Installing Oracle SQL Developer 4.1 and Java (JDK 8) on Ubuntu

Problem

There are tons of ways described, this is what worked for me.

Solution

This version of SQL Developer requires Java JDK 8 as a prerequisitive.

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-set-default

Download SQL Developer

 

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/overview/index.html

 <Linux RPM>

 (Assuming you don't have Alien)

sudo apt-get -y install alien

(Then from your home directory)

cd Downloads

ls sqldev*
(Change the below to the file that you downloaded)

sudo alien -ic sqldeveloper-4.1.0.19.07-1.noarch.rpm

Settings and first initialisation

Now find your Java directory, mine was in /usr/lib/jvm
barry@barry-VirtualBox:/usr/lib/jvm$ ls

java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64  java-7-openjdk-amd64  java-8-oracle

set JAVA_HOME =/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle
unset GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID

Check that SQLDeveloper is in an executable path
ls /opt/sqldeveloper

ls -l $(which sqldeveloper)
mine was in usr/local/bin

echo $PATH

Yes, it's there/



Now type sqldeveloper




It will ask you for the full path of JDK. In my case it was
/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle

After that a gui sreen came up showing the initiation progress, and then finally connection details.
For my local apex installation (on docker), I used

Acknowledgements

https://community.oracle.com/docs/DOC-888316
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14788345/how-to-install-jdk-on-ubuntu-linux
https://community.oracle.com/docs/DOC-888316