This guide explains how to connect a Firefox OS device to your desktop over USB.
Note: If you just want to debug apps on a Firefox OS device, and you are running Firefox OS 1.2+, your best option is to use WebIDE. If your version of Firefox OS is less than 1.2, read Setting up to debug on Firefox OS using Firefox developer tools to learn about using standard remote debugging.
Setting up the device
On your Firefox OS device (see the layout):
- open the Settings app, then
Device Information>More Information>Developer. - In the developer menu, check "Remote debugging".
Setting up the desktop
To connect a device to the desktop, you need the Android Debug Bridge (adb) to be installed. Note that the ADB Helper add-on (for use with WebIDE) bundles adb for you.
Instructions for setting up your desktop are specific to your operating system and are detailed in point 3 of "Setting up a Device for Development" on the Android developer site. We've listed some additional instructions below.
Special Instructions for Mac OS X
If you're running Mac OS X, you have downloaded a package which has a name along adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20130522. Put that folder into the Applications folder, so that you get /Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20130522/ which contains two directories: eclipse and sdk. Then you can edit your ~/.bashrc and add
export PATH="/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20130522/sdk/platform-tools:$PATH"
(It will be ready for the next time you start your shell). You can now type on the CLI of the shell:
adb devices
and it will return a list of connected devices such as:
List of devices attached AA:BB:A5:B5:AA:BB device
Special instructions for Linux
If you're running Linux, the vendor ID to use for Firefox OS Geeksphone devices is 05c6, so your /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules file should contain an entry similar to:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="05c6", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
Special instructions for Windows
You can download Windows drivers for the Geeksphone from the Geeksphone website.
Windows 8 by default will not let you install unsigned drivers. See this tutorial on "How to install an unsigned driver on Windows 8".
Since Windows XP Home Edition doesn't include tasklist.exe, Simulator won't detect the device. This can be solved downloading that file from ComputerHope website and putting it in Windows\System32 folder.
Checking your setup
Once you've followed these instructions, attach the device to the desktop using a USB cable, open a command prompt and type "adb devices" (ensuring that adb is in your path). You should see your Firefox OS device listed in the output.