The following guide describes how to setup your environment for Java development of either GNU/Linux distributions or MacOS.

Git VCS

Install current version of Git VCS as described in the official docs for Mac or Linux

The chosen method does not matter; however we recommend using Homebrew on MacOS.

JVM Environment

To setup your JVM development environment on Linux or MacOS we recommend a tool called SDKMAN. Although it is possible to use native package manager of your OS, this tool makes it really easy to install everything from various versions of JDK, build tools such as Maven or Gradle to command line clients of various application frameworks. In this seminar you will utilize only the very basics of SDKMAN, however we want to make you aware of its existence as you might find it quite useful in the future.

SDK Man

Install SDKMan by following instructions

Java Development Kit

Your are probably already familiar with JDK – combination of JRE (Java Runtime Environment) required to run java applications and set of tools required for development of Java Application (such as javac, jar, javadoc, etc…)

To install Open JDK 17 using SDKMan simply run

# Install openjdk distribution of JDK 17
sdk install java 17.0.1-open
# Set it as default JDK for this system
sdk default java 17.0.1-open

SDKMAN will take care of exporting JAVA_HOME variable as well as ensuring the required binaries are available on path.

Apache Maven

Apache maven is a project management tool which takes care of dependency management and simplifies the build process of java application. It is the most used build tool for java application in use (Together with another tool called, these two are used by approximately 90% of all java projects).

To install Apache Maven using SDKMan run

# Install the desired version
sdk install maven 3.8.5
# Set it as default maven for this system
sdk default maven 3.8.5

Once again SDKMAN will make sure that Maven binary is available on path. You can also see that the pattern of SDKMAN commands is quite simple

sdk <command> [candidate] [version]

Feel free to explore

sdk help

IntelliJ Idea IDE

First you will need a license (although there is also a free community edition available). As a student you can apply for a student license for all JetBrains products for free.

Once you have the license you can download the installation file for IntelliJ Idea Ultimate.

Depending on your Linux distribution the Ultimate edition might also be available via your standard package manager. For MacOS it can be installed also via Homebrew.