Java development

[Kethinov]

Hi all.
Can I develop and compile Java in Knoppix 3.3? Ideally I'd like to develop .java files from Kate and use some kind of compiler to create applets.

Thanks.

[dicej]

Yes. Over the weekend I introduced my brother to programming using the latest Knoppix ISO on my parent's computer. I was pleasantly suprised to find Sun's JRE v1.4.2 and the latest GCJ javac. We whipped up a quick AWT application and ran it without a hitch. We didn't try any applets, but I imagine Mozilla and/or Konqueror will handle them without any tweaking.

Anyway, the thing to note is that the compiler is GCJ's javac and probably uses the GCJ classpath for compilation. This might be a problem if you need functionality that only Sun's SDK provides. In that case you'll need to install Sun's version on the hard disk. GCJ will probably suffice, though.

[Kethinov]

So I'm assuming I can whip up .java files in Kate then open a shell and type javac myfile.java?

Since it users Sun's JRE I'm assuming it supports Swing as well as AWT?

[dicej]

So I'm assuming I can whip up .java files in Kate then open a shell and type javac myfile.java?

Right. I use emacs, but otherwise that is exactly what I did.

Since it users Sun's JRE I'm assuming it supports Swing as well as AWT?

I didn't try doing anything in Swing, but probably. The only catch is that the GCJ classpath may not have a complete-enough version of Swing to compile against. If you can get it to compile, it will definitely run, though. Go ahead and try it.

BTW, you can check the status of GCJ's classpath versus Sun's here:

http://japi.sab39.org/htmlout/h-jdk14-libgcj.html

However, that table shows implementation status as opposed to interface status, so even though the Swing implementation is clearly not done, the interfaces may be complete enough to compile against.