This FAQ was started by Javier Fernández-Sanguino who on February 1st, 2000 was
(bold?) enough to send a message to the debian-java mailing list with the
subject "How about a Debian-Java-FAQ?". Of course, since "every
idea is a responsibility" he had to do this himself looking through the
three month-long archive of the newborn mailing list.
The purpose of this FAQ is to be a place to look for all kinds of questions a
developer or user might have regarding Java as far as Debian is concerned. It
includes license issues, development packages available, and programs related
to building a Free Software Java environment.
Thanks go to all the (many) contributors from the debian-java mailing list, who
have made this document possible. Without their knowledge this FAQ would not
be at all possible since I only have a vague knowledge of what they're talking
about when I browse the list.
Special thanks go to Paul Reavis, whose previous Debian-JDK informational page
I used to add more information, and who made useful suggestions to this
document. Also to Peter Moulder who revised thoroughly the FAQ and provided
many suggestions, to Juergen Kreileder, maintainer of Blackdown's debian
packages who pointed out some mistakes, and to Egon Willighagen, who has
provided quite a lot of proper patches to update its content.
This document does not address issues with other Linux distributions, or with
non-Debian-specific problems.
1.2 Location of this FAQ
This FAQ is published under the Debian Documentation Project at http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/.
The java-common (available at http://packages.debian.org/java-common)
provides an HTML version for offline reading. The package version does not
provide Text and PDF versions currently (if you want them please submit a bug
'wishlist' to the package). Also, the web version might be more up-to-date
than the package's offline version.
1.3 Sending bugs on this FAQ
Please note that this FAQ is still outdated but gets updated step by step.
Please file bug reports against the java-common package if you find errors or
have suggestions on how to improve this document. However, make sure you have
read the latest online version of the english text available at http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/index.html
before filing a bug report. Translations, if available, and the offline
version in the java-common package might be out of date.
1.4 What is Java?
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun
Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation) and released in
1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. More information
can be found at Wikipedia.
1.5 Where can I ask questions about Java on Debian?
Users might want to access some online sources to complement the information
available in this FAQ which might be, sometimes, too out of date. The main
source of information is the Java
entry at the Debian's wiki.
Since Ubuntu is based on Debian, some users might find it helpful to check the
tips on Installing
Java on Ubuntu's wiki.
1.7 Uncovered issues
This FAQ does not describe some issues due to lack of time and/or information.
If you are able to help in any of these, please, provide them to the
documentation maintainer:
Information on how to use update-alternatives to handle Java and
how to work with /etc/java.
Information on how to setup a fully working Servlet engine (Application Server)
using Apache and Tomcat or information on how to setup non-free application
servers (such as WebSphere) in Debian.
Specific information targeted for non-i386 users (PowerPC users and AMD64
users), some can be found in Ubuntu's wiki.
