How to change visibility of layout programmatically

Have a look at View.setVisibility(View.GONE / View.VISIBLE / View.INVISIBLE).

From the API docs:

public void setVisibility(int visibility)

    Since: API Level 1

    Set the enabled state of this view.
    Related XML Attributes: android:visibility

Parameters:
visibility     One of VISIBLE, INVISIBLE, or GONE.

Note that LinearLayout is a ViewGroup which in turn is a View. That is, you may very well call, for instance, myLinearLayout.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE).

This makes sense. If you have any experience with AWT/Swing, you’ll recognize it from the relation between Container and Component. (A Container is a Component.)