This is a step by step guide to get you started with Android development. It is not intended to be systematic. For that purpose, Google's Android Developer's Guide is the best choice. The purpose of this tutorial is to get you started with Android coding as quickly as possible, with the least amount of fuss. I believe that nothing beats hands on experience when you are learning a new thing.

Preparations:

1. Download and install the Android SDK. Make sure you download at least one Android platform and the SDK Platform-tools (step 4 of the installation guide). For the purposes of this tutorial, you don't need Eclipse.
   
2. Download and install Apache Ant.
   

First steps:

1. Create an AVD (Android Virtual Device)
   
2. Start the Android emulator with (replace Simple8 with the name of the AVD you created in the previous step):
   

   tools/emulator @Simple8
   

   
   Play with it to get familiar with the controls and interactions.
   
3. Start with your first application ever: Android Hello World
   
4. Get familiar with adb: Android logging example
   
5. Make "Hello World" say your name: Android first interactive app
   

Progress to something less trivial:

1. Android xml resource example
   This example shows how to read an XML resource packaged with the application APK.
   
2. Android app to retrieve permissions list by package name
   This example uses the Android PackageManager to retrieve permissions declarations in installed APKs. It also shows how to navigate from one screen (Activity) to another.
   

Where to go from here:

1. Android Developer's Guide
   
2. Android API reference
   

Troubleshooting:
If you are running 64-bit Linux and having trouble starting Android tools (adb, emulator etc), the following links may be helpful:

1. Android SDK Installation Guide. Look at "Ubuntu Linux Notes".
   
2. Getting Android SDK working on Ubuntu 64
   
3. Android adb: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory. For trouble starting adb on 64-bit Fedora.
   
4. Android emulator: warning: opening audio output failed