Installing the Sun JDK on Ubuntu requires building your own .deb package for it. Thankfully, this is a simple process.

First, install the package building tools.


sudo apt-get install fakeroot java-package


Now download the binary from http://java.sun.com.

Finally, make a .deb package of the binary file. Do not run this command as root, the fakeroot tool builds the package as if by root. You'll need to be root when you install it.


fakeroot make-jpkg jdk-1_5_0_06-linux-i586.bin


Then install the package (as root).


sudo dpkg -i sun-j2sdk1.5_1.5.0+update06_i386.deb


Now we want to assign this installation of Java as the preferred one.


sudo update-alternatives --config java