Install Pycharm 4 Professional on Ubuntu

Recently I've set up two Linux based development machines. Since my main programming language is Python I wanted to install the PyCharm Professional IDE from JetBrains. However this appeared to be more difficult than expected since the install instructions are in a descriptive writing style. Here is a more to the point alternative which should help to get everything up and running in a few minutes.

To install PyCharm 4 on Ubuntu you first need to install Java. I personally prefer to stick to the Oracle version instead of the openjdk version.

sudo apt-get -y purge openjdk*

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y install oracle-java8-installer

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

Now it's time to install PyCharm. Currently 4.0.2 is the most recent version. You can update the script to download a newer PyCharm version if available. The most recent version of PyCharm can be found on this page.

cd /tmp

curl -s -L http://download.jetbrains.com/python/pycharm-professional-4.0.2.tar.gz | tar -xz

sudo mv pycharm-4.0.2 /opt/pycharm

/opt/pycharm/bin/pycharm.sh

After launching PyCharm and registering your license key you need to go to Tools → Create Desktop Entry to add a icon to the Unity Launcher.