How to Install Gradle on Debian 9

Gradle is a general-purpose build tool used primarily for Java projects, combining the best features of Ant and Maven . Unlike its predecessors which use XML for scripting, Gradle uses Groovy , a dynamic, object-oriented programming language for the Java platform to define the project and build scripts.

In this tutorial, we will explain how to install Gradle on Debian 9.

Prerequisites #

You’ll need to be logged in as a user with sudo access to be able to install packages on your Debian system.

Installing Gradle on Debian #

In the following sections, we will provide step-by-step instructions for downloading and installing the latest Gradle version on Debian 9.

1. Install OpenJDK #

Gradle requires Java JDK or JRE version 7 or above to be installed.

We’ll install OpenJDK 8 :

sudo apt updatesudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk

Verify the Java installation by running:

java -version

The output should look something like this:

openjdk version "1.8.0_181"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_181-8u181-b13-2~deb9u1-b13)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.181-b13, mixed mode)

2. Download Gradle #

At the time of writing this article, the latest version of Gradle is 5.2.1. Before continuing with the next step you should check the Gradle releases page to see if a newer version is available.

Download the Gradle Binary-only zip file in the /tmp directory using the following wget command:

wget https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-5.2.1-bin.zip -P /tmp

Once the download is completed, extract the zip file in the /opt/gradle directory:

sudo unzip -d /opt/gradle /tmp/gradle-*.zip

Verify that the Gradle files are extracted by listing the /opt/gradle/gradle-5.2.1 directory:

ls /opt/gradle/gradle-5.2.1

bin  getting-started.html  init.d  lib  LICENSE  media  NOTICE

3. Setup environment variables #

Next, we’ll need to configure the PATH environment variable to include the Gradle bin directory. To do so, open your text editor and create a new file named gradle.sh inside of the /etc/profile.d/ directory.

sudo nano /etc/profile.d/gradle.sh

Paste the following configuration:

export GRADLE_HOME=/opt/gradle/gradle-5.2.1
export PATH=${GRADLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH}

Save and close the file. This script will be sourced at shell startup.

Make the script executable by running the following chmod command:

sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/gradle.sh

Load the environment variables using the source command :

source /etc/profile.d/gradle.sh

4. Verify the Gradle installation #

To validate that Gradle is installed properly use the gradle -v command which will display the Gradle version:

gradle -v

You should see something like the following:

Welcome to Gradle 5.2.1!

Here are the highlights of this release:
 - Define sets of dependencies that work together with Java Platform plugin
 - New C++ plugins with dependency management built-in
 - New C++ project types for gradle init
 - Service injection into plugins and project extensions

For more details see https://docs.gradle.org/5.2.1/release-notes.html


------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 5.2.1
------------------------------------------------------------

Build time:   2019-02-08 19:00:10 UTC
Revision:     f02764e074c32ee8851a4e1877dd1fea8ffb7183

Kotlin DSL:   1.1.3
Kotlin:       1.3.20
Groovy:       2.5.4
Ant:          Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.13 compiled on July 10 2018
JVM:          1.8.0_181 (Oracle Corporation 25.181-b13)
OS:           Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64 amd64

That’s it. You have successfully installed Gradle on your Debian 9.

Conclusion #

You can now visit the official Gradle Documentation page and learn how to get started with Gradle.

If you hit a problem or have feedback, leave a comment below.