We can set JAVA_HOME on Linux in different ways. One of the prominent ways is to set the JAVA_HOME using an environment variable.

How to set JAVA_HOME on Linux:

Environment variables can be set up in three different types:

• Local Environment variables: Bind to a specific session.
• User Environment variables: Bind to a specific user.
• System Environment variables: Bind to system-wide.

1. Set JAVA_HOME with export:

Using export command we can set the JAVA_HOME, but as we discussed, this is volatile – as soon as we leave the terminal session, this setting will go away.

$ export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64
$ echo $JAVA_HOME
/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64

1.1 Setting PATH:

export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

2. Set JAVA_HOME environment:

We can permanently set the JAVA_HOME using /etc/environment file. This will be applied to system-level.

$ sudo vi /etc/environment

Add the below lines to add the JAVA_HOME

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64
PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

2.1 Apply the changes:

Apply the environment variables by using the source command.

$ source /etc/environment
$ echo $JAVA_HOME
/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64

References:

• How to set JAVA_HOME on windows

Happy Learning 🙂