Java

Installing Java from a package

To install Java, you must compile it or install a prebuilt package. Currently there are no pre-built packages for the FreeBSD 5.x tree, although you can use the older Java 1.3.1 packages for FreeBSD 4.8 (and later,) tree. These are older packages (the latest Java is 1.4.2 (although 1.5 is just around the corner, widespread use of this recent release is not yet common).

If you're using FreeBSD 4.x, and you don't mind using an older Java, check out the FreeBSD Foundation's Java pre-built binaries. They're .tbz's and you'll want to install them with pkg_add.

If you want to use a newer Java, or if you're running the 5.x releases instead of the 4.x tree, you'll need to compile and install your own Java VM.

But I don't want Java 1.3.1, or I am running FreeBSD 5.x!

Sorry, you have to build it yourself. In order to built it yourself, you have to have a working Java first. So how do you do this? You install linux emulation, use the linux Java in ports, download the Java sources distributed by Sun under their SCSL scheme and build it. See instructions below.

Installing Java 1.4.2 SDK, the quick and dirty way.

NOTE THAT THERE ARE LICENSING ISSUES WITH JAVA TECHNOLOGIES FROM SUN.COM AND FreeBSD -- IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO RECONSILE THESE AS THEY PERTAIN TO YOUR USE OF JAVA

You will need:

1. about 2 gigs free disk space. Check that you have this by running df

2. to update your ports tree -- see cvsup and Update_the_ports_tree

3. to download the following files:

bsd-jdk14-patches-6.tar.gz from Eyesbeyond.com
j2re-1_4_2_06-linux-i586.bin from Sun's j2se JRE page
j2sdk-1_4_2-bin-scsl.zip from This page at sun.com
j2sdk-1_4_2-mozilla_headers-unix.zip from This page at sun.com
j2sdk-1_4_2-src-scsl.zip from This page at sun.com
j2sdk-1_4_2_06-linux-i586.bin from Sun's j2se JDK page

For all the sun.com links, you'll need to login (and accept their EULA,) in order to download the files. It's free and relatively painless. If you don't agree to Sun's terms, you don't get to download the files and therefore don't get to build your own JRE/JDK/JVM. Deal with it.

4. to enable linux compatibility -- you can do this via sysinstall if you didn't do it on your initial install.

5. add the following line to your /etc/fstab:

linprocfs   /compat/linux/proc   linprocfs   rw   0  0

6. to run linprocfs -- you may need to do this:

samizdata# kldload linprocfs
samizdata# mount /compat/linux/proc

7. place the files you downloaded in the third step in /usr/ports/distfiles

8. go into the jdk14 dir:

samizdata# cd /usr/ports/java/jdk14

9. and install it:

samizdata# make install

Note that you don't want to make install clean because if something fails at some point during the install, the clean will wipe out your work files. Just run make install and when it's done, clean up with a make clean && make distclean after it's installed. Don't forget to use rehash after the install, and you can test to see that it's installed and working by running a java -version.

See http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2004/11/installing-java-on-freebsd-in-january.html for a similar method of doing this.

See also the discussion at Talk:Java