Ubuntu Tutorials

I recently started learning Java and found that I needed the Java Development Kit to be able to develop or compile any Java programs. Below is a quick outline on how to install Sun’s Java Development Kit v5.0 for java development on Ubuntu 6.06.1 or 6.10 machines.

sudo aptitude install sun-java5-jdk

You will have to accept the license agreement to install the JDK. For more on this please see my previous post entitled: How to install Java Runtime Environment (JRE) which includes a link to the DLJ license terms.

You may also want to set Sun’s JDK as the default Java version on your machine. You can do so using the following command.

sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-1.5.0-sun

..and lastly you’ll need to move java-1.5.0-sun to the top of the JVMs offered within the file /etc/jvm. This needs to be done manually using:

sudo gedit /etc/jvm

Below is an example of my completed /etc/jvm file after following this tutorial. Yours should look similar:

# This file defines the default system JVM search order. Each
# JVM should list their JAVA_HOME compatible directory in this file.
# The default system JVM is the first one available from top to
# bottom.

/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
/usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj
/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun
/usr

At this point, enjoy your new JDK powered machine and start developing!

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The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is required if you need to run any java-based applications on your Ubuntu machine. Many times this is required for certain websites and is always a good addition to your installed package base. To install the Java Runtime Environment including the plugin for Mozilla Firefox simply run the following command. (note: you will need to have additional repositories enabled. See How to add extra repositories.

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-bin

You will have to agree to the DLJ license terms to install this package. To find out more about the terms of the DLJ visit the DLJ FAQ.

Many of you might be familiar with my post concerning How to install Flock on Ubuntu. I’ve been using Flock now for months and I really enjoy it. Recently, however, I noticed that a few multimedia functions that I had supported in Firefox were not supported in Flock, despite the fact that the correct plugins were installed. After a little research I realized that this was due to Flock merely not knowing where to find them. Below is a quick one-line command to make sure Flock matches any multimedia support that Firefox has, whether this be Flash Player 9 Beta on Ubuntu, Java, etc.

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /opt/flock/plugins

Basically, if you didn’t follow what that command does, it simply creates a symbolic link inside the flock/plugins folder to any plugin available in firefox. Running this command will make sure that anything supported as a Firefox plugin will also be supported as a Flock plugin (this, of course, is based on the fact that Flock is based on Firefox).

note: if you’ve added or updated any plugins for Firefox you may need to repeat the command to re-sync anything new to your Flock plugins.