Init

I have used Aptana Studio in the past under windows and loved the development environment… especially code completion for the fancy javascript libraries. Aptana is really easy to install under windows but its a little less easy under linux (at least until someone in the ubuntu realm packages it).

UPDATE: With the new Aptana Studio these directions are obsolete, see here.

JVM

You will need the jvm to run aptana, some of you might do what I do on a new ubuntu install and get the ‘ubuntu-restricted-extras’ however aptana requires a 32-bit jvm to operate. Run this command to pull down the 32-bit java6 binaries:

sudo apt-get install ia32-sun-java6-bin

*Not Required* Now if you want to run everything on your machine under this jvm then you can run this command to switch to the 32-bit jvm:

sudo update-alternatives –config java

This will give you a screen where you can select from the jvm’s installed.

XULRunner

XULRunner is a runtime environment that has replaced mozilla’s gecko environment. You will need to nab XULRunner 1.8.* even though your machine probably already has XULRunner 1.9.* installed. The new XULRunner is not compatible so you will need to download a 1.8.* version from mozilla directly. Unzip the contents of the tar.gz and move them to a /usr/lib directory, I unzipped my tar.gz to my desktop:

sudo mkdir /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.8.1.3
sudo cp -R ~/Desktop/xulrunner/* /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.8.1.3

Get Aptana and move it to the proper place

Now go and download aptana and unzip it onto your desktop. Then run the following command to move aptana from your desktop to the /usr/local directory.

sudo mv ~/Desktop/aptana /usr/local

Create a Launch Script

Create the following launch script in the aptana directory (/usr/local/aptana) name it aptana.sh or something else that makes sense to you.

#!/bin/sh
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/xulrunner-1.8.1.3
if [ $LD_LIBRARY_PATH ]; then
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
else
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME
fi
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH
/usr/local/aptana/AptanaStudio -vm /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/bin/java

You will then want to change the permissions of the script to make it executable:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/aptana/aptana.sh

Now with that script you can create a symbolic link to the /usr/local/bin directory and/or add a item to your menu:

sudo ln -sf /usr/local/aptana/aptana.sh /usr/local/bin/aptana

I did both just to try them out and it works great.

Happy Coding!

Resources:

Installing Aptana Studio Standalone on Ubuntu Intrepid 64bit (Aptana Forums)

Installing Aptana Studio on Linux (Aptana Documentation)

Ubuntu is stuck with an older version of Eclipse (3.2 Europa) I love installing things from the repos because its easier than breathing however Ganymede is required for several new plugins and some more intricate java material (mylyn, inline, renames etc.)

JDK

You need to nab the JDK in order to run eclipse, if you are like me as soon as you install ubuntu you nab the ‘ubuntu-restricted-extras’ this installs the java JRE which will allow you to run java applications but you still need the JDK. Sun has an open source JDK available that has reached full JDK compliance so I will be installing that, however any JDK will do.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk

Now you need to update your ~/.bashrc file to include the JAVA_HOME varialbe, since I installed openJDK I will point the variable to that directory.

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk

Eclipse

Download the eclipse tar.gz and unzip it anywhere, mine is unzipped to my desktop in this example. Now you will want to move it to the /usr/local directory”

cd ~/Desktop
sudo mv eclipse /usr/local

Now create a symbolic link from /usr/local/bin/eclipse to /usr/local/eclipse/eclipse so you can run from the command line or add it to the start menu.

sudo ln -sf /usr/local/eclipse/eclipse /usr/local/bin/eclipse

With that symlink you can now launch eclipse by type ‘eclipse’ in the terminal or you can add an item to your menu under programming like I did.

Now you should be up and running fine, write some code!