Installing Android Studio on Linux Mint 17.1 (Rebecca)

Hello everyone,

This summer I’m learning to develop applications.

My choice of tools are Android Studio and Oracle JDK.

I found a tutorial that is quite good by retired IT professional, Ridzwan Abdullah. However, since some of the commands have been updated, the site is a bit outdated.

Here are my steps for installation of the newest version of Oracle’s Java SE Development Kit 8. I will be using version 8u45 (1.8.0_45).

1. Download the latest version of the Java SE Devlopment Kit (get the .tar.gz file).
2. Execute these commands. They will extract the files and move them to the correct locations. These commands are written under the assumption that the Java version is 8u45 and the file was downloaded to the ~/Downloads folder.

   $ cd ~/Downloads
   $ tar xzvf jdk-8u45-linux-x64.tar.gz
   $ sudo mv jdk1.8.0_45 /usr/lib/jvm/
   $ cd ~
   

3. (Optional) Remove the existing Java package. This should only be done if you have no further uses for the default JRE on your system (The version on Mint 17.1 is OpenJDK 7). If you’re not sure, then just skip this step. It is perfectly fine to have multiple JREs and/or JDKs on your system at one time.

   $ sudo apt-get remove default-jre default-jre-headless

4. Tell Mint to use the version you downloaded.
   1. Update the Java symlinks.

      $ sudo update-alternatives - -install /user/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.8.0_45/jre/bin/java 1500
      $ sudo update-alternatives - -install /user/bin/javac javac /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.8.0_45/bin/javac 1500

   2. Update the environment variables. Edit /etc/profile and add the following lines to the end. You can do this using any text editor you like. I’ve used nano.

      export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.8.0_45
      export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH"

5. Follow Abdullah’s tutorial starting at the Android Studio Component.

As a side note, after following the tutorial I’m currently only able to open Android Studio via the terminal commands:

$ cd ~/android-studio/bin
$ ./studio.sh

Does anyone know how to access Android Studio without having to use the terminal? If you know, please leave me a message in the comments.

Happy coding!