Installation of NetBeans and JDK in Debian

Installation of NetBeans in Ubuntu or Debian is very easy but before you do so, you have to install Java JDK which is required by NetBeans to work.

1. Installation of Java Development Kit

Go to Oracle’s Java SE Development Kit 7 Downloads, accept License Agreement and download proper version of JDK in tar.gz file. Now unpack file to destination showed below (remember to change file / directory name if version is different – this example is for 7u21). If destination directory (jvm) does not exist, create it:

cd /usr/lib
sudo mkdir jvm

Now unpack:

tar zxvf jdk-7u21-linux-x64.tar.gz -C /usr/lib/jvm/

Now use “update alternatives” to set newly installed JDK priority value to the highest level:

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_21/bin/java 1099
update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_21/bin/javac 1099

Check it by typing:

update-alternatives --config java

You’ll see:

  Selection    Path                                       Priority  Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_21/bin/java          1099      auto mode
  1            /usr/bin/gij-4.4                           1044      manual mode
  2            /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/bin/java   1061      manual mode
  3            /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_21/bin/java          1099      manual mode

Due to the highest priority that we’ve set, this JDK will be used. Check Java with:

java -version

2. Installation of NetBeans

Download version which you want to use and do the final step. Just add permission to execute downloaded file:

chmod +x netbeans-7.3-linux.sh

Run install process by entering:

./netbeans-7.3-linux.sh

Next, a graphical window will appear. Choose “next” and proceed through all steps. This tutorial works on Debian as well as on Ubuntu. Tested on 13.10.