How To: Install Sun Java in Ubuntu from Command-Line

How-To 1 Minute

Had to do a fresh install of Sun’s Java on a remote Ubuntu machine this weekend. It’s pretty easy to do in a graphical environment, but I only had ssh access. Since I couldn’t find a set of instructions on how to install Sun’s Java from the command line, I thought I’d put together my own how-to.

You’ll use the apt-get command to grab the Sun java .deb files and install them. It works just like a command-line version of the Synaptic Package Manager you probably used to install software from the graphical environment.

But apt-get doesn’t know how to find the Sun Java files unless you add some sources to its repositories: a list of all the places apt-get looks for software.

Once you’ve added the repositories to the source list for apt-get, one command will install everything for you. Here’s a step-by-step way to do it:

  1. Type “nano /etc/apt/sources.list” to open a command-line text editor to edit the list of repositories apt-get will look through.
  2. You’ll see some lines, starting with “deb” or “deb-src” already in the file. Add the following lines to the file:

    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe
    deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe
    deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse
    deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates multiverse
    deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates multiverse

  3. Press Ctrl-O to save the file. Press Return to agree to name the file sources.list, then press Ctrl-X to leave the editor.
  4. Type: “apt-get update”
  5. Type: “apt-get install sun-java6-jdk”

That should do it!

Published by Ron Toland

Ron Toland grew up in West Texas, where he learned to love libraries and hate cactus (it knows what it did). He lives in San Diego, CA, with his wife, two pups, and as many green things as they can coax from the sandy soil.

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5 thoughts on “How To: Install Sun Java in Ubuntu from Command-Line”

  2. I’ve just done some site re-organizing. You should see a link at the bottom of the page now to my RSS feed. Does that work?

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  3. Fantastic, this is the only properly working tutorial for installing Java on a new VPS that I’ve been able to find.

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  5. Rick: you probably don’t have the right permissions to edit the file.

    Try using “sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list” in step one, and follow the directions from there.

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