How to Install Gradle on Debian 9

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How to Install Gradle on Debian 9

Gradle is a general-purpose build tool used primarily for Java projects, combining the best features of Ant and Maven . Unlike its predecessors which use XML for scripting, Gradle uses Groovy , a dynamic, object-oriented programming language for the Java platform to define the project and build scripts.

In this tutorial, we will explain how to install Gradle on Debian 9.

Prerequisites

You’ll need to be logged in as a user with sudo access to be able to install packages on your Debian system.

Installing Gradle on Debian

In the following sections, we will provide step-by-step instructions for downloading and installing the latest Gradle version on Debian 9.

1. Install OpenJDK

Gradle requires Java JDK or JRE version 7 or above to be installed.

We’ll install OpenJDK 8 :

sudo apt updatesudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk

Verify the Java installation by running:

java -version

The output should look something like this:

openjdk version "1.8.0_181"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_181-8u181-b13-2~deb9u1-b13)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.181-b13, mixed mode)

2. Download Gradle

At the time of writing this article, the latest version of Gradle is 5.2.1. Before continuing with the next step you should check the Gradle releases page to see if a newer version is available.

Download the Gradle Binary-only zip file in the /tmp directory using the following wget command:

wget https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-5.2.1-bin.zip -P /tmp

Once the download is completed, extract the zip file in the /opt/gradle directory:

sudo unzip -d /opt/gradle /tmp/gradle-*.zip

Verify that the Gradle files are extracted by listing the /opt/gradle/gradle-5.2.1 directory:

ls /opt/gradle/gradle-5.2.1
bin  getting-started.html  init.d  lib  LICENSE  media  NOTICE

3. Setup environment variables

Next, we’ll need to configure the PATH environment variable to include the Gradle bin directory. To do so, open your text editor and create a new file named gradle.sh inside of the /etc/profile.d/ directory.

sudo nano /etc/profile.d/gradle.sh

Paste the following configuration:

/etc/profile.d/gradle.sh
export GRADLE_HOME=/opt/gradle/gradle-5.2.1
export PATH=${GRADLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH}

Save and close the file. This script will be sourced at shell startup.

Make the script executable by running the following chmod command:

sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/gradle.sh

Load the environment variables using the source command :

source /etc/profile.d/gradle.sh

4. Verify the Gradle installation

To validate that Gradle is installed properly use the gradle -v command which will display the Gradle version:

gradle -v

You should see something like the following:

Welcome to Gradle 5.2.1!

Here are the highlights of this release:
 - Define sets of dependencies that work together with Java Platform plugin
 - New C++ plugins with dependency management built-in
 - New C++ project types for gradle init
 - Service injection into plugins and project extensions

For more details see https://docs.gradle.org/5.2.1/release-notes.html


------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 5.2.1
------------------------------------------------------------

Build time:   2019-02-08 19:00:10 UTC
Revision:     f02764e074c32ee8851a4e1877dd1fea8ffb7183

Kotlin DSL:   1.1.3
Kotlin:       1.3.20
Groovy:       2.5.4
Ant:          Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.13 compiled on July 10 2018
JVM:          1.8.0_181 (Oracle Corporation 25.181-b13)
OS:           Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64 amd64

That’s it. You have successfully installed Gradle on your Debian 9.

Conclusion

You can now visit the official Gradle Documentation page and learn how to get started with Gradle.

If you hit a problem or have feedback, leave a comment below.

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