Manual instalation of Oracle Java on Ubuntu

This is the English version of this article of mine.

I had some versions of Java JDK installed in my Ubuntu Server 10.04, and I needed to install a new version (7u15). Here how I did it, trying to go straight to the point. This works for every Ubuntu (Desktop or Server) up to 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal).

1. This is my crowded JVM directory:
   
   $ ls -lh /usr/lib/jvm/
   
   total 12K
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   21 2012-05-27 20:19 java -> /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15
   drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4,0K 2012-07-16 21:19 java-1.5.0-gcj-4.4
   drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4,0K 2012-07-26 11:17 java-7-oracle
   drwxr-xr-x 8  500  143 4,0K 2013-02-15 18:21 jdk1.7.0_15
   
    
2. I do not want a messy system. So I wiped it all up.
   
   $ sudo rm /usr/lib/jvm/j*
    
3. Download Java JDK from Oracle. Today, this is the correct link for it. Choose the .tar.gz version. I downloaded both architecture versions:
1. jdk-7u15-linux-i586.tar.gz
2. jdk-7u15-linux-x64.tar.gz
4.  Unpack the tar file to the correct directory, which is /usr/lib/jvm/. If this does not exist, create it.
   
   $ sudo tar xf jdk-7u15-linux-x64.tar.gz -C /usr/lib/jvm/
    
5. Make each binary of ths new version of Java visible to Alternatives system:
   
   $ sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15/bin/java" 1
   
   $ sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/javac" "javac" "/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15/bin/javac" 1
   
   $ sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/javaws" "javaws" "/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15/bin/javaws" 1
   
   This is for 32bits systems:
   $ sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so" "mozilla-javaplugin.so" "/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so" 1
   
   This is for 64bits systems:
   $ sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so" "mozilla-javaplugin.so" "/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so" 1
6. Choose each one of the binaries correctly:
   
    $ sudo update-alternatives --config java
    $ sudo update-alternatives --config javac
    $ sudo update-alternatives --config mozilla-javaplugin.so
    $ sudo update-alternatives --config javaws

This last step will list the versions available, if any. Choose the one from /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_15, for this example.

After that, you just need to test the version. Do this for each one of the binaries:

$ java -version  

$ javac -version

This article was built upon Ubuntu Documentation.