# Install elsaticsearch on Ubuntu16
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/install-elsaticsearch-on-ubuntu16/129163
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [April 23, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/install-elsaticsearch-on-ubuntu16/129163 "2018-04-23T18:47:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@PieterV](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/PieterV)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/install-elsaticsearch-on-ubuntu16/129163/1 "2018-04-23T18:47:59Z")
Is there a complete and definite guide for installing ES on Ubuntu16? I only find bits and pieces...
What I know so far is:
1. Install Java
2. Install elasticsearch
3. add non-root user (you cannot start ES as root) + change permissions of ES directories
4. Now I can start ES as nonroot (su nonroot):
**But now I get an error message:**
`"error: Could not find or load main class org.elasticsearch.tools.launchers.JavaVersionChecker"`
It has something to do with starting up Java as non-user. So I checked java-version as nonroot (javac -version) and I saw no version...
So I changed /etc/profile with:
`nano /etc/profile`
And added:
`JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/default-java`
`PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$JAVA_HOME/bin`
`export JAVA_HOME`
`export JRE_HOME`
`export PATH`
After a reboot I started ES as nonroot but I got the **same error** :
`"error: Could not find or load main class org.elasticsearch.tools.launchers.JavaVersionChecker"`
The good thing is that I saw a java version as nonroot (java version "1.8.0\_171)".
**But what did I do wrong?**
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/install-elsaticsearch-on-ubuntu16/129163/2 "2018-05-21T18:48:01Z")
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