How to Install Eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04.

Eclipse is a cross-platform, wildly popular Java integrated development environment (IDE) that you can easily install and manage your Java based projects.

It also comes with plugins to extend its functionality to support programming languages such as PHP, JavaScript, C++ and more.

If you want a simple to use IDE platform to build you next application, then you might want to take a look at Eclipse.

For more about Eclipse, check its homepage.

To install Eclipse on Ubuntu, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Install Java

Because Eclipse is a Java based IDE, you’ll need Java runtime environment (JRE) to be installed in order to run it.

Run the commands below to install the opensource version of Java.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install default-jre

Java JRE should be installed.

Step 2: Install Eclipse from Snap

After installing Java JRE above, run the commands below to install Eclipse from Snap.

sudo snap install --classic eclipse

That will install the latest version from using Snap package management tool.

After installing, go to Activities dashboard, search fro Eclipse and launch it.

Install Eclipse Manually

For those who want to manually install Eclipse, the steps below should help. You’ll use Eclipse default installer to install the software.

First, go to the link below to download the installer.

https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

After downloading, continue below to extract the downloaded file and install.

Run the commands below to extract the downloaded file in your Downloads folder of your Home directory.

tar xfz ~/Downloads/eclipse-inst-linux64.tar.gz

After extracting the file, run the commands below to launch the installation wizard

~/Downloads/eclipse-installer/eclipse-inst

Choose the tools and language you wish to be developing in.

Accept the licensing terms and choose the default installation folder.

Once downloaded and installed, click the Launch button to start the program.

If you installed via the manual option, you may need to create a desktop icon to launch the program. you can run the commands below to create a simple desktop icon for Eclipse.

nano ~/.local/share/applications/eclipse.desktop

Next, copy and paste the content below into the file and save

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Eclipse Eclipse
Type=Application
Exec=/home/richard/eclipse/java-2020-03/eclipse/eclipse
Terminal=false
Icon=/home/richard/eclipse/java-2020-03/eclipse/icon.xpm
Comment=Eclipse Integrated Development Environment
NoDisplay=false
Categories=Development;IDE;
Name[en]=Eclipse

Save the file and exit.

Then run the commands below to make it executable.

chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/eclipse.desktop

Replace the highlighted username (richard) with your own account name… also, the Exec = location and icon.xpm should depend on where Eclipse got installed on your system.

Save the file and exit.

When the app launches, you should be able to configure it for your environment..

Enjoy!

Conclusion:

This brief tutorial showed you how to install Eclipse on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04. If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report it.

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