I just installed slackware 11.0 on my newly revived, otherwise garbage laptop. I chose to install all of the java packages while installing slack, and also in /usr/lib there is a directory by the name jre1.5.0_09 I understand this to be the java runtime environment, which should handle the java command to run a compiled java file, however where is the javac command? Apparently where ever it is, its not in my current $PATH. Do I need to set something up so that I can compile java code? Or do I just need to add pathName not yet in my $PATH?

Thank you in advance.

Its not there.
What you have installed is jre; you need jdk which is the the /extra folder in disk3 I think (remove jre first, run and ldconfig, install jdk and do back the ldconfig and you should be good to go)

i always use the JDK from Sun's site and extract them into /usr/java/<jdk-version>

then i update the PATH in /etc/profile and also in my .bash_profile and also set up JAVA_HOME variables to point to /usr/java/<jdk-version>

That's all

You can test them by issuing
and you should have a java version information displayed on the konsole

yep I used to do that until I realised Pat did if for me

Wait, Im confused, dont I need the jre so I can run java programs?

if you just want to run a java program, i think JRE is enough, but if you want to develop a java code, then you will need JDK

This is correct.

But I dont want to remove JRE, do I?

You want to keep JRE if you want to run java code. Most people do want to keep the JRE.

You need the JRE if you want to run java programs, and you need the JDK if you want to develop programs.

Wrong. Remove jre, then install jdk. jre is included in jdk.
Regards,
Bill

Well I guess I will install jdk first off and see if it includes JRE before removing, since there seems to be a discrepancy. Thanks for the help, cheers.

I am having a problem compiling Java programs in Slackware. javac as root will compile the .java file, but the javac command can not be found as a user. I defined the path in /etc/profile. Where else do I need to define the path so that all regular users can find javac? For obvious reasons, I do not want to write all my Java programs as root.


--ganooch

try adding JAVA_HOME=/path/to/java in your .bash_profile or add the Java path again in your .bash_profile

I can't find the .bash_profile. I did an ls -a in the /home/user directory and there is .bash_history, but no .bash_profile. I am using Slackware 11. What am I missing. I changed the permissions on the folder with the javac element in it and now it seems that I can run it but I am getting the following error:

test.java:4: error while writing test: test.class (Permission denied)
public class test
_____^ (Underscores added for formatting only)
1 error

So I think that the original problem was a permissions issue, now I just need to allow permissions to write a class file to user.

Thanks for any help.

Slack doesn't come with a .bash_profile by default, but you can create the file yourself.