Why can't Ubuntu Make install Intellij IDEA on 16.04?

Question

On Ubuntu 16.04, running umake ide idea returns:

usage: umake ide [-h] {lighttable,visual-studio-code} ...
umake ide: error: argument framework: invalid choice: 'idea' (choose from 'lighttable', 'visual-studio-code')

Ubuntu Make is giving me only two options of IDEs to install: lighttable and visual-studio-code. But, according to the man page and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make, there should be many more options ("idea" among them). What's wrong?

Solution

The version of ubuntu-make in the 16.04 packages doesn't support IntelliJ. According to TechGeeks you will need at least version 16.03 (the one in Ubuntu 16.04 is 16.02.1). To do this, execute the following (if this is a new install):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/ubuntu-make
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-make

If you still have it installed, you can just do the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/ubuntu-make
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

This got my ubuntu-make version up to 16.09 and I was able to install IntelliJ IDEA using the command you used in your post.

Comments

[ARX]

I see. The universe repo of Xenial (16.04) has not been updated. Apparently, the package maintainer has forgotten to do so. In any case, it is very confusing that the ubuntu-make wiki explicitly says that the PPA is only necessary for versions before Xenial. Nowhere is it mentioned that part of the functionality described in such wiki is available only by installing from the PPA. The same goes for the man page. This is an overlooked issue in need of an easy fix. Thank you desilvai for your help.