JAVA_HOME directory in Linux

echo $JAVA_HOME will print the value if it's set. However, if you didn't set it manually in your startup scripts, it probably isn't set.

If you try which java and it doesn't find anything, Java may not be installed on your machine, or at least isn't in your path. Depending on which Linux distribution you have and whether or not you have root access, you can go to http://www.java.com to download the version you need. Then, you can set JAVA_HOME to point to this directory. Remember, that this is just a convention and shouldn't be used to determine if java is installed or not.

On the Terminal, type:

echo "$JAVA_HOME"

If you are not getting anything, then your environment variable JAVA_HOME has not been set. You can try using "locate java" to try and discover where your installation of Java is located.

Did you set your JAVA_HOME

• Korn and bash shells:export JAVA_HOME=jdk-install-dir
• Bourne shell:JAVA_HOME=jdk-install-dir;export JAVA_HOME
• C shell:setenv JAVA_HOME jdk-install-dir

You can check from the command line by executing this command echo $JAVA_HOME. If Java is installed but the path is not set, you need to identify the path to your java installation. I prefer using sudo update-alternatives --config java which lists all installed versions with current active one marked and provides dialog to switch:

There are 3 programs which provide 'java'.

  Selection    Command
-----------------------------------------------
   1           java-11-openjdk.x86_64 (/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-11.0.14.0.9-2.fc35.x86_64/bin/java)
   2           java-17-openjdk.x86_64 (/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-17.0.2.0.8-1.fc35.x86_64/bin/java)
*+ 3           /usr/java/jdk-17.0.2/bin/java

Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number: 

from the above list, you can select the version of java you want to be the default. To set the JAVA_HOME to option 3 for instance you can do it this way export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk-17.0.2