How to set Oracle's Java as the default Java in Ubuntu?

Question

I put the line:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle

in my ~/.bashrc file.

/usr/lib/jvm/java7-oracle should be a symbolic link pointing to /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle-[version number here].

The reason it's a symbolic link is that in case there's a new version of the JVM, you don't need to update your .bashrc file, it should automatically point to the new version.

If you want to set JAVA_HOME environment variables globally and at system level means use should set in /etc/environment file.

If you want to change it globally and at system level;

In

/etc/environment

add this line:

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle

to set Oracle's Java SE Development Kit as the system default Java just download the latest Java SE Development Kit from here then create a directory somewhere you like in your file system for example /usr/java now extract the files you just downloaded in that directory:

$ sudo tar xvzf jdk-8u5-linux-i586.tar.gz -C /usr/java

now to set your JAVA_HOME environment variable:

$ JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_05/
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java ${JAVA_HOME%*/}/bin/java 20000
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac ${JAVA_HOME%*/}/bin/javac 20000

make sure the Oracle's java is set as default java by:

$ update-alternatives --config java

you get something like this:

There are 2 choices for the alternative java (providing /usr/bin/java).

  Selection    Path                                           Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /opt/java/jdk1.8.0_05/bin/java                  20000     auto mode
  1            /opt/java/jdk1.8.0_05/bin/java                  20000     manual mode
  2            /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-i386/jre/bin/java   1061      manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

pay attention to the asterisk before the numbers on the left and if the correct one is not set choose the correct one by typing the number of it and pressing enter. now test your java:

$ java -version

if you get something like the following, you are good to go:

java version "1.8.0_05"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_05-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 25.5-b02, mixed mode)

also note that you might need root permission or be in sudoers group to be able to do this. I've tested this solution on both ubuntu 12.04 and Debian wheezy and it works in both of them.

If you want this environment variable available to all users and on system start then you can add the following to /etc/profile.d/java.sh (create it if necessary):

export JDK_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle

Then in a terminal run:

sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/java.sh
source /etc/profile.d/java.sh

---

My second question is - should it point to java-6-sun or java-6-sun-1.6.0.24 ?

It should always point to java-7-oracle as that symlinks to the latest installed one (assuming you installed Java from the Ubuntu repositories and now from the download available at oracle.com).

java 6

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-amd64

or java 7

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64