Getting NetBeans ready for work on Ubuntu 8.10
Now that you have upgraded from Windows to Ubuntu (like me 
), let’s see how to setup NetBeans quickly on your new Ubuntu machine without wasting much time.
Step 1: Install JDK
Install jdk on your machine using the super easy install option in Ubuntu. Open the terminal and type:
This will install the latest jdk available in the Ubuntu repository. This is cool because, you need not worry about updating your jdk whenever a new release is available. Your system’s “Update Manager” will take care of the rest.
Once the jdk is downloaded, you will be prompted to agree a license agreement in the terminal. Press “TAB” key to select the “Ok” option and then press “Enter”.
Next you will be shown another prompt, use your “arrow” keys to select “Yes” option and press “Enter” to start the install process.
Step 2: Install NetBeans
Verify whether jdk is installed on your machine by typing “java -version” in the terminal. If everything is ok, go and get yourself a copy of netbeans installer.
Once the netbeans installer is downloaded, right click the downloaded file (which should have “.sh” extension), click “Properties”, go to the “Permissions” tab and check the “Allow executing file as program” checkbox.
Now double click the file and click “Run” to start the installation process.
Step 3: Start NetBeans with Nimbus Look and Feel
Let’s face it. The default look and feel (GTK) of NetBeans on Ubuntu (and that of Ubuntu too) sucks. You probably don’t want your friends to ridicule your IDE and say “Is this NetBeans 1.0?”. You don’t want that, right?
But fortunately, there is a saviour in the form of “Nimbus” which is available from JDK 6 Update 10 onwards. And instructing NetBeans to start with “Nimbus” look and feel is very easy. Just right click your “NetBeans” icon on your desktop and click “Properties”. In the “Command” text field add the word ” –laf Nimbus”.
In my case, it looks like:
Now restart NetBeans to see your IDE skinned in Nimbus.
Tip:
If you want NetBeans to look like other apps on your system, skin your Ubuntu with Nimbus theme too.
Step 4: Configure your video driver to ensure that NetBeans displays large files properly
In a perfect world, you don’t need this step but unfortunately you might need to configure your video driver properly to ensure that NetBeans displays large files properly. Otherwise, your IDE editor might display large files like this when you scroll your mouse:
Relax, this is not a bug in NetBeans but rather it’s just a little misconfiguration by Ubuntu. Fortunately, there is a solution to this issue and follow this netbeans wiki page to solve this.
Step 5: Choose the right font for your editor
Some of you might not like the default font used by the NetBeans editor on Ubuntu. For example, I like the crispy “Bitstream Vera Sans Mono” font with font size “13″. But if you are satisfied with the default editor font, it’s fine.
Step 6: Install path-tools plugin to integrate NetBeans with your filesystem browser
I strongly recommend you to use the excellent “path-tools” plugin which help you to integrate your NetBeans IDE with the nautilus file manager in Ubuntu. With this plugin, you can easily navigate to your netbeans projects located in your filesystem. Go grab it from the plugin portal.
And don’t forget to install your favourite version control system like subversion, mercurial, git etc to enjoy the benefits offered by your IDE.
That’s it for now. It will be great to see your suggestions, comments and tips you employ on your Ubuntu machine. Enjoy..!
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After having done all this, I’m still having trouble debugging PHP on Netbeans.
Mostly because my PHP installation didn’t have a /bin/ map for some reason…
I work some weeks with NetBeans 6.5 and 8.10 – it runs very well. And now I’ve installed JDK 1.6u12 – with the GTK+ laf the editor works without any problems. No GUI glitches and fast
best regards, josh.
Actually I like GTK look and feel. On Ubuntu 8.10 there are some glitches with the default human theme, mostly visible on tabs and progress bar, but if you switch to Human-Clearlooks theme everything is pretty, especially with Java 6 update 12 where they fixed the combo box look.
Just take care of what you install from universe or multiverse
sun-java6-* comes from https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/
and since this packages come from ubuntu multiverse means that the package is Community supported and no officially supported
as you can see in :
http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/multiverse/s/sun-java6/sun-java6_6-10-0ubuntu2/changelog
the current version is java6 u10 and sun have released the u12
If you want an officialy supported java you must go with openjdk
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-713-1 <– this shows the last security update for openjdl
I agree with Laszlo. Once you tweak the System–>preferences–>appearance settings in Ubuntu 8.10, you get a very good look and feel for NetBeans, Firefox or for any other display.
Note that it is ‘–laf Nimbus’ and not ‘-laf Numbus’ for the command line
Aagh, two dashes (i.e. – followed by -) seem to be merged into one (–) by this blog! Hence my comment above
this helps me lot
i am thanked to you providing this
With regards to Step 4:
I made this adjustment shortly before upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10, all was well. After the upgrade I had a strange flickering black-green-red line problem which prevented me from doing anything (I was unable to even login “blind” so to speak).
Using the install CD, I was able to edit xorg.conf and comment these lines out.
Good news is, this doesn’t seem to be required any more
Hey! there is an easier way to do this!, Just don’t use apt-get because it is not good in handling dependencies, therefore use aptitude install netbeans and it will resolve deps automatically and you just need to wait to downloads and the system does the job! so no worries to install jdk,etc.you can use Synaptics package manager in Ubuntu or kpackage in Kubuntu (also found in most KDE using systems).