Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers installation on Ubuntu 22.04

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

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions

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

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1. 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
   

   

   Furthermore, confirm that your system has the G++ the C++ compilers installed.

2. Navigate to the official Eclipse website and download the 64-bit Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers package.

   

3. 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/
   

   

   
   

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   From now on you should be able to start the Eclipse IDE simply by execution of the below command:

   $ eclipse
   

   

4. (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;

   

   Once the Eclipse IDE desktop launcher is ready you can start the the Eclipse IDE by searching the top left Activities menu.

   

5. Once you start the Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers application select your work space.

   

6. Navigate to File--> New--> C/C++ Project to create a new C/C++ project.

   

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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.