Systemart

Archivio FAQ

1. What releases of Java technology are currently available? What do they contain?

2. What platforms is the Java-technology software available on?

3. Should I use the Production Release or Reference Implementation of the Solaris JDK software and JRE?

4. What is Linux ?

5. How to Get Started.

6. What Software does Linux Support?

The Java programming language is currently shipping from Sun Microsystems, Inc. as the Java 2 SDK and Java 2 Runtime Environment. All Sun releases of the Java 2 Platform software are available from the Java 2 Platform software home page (http://java.sun.com/j2se/).

Each release of the Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition contains:

To run Java 1.0 applets, use Netscape Navigator 3.x or other browsers that support Java applets. To run Java 1.1.x applets, use HotJava 1.x or Netscape Navigator 4.x or other browsers that support the newest version of the Java API.

Sun provides ports of the Java 2 Platform for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Solaris-SPARC, Solaris-Intel, and Linux.

The following applies to versions prior to 1.3.0. Starting with J2SE 1.3.0, only the production release exists. There is no Solaris reference implementation.

Reference Implementation - Those who want the latest Solaris implementation of the JDK software or JRE release and do not require optimized performance can obtain the reference implementations:

JDK 1.1 Reference Implementation
JRE 1.1 Reference Implementation
JDK 1.2 Reference Implementation
JRE 1.2 Reference Implementation
The Solaris binaries are built from the same source code as the Windows version. The 1.1 reference implementations for Solaris do not include a JIT. Reference implementations are distributed as (essentially) a tar file which may be unpacked in any directory, so that root permission is not required for installation.

Production Release - In contrast, customers whose applications/applets will be released as products, and who need a Solaris JRE or JDK software with optimized performance, should use the Solaris production releases:

JDK production release
JRE production release
The production releases are based on the reference implementation of the same version number, and include a JIT compiler, additional performance tuning, and bug fixes. The production releases are installed as standard Solaris packages, which require root permission for installation.

Varying levels of technical support are available for both the Reference and Production releases through the standard Solaris support channels.

For a further overview of differences between these Solaris JDK software offerings, see JDK 1.1 for Solaris - Binary Products Overview and the FAQ for the JDK Solaris Production Release.

Linux is the kernel of operating systems that look like and perform as

well or better than the famous operating system from AT&T Bell Labs.

Linus Torvalds and a loosely knit team of volunteer hackers from

across the Internet wrote (and still are writing) Linux from scratch.

It has all of the features of a modern, fully fledged operating

system: true multitasking, threads, virtual memory, shared libraries,

demand loading, shared, copy-on-write executables, proper memory

management, loadable device driver modules, video frame buffering, and

TCP/IP networking.

There are a handful of major Linux distributions. For information

about them, and how they are installed, see Matthew Welsh's

Installation and Getting Started, or IGS for short. It's located at

the Linux Documentation Project Home Page, 
http://www.linuxdoc.org/,

and on the Linux FAQ home page, http://www.mainmatter.com/



The information in IGS is somewhat dated now. More up-to-date

information about first-time Linux installation is located in the

LDP's Installation HOWTO, also located at the LDP Home Page.

All of the standard open source utilities, like GCC, (X)Emacs, the X

Window System, all the standard Unix utilities, TCP/IP (including SLIP

and PPP), and all of the hundreds of programs that people have

compiled or ported to it.

There is a DOS emulator, called DOSEMU. The latest stable release is

0.98.3. The FTP archives are at ftp://ftp.dosemu.org/ The Web

site is http://www.dosemu.org.