Selected directory is not a valid home for JDK - Intellij IDEA on Ubuntu

47
votes

After installing Intellij Idea 14, with OracleJDK 1.8 u25 (64 bit) on my 14.04 Ubuntu system, I cannot configure the Java SDK to use any JDK. When I navigate to Module Settings->SDK and click configure SDK, the add button, and then select /usr/java/jdk1.8.0_25 in the dialog, I get an error popup stating that "The selected directory is not a valid home for JDK."

I've checked the contents of the directory, which contains a bin folder with both java and javac inside, a lib folder and a jre folder.

I've tried selecting each of those in turn, to no avail, which I expected.

4
javaubuntuintellij-ideajava-8intellij-13
Does IntelliJ have permissions to read that folder? - Evan Knowles
This might help: askubuntu.com/questions/130186/… - Evan Knowles
@Evan Thanks! That provided me with a solution to the question. I've posted an answer with the method I used. - Andrew Schade
Heh, good job everyone! - Evan Knowles
Check you installed the jdk (not only the jre) : sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk - Remy Mellet

4 Answers

73
votes

I had the same problem, in my case I wasn't able to select any of the "openjdk" directories under /usr/lib/jvm/, I solved with:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

When restarting intellij it will find the path to the jdk automatically.

24
votes

For the ones who run into this problem even though you select the right directory under /usr/lib/jvm, there is something you should know : The directories under /usr/lib/jvm are created when your system installs the minimum set of java tools. But it doesn't mean you have the development files available. You need to install the development files :

sudo apt-get install java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel

After installing this package, try to select the directory again and it should work.

11
votes

Evan Knowles posted a link to https://askubuntu.com/questions/130186/what-is-the-rationale-for-the-usr-directory. It provided me with the solution to the problem.

Instead of using the JDK at /usr/java/jdk1.8.0_25, I instead used the JDK at /usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_25. The reasons that this works rather than the other are explained in detail within the link.

3
votes

I came across this error because I did not have JAVA_HOME set.

Adding export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64 (for openjdk 11 in my case) and export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH to my ~/.bashrc and then running source ~/.bashrc solved the problem for me.