How to install the latest version of Groovy?

Sorry for the late response, just saw this post now. You can find an alternative repository for groovy that will allow you to install the latest groovy versions at Fresh Groovy For the latest 1.8 version, here are the instructions from the site:

# first time users
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:groovy-dev/groovy

# all users
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install groovy-1.8

For any particular version of Ubuntu, the standard repositories are rarely updated with newer versions software. Software is only updated for critical support issues and for security reasons.

Exceptions are made for critical pieces of software such as Firefox that Canonical say they support. In these cases, a decision is made whether the software is about to lose support upstream. If it is, then a newer version in the repository is updated.

As far as I can see "groovy" isnt a Canonical supported piece of software and hence will not be updated to a newer version.

To obtain newer versions of software, you will need to either download the source-code yourself and compile and install it - or find a trusted PPA where the packager has done the compilation for you.

V1.8 of Groovy was released at the end of last month. Even the next version of Ubuntu (11.10) does not have this version in its repositories.

You may need to use sdkman, which makes it easier to get the latest groovy up and running, as shown here on the "Install Groovy" page

Simply open a new terminal and enter:

$ curl -s get.sdkman.io | bash

Follow the instructions on-screen to complete installation.

Open a new terminal or type the command:

$ source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

Then install the latest stable Groovy:

$ sdk install groovy

After installation is complete and you’ve made it your default version, test it with:

$ groovy -version

That’s all there is to it!

I had the same issue in Cloud9 IDE.