Installing Java

From ComputingPlugs

Unfortunately SUN could not get around to release Java for the SheevaPlug. If you tried install sun-java6-jre, you will get the follow error message:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  sun-java6-jre: Depends: sun-java6-bin (= 6-13-1) but it is not installable or
                          ia32-sun-java6-bin (= 6-13-1) but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

Fortunately the open source community answers the call with openjdk-6, an open source equivalent of sun-java6. The browser plugin for openjdk-6 is icedtea6-plugin. So let's install both on the Sheeva Plug.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre icedtea6-plugin

Testing the IcedTea plugin

First lets test the plugin installation on firefox. I already have NX installed on my Sheeva Plug so it is not hard for me to bring up an NX session and startup firefox. I then test the installation by going to http://www.javatester.org/version.html. As you can see from the screen shot, the test was a success. However, the test will fail if you use SUN's tester (http://www.java.com/en/download/testvm.xml). The Java "grey box" will appear but you'll get an error message on the bottom left corner that reads applet not initialized.. I believe this is a problem with icedtea6 not being compatible with SUN.

Testing openjdk

The next thing to test is the JRE. The only Java application I know of is Azureus (or Vuze). But that proves to be difficult because Azureus requires swt.jar which is the Standard Widget Toolkit from Eclipse. That toolkit was not released for the ARM platform so Azureus will not run. I cobbled together a quick "Hello World" application and ran it with

java HelloWorldApp

and of course that worked fine. So I suspect that simple Java applications will run but those that requires a lot of support libraries will not.

Comments:

Kenny Says: Aug 17 2009 12:53 pm Please keep comments clean and constructive. Inappropriate comments will be removed. Thank you. Luca Says: Sep 19 2009 2:54 am The state of Java support is: - OpenJDK with Hotspot Zero (default): works fine, but there's not JIT so it's somewhat slow; I've found the performance of tomcat + webapps reasonable (after the first compile of JSP pages) - OpenJDK with CACAO vm (java -cacao): mostly ok, but has big problem with JMX (as in "crashes the application"); on the other hand cacao vm has a JIT, which means that when it works it's much much faster than hotspot zero (tomcat startup time is reduced to about 1/3) - Sun EJRE: extremely fast and feature complete. However it's *not free*; you have to pay royalties when deploying the system; furthemore the JRE is still in "early access" phase, it will expire after 90 days. Kenny Says: Sep 21 2009 10:32 pm Thanks for the info Luca, that's a lot more detail than I could have dug up myself. Riccardo Says: Nov 12 2009 11:29 pm Hello Kenny, Could you try if jdownloader is supported from this java release? Thanks for yuor awesome work ;) six Says: Nov 16 2009 7:43 am Jdownloader works but very slow and the CPU keeps running 100%. However, you can try tucan downloader provided you compile it and install the required packages (see Readme). It works very well with low consumption. The issue is that this soft manage only a small subset of what jdownloader can do. Gabriel Says: Dec 13 2009 6:30 am Hi. There seem to be a bunch of interesting entries in this blog, but all I see are the article titles and the comments. Am I missing something? Kenny Says: Dec 16 2009 3:38 pm You're probably looking at the blog page, you need to look at the main wiki page at http://computingplugs.com Frank Says: Dec 21 2009 11:49 pm It is possible to sign up and download a version from Sun directly : http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/embedded.jsp It works like a charm for me on armedslack-current. Cheers Bruno Says: Feb 01 2010 5:10 pm Hi, (I did not find how to tell you, so I made this offtopic comment), This post is related to the PLUG 3.0 that you are presenting on the top of your page. I guess you should want to share these information IONICS is presenting their new plugs, they have ploted a version with internal 1.8' DISK and other wihtout disk but with 2 e-sata. We can find info at: http://ionics.wordpress.com/ and http://www.ionicsplug.com/ With the 'cumulus' (the one with 2 e-sata) we might have pretty good hard disk performance on a plug. I sent you a request (two weeks ago) to send me hdparm on yout plug Cheers Kenny Says: Feb 02 2010 10:15 am Thanks for the heads up, I'll update the front page with your information. ps. I reply to your request about hdparm in the sheevaplug performance page. Did you see it? Bruno Says: Feb 02 2010 6:15 pm I saw the results, you were pretty fast, thank for the results =) More news, I found the new plugs from Global Scale Tech they 2 new plugs the GuruPlug Server, they will come with the 1.2GHz processor but with WIRELESS Guru Plus will come with 2 GB ethernet , 2 USB and 1 eSATA, and Guru Standard just with 1GB ethernet and 2 USB. Guru PLus is US$129 and Standard US$99, they will start shipping in april Bruno Says: Feb 02 2010 6:18 pm ops, forgot to tell the link http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/c-4-guruplugs.aspx

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