Eclipse is a free C and C++ IDE that can be installed on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish. In this tutorial, we will take you through the step by step instructions to install the Eclipse C/C++ IDE on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish as well as the Java prerequisites, via command line. Then, you can use the application to import your current C and C++ projects or develop new ones.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to install Eclipse IDE prerequisites
- How to download Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers
- How to extract Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers package
- How to launch Eclipse IDE
- How to create Eclipse IDE desktop launcher

Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
---|---|
System | Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish |
Software | Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers |
Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers installation on Ubuntu 22.04 step by step instructions
- Eclipse IDE requires Java JRE as a prerequisite. Therefore, our first step is to install
default-jre
package. To do so, open a command line terminal and run the following two commands:$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install default-jre
Installation of Eclipse java prerequisite Furthermore, confirm that your system has the G++ the C++ compilers installed.
- Navigate to the official Eclipse website and download the 64-bit Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers package.
Downloading the Eclipse IDE from official website - Extract the Eclipse package downloaded in the previous step. Here we assume that the package has been downloaded into the
~/Downloads
directory. Extract the package into the/opt
directory:$ sudo tar xf eclipse-cpp-2022-03-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz -C /opt
Once the package has been extracted create a symbolic link to the
/opt/eclipse/eclipse
executable binary:$ sudo ln -s /opt/eclipse/eclipse /usr/local/bin/
Extract Eclipse IDE package and link to executable binary
From now on you should be able to start the Eclipse IDE simply by execution of the below command:$ eclipse
Start Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers from command line - (optional) Create Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers desktop launcher. As an administrator create a new file called
/usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop
using any text editor eg.nano
:$ sudo nano /usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop
and insert the following code:
[Desktop Entry] Version = 2019‑12 Type = Application Terminal = false Name = Eclipse C/C++ Exec = /usr/local/bin/eclipse Icon = /opt/eclipse/icon.xpm Categories = Application;
Creating Eclipse IDE desktop launcher Once the Eclipse IDE desktop launcher is ready you can start the the Eclipse IDE by searching the top left
Activities
menu.Searching for and opening the Eclipse IDE via GUI - Once you start the Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers application select your work space.
Select work space in Eclipse IDE - Navigate to
File--> New--> C/C++ Project
to create a new C/C++ project.Creating a new project in Eclipse IDE
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to install Eclipse IDE for C and C++ on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux. We also learned how to install the Java JRE prerequisite package. Hopefully you find this free software to be a suitable environment for your C or C++ coding.