How to Install Eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 16.04

In this tutorial I will show you how to install Eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Eclipse is an open source and free multi-language and multi-platform (Windows , Linux and Mac) software development program that used to build JAVA based web applications.
How to Install Eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 16.04

Eclipse is used by developers all around the world to code their application, it is primarily developed in Java, but programmers can use it to code their applications in various languages like C/C++, COBOL, Fortran, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails etc. It is a cross platform application and runs fine on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS.

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Requirements :

1. First make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running these following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Installed Java - We need to install Java 8 and above. Run the following commands to complete this task:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

Verify the Java version on your machine:
java -version

Installing the latest Eclipse on Ubuntu 16.04


Eclipse doesn’t provide an official PPA or an easy way to install the latest version of it on Ubuntu. You can install it from the software center but it will be a real old version. At present, Ubuntu Software Center still has Eclipse version 3.8 which was released in 2012.

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Easy method to install the latest Eclipse version on Ubuntu

Luckily we have a tool available on Ubuntu that can do all the lifting of installing Eclipse for us. It’s called ubuntu-make. Basically, it will download the source code package and dependencies of Eclipse, compile it and add desktop launcher icons — all of those with just one command!

First, let’s install ubuntu-make on our system. Enter the following commands for installing ubuntu-make:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/ubuntu-make
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-make

Once it’s installed, Now There are four packages of Eclipse available from ubuntu-make. Installation commands for each of them are listed below:

  • Eclipse IDE for Java Developers: If you want to work with Java, enter the following command:
    umake ide eclipse
  • Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers: For Java Enterprise Edition development, use this:
    umake ide eclipse-jee
  • Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers: If you need Eclipse IDE for C/C++ development, use this command:
    umake ide eclipse-cpp
  • Eclipse for PHP Developers: For PHP development, install Eclipse with the following command:
    umake ide eclipse-php
Congratulation’s! Eclipse has been installed successfully, launch it from Applications menu. Thanks for using this tutorial for "installing Eclipse in Ubuntu 16.04". But if you want install it manually, use second method.

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Method 2: Manually Install Latest Eclipse Version on Ubuntu

Another Method: Download the latest version eclipse [ Click Here ], at the time of writing; the version is 4.7. Or you can also download the Eclipse package over the terminal using the following command -

### For 32 Bit ###
curl -O http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/eclipse/technology/epp/downloads/release/oxygen/R/eclipse-java-oxygen-R-linux-gtk.tar.gz

### For 64 Bit ###
curl -O http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/eclipse/technology/epp/downloads/release/oxygen/R/eclipse-java-oxygen-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz

Step 1: Extract Eclipse package to your desired directory:
tar -zxvf eclipse-java-oxygen-R-linux-gtk*.tar.gz -C /usr/

Step 2: Making a Symlink:
ln -s /usr/eclipse/eclipse /usr/bin/eclipse

Step 3: Create desktop launcher – First create a new file eclipse.desktop in /usr/share/applications/ and after creating the file paste the code in terminal:

vi/usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop

Step 4: Add or paste the following content in the above file -

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Eclipse 4.7
Comment=Eclipse Oxygen
Exec=/usr/bin/eclipse
Icon=/usr/eclipse/icon.xpm
Categories=Application;Development;Java;IDE
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=0

Step 5: Now install that desktop file using the below command:
sudo desktop-file-install /usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop

Step 6: For Eclipse icon to be displayed in dash, run following command:
sudo cp /opt/eclipse/icon.xpm /usr/share/pixmaps/eclipse.xpm

Congratulation’s! Eclipse has been installed successfully, launch it from Applications menu. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Eclipse IDE in Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Eclipse web site.

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