Where can I find the Java SDK in Linux after installing it?

Question

I installed JDK using apt-get install but I don\'t know where my jdk folder is. I need to set the path for that. Does any one have a clue on the location?

Answer 1

This question still seems relevant, and the answer seems to be a moving target.

On my debian system (buster):

> update-java-alternatives -l
java-1.11.0-openjdk-amd64      1111       /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.11.0-openjdk-amd64

However, if you actually go look there, you'll see there are multiple directories and symbolic links placed there by the package system to simplify future maintenance.

The actual directory is java-11-openjdk-amd64, with another symlink of default-java. There is also an openjdk-11 directory, but it appears to only contain a source.zip file.

Given this, for Debian ONLY, I would guess the best value to use is /usr/lib/jvm/default-java, as this should always be valid, even if you decide to install a totally different version of java, or even switch vendors.

The normal reason to want to know the path is because some application wants it, and you probably don't want that app to break because you did an upgrade that changed version numbers.