Installing Intellij IDEA on Ubuntu

Posted 2020-07-17 SmartVessel

he installation on Linux is traditionally more complicated. I wonder why people complain about the low number of Linux desktop users.  The IntelliJ IDEA download page mentions only two steps:

1. unpack the “ideaIU-XX.Y.Z.tar.gz” file using the command “tar xfz ideaIU-XX.Y.Z.tar.gz” and
2. run “idea.sh” from the bin subdirectory.

However, this instructions don’t deliver IntelliJ as delivered in other platforms. People don’t go to the installation folder and execute the file idea.sh. They either create a desktop icon or add the bin directory to the path, but these steps are missing. So, in my understanding, the installation is not completed. To launch IntelliJ from anywhere in the command prompt:

Become the root user:

sudo -i

Move the unpacked folder to “/opt/idea”:

mv ideaIC-XX.Y.Z /opt/idea

Edit the file .bashrc:

gedit ~/.bashrc

Add the following line to the end of the file:

export PATH=/opt/idea/bin:$PATH

Log out and log in to the change take effect.

To add the launcher icon on the desktop, there is a soft and a hard way.

The Soft Way

Fortunately, IntelliJ can help you once you run it for the first time. In the welcome window, select “Configure”:

And then select “Create Desktop Entry”.

That’s it!

The Hard Way

As a good Linux user, you may prefer doing it the hard way, as follows:

Create a desktop file:

cd /opt/idea
gedit idea.desktop    

Copy the content bellow to the file:

      [Desktop Entry]
      Name=IntelliJ IDEA 
      Type=Application
      Exec=idea.sh
      Terminal=false
      Icon=idea
      Comment=Integrated Development Environment
      NoDisplay=false
      Categories=Development;IDE;
      Name[en]=IntelliJ IDEA

Install the desktop file:

desktop-file-install idea.desktop

Create a symlink:

cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s /opt/idea/bin/idea.sh /usr/local/bin/idea.sh

Finally, display the idea icon in dash:

cp /opt/idea/bin/idea.png /usr/share/pixmaps/idea.png

At this point, you will finally feel IntelliJ as an application, integrated with the desktop and always ready to be executed.