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JDK/JRE for Linux

Updated 24-May-2000
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Where?
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The main supporter of Sun's JDK/JRE for Linux
is the Blackdown porting team:
  http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/
They have many variants of Java 1.1 and Java 1.2.
At the moment of this writing they have no Java 1.3.

Recently Sun released JDK/JRE 1.2.2 as well:
  http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/index.html 
and the official version of 1.3 is expected any moment.
Note that if the archive file name ends with "...bz",
you have to rename it to "...bz2" for the Linux's bunzip2.
This version requires kernel v 2.2.5 (no SMP),
glibc v 2.1, X86 v 3.3.5, and you can take fast JIT
from Inprise/Borland:
  http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/linux

There is IBM version of JDK 1.1.8 for Linux at:
  http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/linuxjvm
And Java 1.3 version for Linux at:
http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/tech/linuxjdk
Both versions support native threads only,
and we have problems with them.
Actually, if you manage to do the installation,
the CPT programs work.


Which Version?
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First of all, you should know the glibc version
of your Linux. If it is below 2.1 (e.g. Corel Linux 1.0)
and you don't want to upgrade, select the proper
JRE 1.1.7 from Blackdown.

If you are limited in resources (disk space, RAM),
select Java 1.1, which is 2-3 times smaller.
Most of Java 2 versions require glibc 2.1 and X86 3.3.5.

Note that Java 1.1 does not support ttf fonts.
Java 1.2 has own font manager and ttf fonts,
and ignores some fonts from the X font server.

For more details check the Blackdown's web site
where a lot of information about Java and Linux
can be found.

CPT programs are tuned to work
with all versions (1.6 and above),
but in our opinion, in this moment,
Sun's JRE 1.2.2 is the most stable one.

How?
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Here are some notes how to select JDK/JRE from
Blackdown. On the web page, click on 'Download',
and choose one mirror site. On the selected ftp
site go to:

	JDK<version>/i386/glibc/<v>

For the samples below, the JDK's <version> is '1.1.7',
and <v> is 'v3'. In this directory you will see many
files but you need do get only one or two of them.
First, any archive has two versions: '...tar.bz2'
and '...tar.gz' depending on the compressor used.
Second, there are files having 'native' in the name
- these are additional optional executables
for native threads (not needed for CPT programs).
Third, there are several choices:

1) full JDK for Java development:

	jdk_1.1.7-v3-glibc-x86.tar.gz (11279 KB)

2) JRE for running applications:

	jre_1.1.7-v3-glibc-x86.tar.gz ( 5562 KB)

3) Run time only w/o International files:

	rt_1.1.7-v3-glibc-x86.tar.gz (3047 KB)

CPT programs can work with 3) but for
the processing of non-English texts
we recommend 2).
After downloading the file, extract the
contents into a directory (e.g. /usr/jre117)
and put the line:

	export PATH=/usr/jre117/bin:$PATH

into your '.bashrc' and that's it.

Of course, you have to check the Readme
and Install files of the distribution
(some of the archives are in the form
of self extracting shell script).

For further tuning the JRE, look at our JavaFonts.txt.