Java Newbie to Pro? Day 1 – How I Set Up My Java Dev Environment

In this post, I’ll walk you through how I set up my Java development environment on my primary (and only) machine—a Dell Latitude running Ubuntu.

Setting Up the Development Environment

1. Downloading and Extracting the JDK

First, I downloaded the latest stable JDK. To be more specific, I went with JDK 21's x64 Compressed Archive option.

After a little while, the JDK archive stuff got downloaded into my pc's Downloads directory. Following the download, I extracted the contents of the archive into the Home directory using the following command:

tar -xvf Downloads/jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz -C ~

By default, this created a new folder named jdk-21.0.6 (or something similar, depending on the JDK version). To keep things neat and have a consistent directory name, I did the following:

• Created a new directory named jdk-21:

mkdir ~/jdk-21

• Moved all the extracted contents into this new directory:

mv ~/jdk-21.0.6/* ~/jdk-21/

• Finally, I removed the now-empty jdk-21.0.6 folder:

rmdir ~/jdk-21.0.6

At this point, I had my JDK neatly placed inside ~/jdk-21.

2. Setting Up the Environment Variables

To ensure that my system could recognize Java commands globally, I had to set up environment variables. Here’s how I did it:

• Opened the bashrc file for editing using Nano:

nano ~/.bashrc

• Scrolled to the bottom and added the following lines:

# Java
export JAVA_HOME="/home/nabil/jdk-21"
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

• Saved the file (CTRL + X, then Y, then Enter). Applied the changes immediately by running:

source ~/.bashrc

To verify that Java was installed and accessible, I ran:

java --version

It successfully displayed the installed Java version! 🎉

3. Installing Eclipse IDE

Since Caleb uses Eclipse IDE in his tutorial, I decided to install it for consistency. I installed Eclipse from Ubuntu's App Center.

4. Creating My First Java Project

With Eclipse up and running, I created a new Java project to test everything:

• Clicked on File → New → Java Project.
• Named the project hello.
• Clicked Finish to create the project.
• And that’s it! My Java development environment was fully set up and ready to go.