64

It appears that Ubuntu doesn't have new versions of Gradle in their repositories for some reason. I need it for a project that will be build by Launchpad.

What should I do about this?

5 Answers 5

86

Gradle requires a Java JDK to be installed. Gradle requires a JDK 1.5 or higher. Gradle ships with its own Groovy library, therefore no Groovy needs to be installed. Any existing Groovy installation is ignored by Gradle.

Gradle uses whichever JDK it finds in your path (to check, use java -version). Alternatively, you can set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to the install directory of the desired JDK.

So make sure that you have Java JDK installed, then head to Gradle's Website to download Gradle, and any other info that you may need.

Or, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command(s) below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cwchien/gradle
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gradle

Source:Gradle

11
  • Well I could use that on my local machine but would that work on Launchpad? How would I tell it to download Gradle before starting the build.
    – Marlinc
    Aug 3, 2013 at 10:40
  • I don't think that you can do that. I think that you need to build locally, and then add to Launchpad.
    – Mitch
    Aug 3, 2013 at 10:47
  • Why did you unaccept? :)
    – Mitch
    Sep 19, 2013 at 18:47
  • Because that would not work on Launchpad. In Launchpad you're able to add a PPA for build dependencies. So I added it and specified it as a build dependency on my package. I've added that as a answer to this question so others can see it too.
    – Marlinc
    Sep 20, 2013 at 5:49
  • where is gradle home after running this commands?
    – catch23
    Feb 3, 2014 at 0:59
30
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cwchien/gradle
sudo apt-get update

This is correct answer, but before make sudo apt-get install gradle, do:

sudo apt-cache search gradle

and next install latest version from new repo. In my case it:

sudo apt-get install gradle-1.9

it work's! (if you don't tell, what version you need, it install gradle(1.4) from main repo, and error will be with you...).

2
  • But I get a message: "gradle-1.9 is already the latest version". Hence it doesn't let me install gradle. Apr 7, 2015 at 19:26
  • Gradle is installed to /usr/lib/gradle/{your-version}
    – catch23
    May 20, 2017 at 16:55
8

Apparently its possible to add a PPA as a dependency to a PPA and thus including Gradle.

https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA/BuildingASourcePackage#Dependencies

2

gradlew, the Gradle Wrapper, seems to be the best method: https://docs.gradle.org/2.11/userguide/gradle_wrapper.html

It is a script generated by Gradle which can automatically:

  • download a required Gradle version if missing
  • use it when required

You will then always use ./gradlew command from the root of the project instead of your system's gradle.

How to generate the wrapper is explained on the docs and at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25769536/how-when-to-generate-gradle-wrapper-files

1

sdkman

I faced a similar issue recently where i needed gradle just for one project:
Using apt wasn't very appealing as that meant tons of extra dependencies which i would certainly forget to uninstall afterwards. Also i needed a fairly recent gradle build.

I went with sdkman package manager instead which is pretty neat for java development:
You get bleeding edge versions of packages installed directly to your home directory without interfering with ubuntu system-wide setup. After i'm done i can just delete the user i created for the task and everything is back as before.

To install sdkman and gradle:

$ curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
Open new terminal  
$ sdk install gradle

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .