fampat / install-jdk-on-steam-deck

Guide and script to install java jdk 17 on the steam deck

install-jdk-on-steam-deck

• How it works
• Usage
• TO-DO

How it works

By default, the SteamDeck has a read-only immutable OS file system, which means that you can't simply install anything using the pacman package manager that comes with the OS (arch linux), since it would modify the OS file system.

So in order to install anything outside the Software Center (which installs programs in a way that doesn't affect the OS by using flatpak), you have to modify things in you home directory, which shouldn't mess up with the OS and break the system.

Taking this into account, the script located in the scripts directory of this repository will:

• Download the official oracle JDK 17 compressed file into your home directory, more specifically into ~/.local/jdk
• Exec a checksum of the file using the official sha256 checksum
• Extract the file into ~/.local/jdk/jdk-17.0.4.1
• Add some environment variables to your ~/.profile and then source it, if it wasn't already sourced, in your bashrc, so your programs / scripts know where java is installed. The variables are:
  • JAVA_HOME: which points to the ~/.local/jdk/jdk-17.0.4.1
  • PATH: which adds the bin directory located in the JAVA_HOME, so every executable is available for you to run

By adding the variables to .profile instead of .bashrc we ensure to be more "shell agnostic", so if you run a script in another shell like sh or launch a graphical program, it should read the environment variables defined there.

.profile is "manually" sourced in .bashrc since bash will try to source first .bash_profile and .bash_login if they exist. To learn about this:

• man sh: Invocation
• bash manual: Invoked with name sh.

With this, you will have a local installation of java and even better, you can install multiple versions and then point to the one you need.

This script only works (currently) for the jdk-17, since in order to download jdk-11 from oracle's page requires a login.

Usage

git clone https://github.com/BlackCorsair/install-jdk-on-steam-deck.git
./install-jdk-on-steam-deck/scripts/install-jdk.sh

TO-DO

• If you want anything added, just let me know by opening an issue