Installing NetBeans on Ubuntu – official way (updated)

There is NetBeans package in Ubuntu repositories. The official and supported way is to install it using apt. In that case, NetBeans will be updated automatically.

Problem with this approach is that current NetBeans package is not the last one. On November 23rd 2008 it was version 6.01. In case that you need newer package, follow procedure described in Installing NetBeans 6.5 on Linux / Ubuntu.

Checking Current Version in Repository

Current version in repositores can be obtained by:

apt-cache show netbeans

This is the result of execution of the command above:

Package: netbeans
Priority: optional
Section: universe/devel
Installed-Size: 1924
Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Marek Slama <marek.slama@sun.com>
Architecture: all
Version: 6.0.1-0ubuntu2
Replaces: netbeans5.5
Depends: libnb-apisupport1-java (>= 6.0.1), libnb-ide8-java (>= 6.0.1), libnb-java1-java (>= 6.0.1), libnb-platform7-java (>= 6.0.1)
Conflicts: netbeans5.5
Filename: pool/universe/n/netbeans/netbeans_6.0.1-0ubuntu2_all.deb
Size: 833412
MD5sum: e871ab4eb9992560ab3b3a8108ed03e4
SHA1: cf17a3315cd5f7e39974c7e7072a1b54e1d8747c
SHA256: 17778128ec651e2e64e7bb87d5aeef6f9307996bd2caa3c8403b42c9f8c1debd
Description: Integrated Development Environment
 NetBeans Integrated Development Environment for
 Java, C/C++, Ruby, UML, etc.
Homepage: http://www.netbeans.org
Bugs: mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com
Origin: Ubuntu

Installing NetBeans – Command Line

To install NetBeans, type in terminal window:

sudo apt-get install netbeans

and it is done. After confirming your action, apt will download and install all dependencies. NetBeans is ready to use.

Installing NetBeans – Graphical Tools

NetBeans can also be installed using any of graphical package management tools like Synaptic (Ubuntu) or Adept (Kubuntu).

Synaptic

Start Synaptic and click on Search button on the right end of icon bar:

In the Search dialog, type netbeans and click on Search button:

In the list of packages, find netbeans and right click on it. Choose ‘Mark for Installation’.

You will be asked to mark dependencies for installation too. As we wish installation to succeed, click on ‘Mark’

Now click on ‘Apply’ icon.

You will be asked to confirm the changes.

After clicking Apply, Synaptic will proceed with download and installation of NetBeans. When it finishes, NetBeans is ready to use.

JDK choice

Default dependency is OpenJDK, open source implementation of Sun’s JDK. If you don’t have Java already installed, it will be installed and configured for you.