Anxiously Awaiting On Everything Eternal…

Java + Fedora = esplode.

If you ever install Fedora 7, avoid their open implementation of the JDK at all costs. I'm not sure how or why, but for a week I was unable to run any java program from a jar file, or even from Eclipse. Even command line arguments using the standard java -jar foo.jar broke. Any jar files that I transferred over to windows failed with an Error: Unable to load main class attribute message. I finally got so frustrated that I blew away my current Fedora installation and started over.

Instead of installing java via the Fedora 7 package manager, do it manually by downloading the jdk from Sun's website, stashing it somewhere safe--on my dev machine at work it lives at /home/jduv/dev/extools/jdk_1.5.0_12/ and use environment variables similar these inside my .bashrc:

# Set java home
export JAVA_HOME=/home/jduv/dev/extools/jdk1.5.0_12

# Tell path bout java home so I can use java stuff
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

I haven't quite figured out how to get java applets running in Firefox using my installation method, but methinks it won't be terribly complicated. I'll post it when I figure it out.

Oh, and if you use open office you will need to install that manually since it depends on java.  The Fedora package manager will install OpenJDK as a dependency for Open Office, thus screwing up all our hacking handiwork.  Just download all the vanilla rpm's and follow the installation instructions on their site.