Question

I have to C program which is compiled using gcc in ubuntu. I want to run that executable in android terminal. When i run it is showing either "file or directory is not found" or "not executable:ELF32". I want to run the code in android terminal. Is there any way or flags in gcc or using any other compiler so that i can run my code in the android terminal.?

Answer 1

Android does not use the same system libraries as Ubuntu, so they will not be found.

There are two solutions:

1. Copy the libraries you need.

   If you can place them in the same filesystem locations they have in Ubuntu then great, otherwise you'll need to run the ld-linux.so manually and tell it where to find the libraries. Or, you could relink the program such that it expects to find the dynamic linker and libraries in a non-standard place. You might also use a chroot, but that requires root, and you'd need to find a chroot binary that works.

2. Use a static link.

   This usually just means passing -static to GCC. You get a much larger binary that should be entirely self-contained, with no dependencies. It requires that static versions of all your libraries are available on your build system. Also, some features (such as DNS lookup) always expect a shared library, so they won't work this way.

Even then, you should expect some Linux features to not work. Basically, anything that requires hardware features or configuration files in /etc are going to need a lot of effort. There are various projects that have done this already (search "linux chroot android").

I'm not sure what the "not executable:ELF32" message means, but you should check whether you're building 32 or 64-bit executables, and which the Android binaries are using (file <whatever> should tell you).