How to install Eclipse on Ubuntu 18.04/18.10 and Linux Mint 19

Eclipse is a popular, well-known Integrated Development Environment for application development. It is the most widely used Java IDE and is written in C and Java, released under Eclipse Public License.
Eclipse is not only used for developing applications in various programming languages including COBOL, Ada, C, C++, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Clojure, Scala, Groovy, and Scheme.
Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) for Java, Eclipse CDT for C/C++ and Eclipse PDT for PHP, among others.
With the support of plugins available in Eclipse Marketplace, you can extend the functionality of Eclipse.
In this tutorial we will learn how to install the latest edition of Eclipse IDE in Ubuntu 18.04/18.10 and Linux Mint 19.

Prerequisites

Eclipse requires Java JDK / JRE 8 or above to be available on your machine. Install OpenJDK.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y openjdk-8-jdk-headless

Verify the Java version on your machine.

java -version

Example output:

openjdk version "1.8.0_191"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_191-8u191-b12-2ubuntu0.18.04.1-b12)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.191-b12, mixed mode)

Install the wget package on your system to download the Eclipse IDE package from the internet over a terminal.

sudo apt install -y wget

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Install Eclipse IDE

ownload the latest version of Eclipse IDE 2019-03 from the official page using a web browser or download the Eclipse IDE 2019-03 package over a terminal using the following command.

wget http://ftp.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/pub/eclipse/technology/epp/downloads/release/2019-03/R/eclipse-java-2019-03-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded Eclipse IDE package to your desired directory (Ex. /opt/).

sudo tar -zxvf eclipse-java-2019-03-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz -C /opt

Create a link to the eclipse executable to /usr/bin path so that all users in the machine can able to use Eclipse.

sudo ln -s /opt/eclipse/eclipse /usr/bin/eclipse

Create Launcher Icon for Eclipse IDE

Having a launcher icon on the menu would be very handy to start the application right from the desktop.

nano /usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop

Use the following information in the above file.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Eclipse IDE 2019-03
Comment=Eclipse IDE 2019-03
Exec=/usr/bin/eclipse
Icon=/usr/eclipse/icon.xpm
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=false

Start Eclipse IDE

From command line

eclipse

From GUI

Go to Activities >> Search for Eclipse.

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On the first application launch, add Eclipse workspace directory and hit on Launch button to start the application.

Eclipse IDE 2019-03 running on Ubuntu 18.04:

Conclusion

That’s all! The latest version of Eclipse IDE is now installed in your system. Also, you can get started with Eclipse by visiting the official Eclipse Documentation.