The AOSP build process is fairly well understood by now: sync the source code, add device-specific drivers and kernel, and build the target image. I had built AOSP before to debug certain issues, but official support for Pixel 3 XL only goes up to Android 12. Recently, while working on Chromium development, I needed to test WebView on a newer platform, so I used LineageOS 21 for the build instead. ...
Timeliness note: The mirror URLs in this article were valid for a specific period. Both TUNA (Tsinghua) and USTC (Hefei) AOSP mirror addresses have changed multiple times. Always consult each mirror’s official help page for current URLs. AOSP source is enormous (~70GB), making downloads from Google’s official servers via VPN painfully slow. Chinese mirrors offer much faster speeds. ...
Note: This post was written in 2015. Some mirror URLs may have changed or become unavailable. As of 2025, the recommended mirrors for Chinese developers are Tsinghua TUNA, USTC, and other university mirrors, or simply using Android Studio’s built-in SDK Manager. For developers behind the Great Firewall of China, accessing Google’s servers directly is slow or unreliable. This post covers mirror-based solutions for: Android SDK updates Android Studio downloads AOSP source code downloads Android NDK downloads ...