Install Java on Ubuntu

I thought this would be straight forward....

I tried to install using the apt-get command, but my install died when the license agreement took over my terminal, and did not give me a way to accept the agreement. I exited and ran the dpkg --configure -a command to clean up the failed install. 

Instead I went to the System>Synaptic Package Manager and performed the install this way: 

• Specify "java" in the search box. A List of packages to install appears.
• I chose the java5 jre, jdk and plugin, and accepted the installation of packages that they were dependent on. 
• Click Apply
• Accept the license agreements as they appear.
• The java home directory will be in /usr/lib/jvm

Note: If the java versions do not appear in the above list, ensure that the /etc/apt/sources.list file contains the following entries : 

• deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid multiverse
  
• deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid multiverse
  
• deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates multiverse
  
• deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates multiverse
  

You then need to ensure that this Java is the default java for the system: 

• update-java-alternatives -s java-5-sun (specifies java 5 as the default)
• update-java-alternatives -l (lists out the default)

Finally, add environmental variables. I add them in /etc/environment. You could also add them in your local .bashrc file in your home directory. The values specified in /etc/environment are in all shell. Be careful of the syntax in this file! If an error occurs you may not be able to boot up... : 

• JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun"
• CLASSPATH="/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/lib"

Install Oracle XE on Ubuntu

Oracle XE can be downloaded at the Oracle site. I chose the Debian install for Linux. I read the installation guides. This is how to do it:

If you do not have 1GB free memory, or want to reduce the database footprint:

• $sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swpfs1 bs=1M count=1000
  
• $sudo mkswap /swpfs1
  
• $sudo swapon /swpfs1
  

I used the Ubuntu apt-get utility to install the database.

• sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
  

Insert "deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian unstable main non-free" into the file if it does not exist and save. Then import the Key:

• $wget http://oss.oracle.com/el4/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle -O- |sudo apt-key add -
  

Now install the db:

• $sudo apt-get update
  
• $sudo apt-get install oracle-xe

After the installation you need to run the following:

• sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

Follow the instructions and write down the ports and passwords that you specify. Then you will need to update the users on the system. Go to System>Administration>Users and Groups. Unlock the editor and under the manage groups tab, add your user to the dba group.

The database should be running. Go to http://localhost:8080 - assuming you didn't change this port in post config, and the database info page should appear. The database is now integrated in the menu as well - so if not running, start it it up by navigating to the Applications>Oracle Database>Start Database.

One more step is to specify the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID environmental variables:

• gedit $HOME/.bashrc

Add the following lines:

• ORACLE_HOME=/usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server
• ORACLE_SID=XE
• export ORACLE_HOME ORACLE_SID

You could also/instead add these to your /etc/environment file. In that file you would add:

• ORACLE_HOME="/usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server"
  
• ORACLE_SID="XE"
  

Either login in again, or type

• source .bashrc
• source /etc/environment

To run Oracle utilities add /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server/bin to the path in /etc/environment and source it.

You should be good to go. You can access the database home page via the menu, or go to http://localhost:8080/apex.

Install VMWare Fusion on Mac OS/X 10.5

I needed to run an oracle database on a macbook. At the time, Oracle was not supported on Mac OS/X 10.5 . Talking to colleagues, and doing some research led me to VMWare fusion. It's not free. It works great.

Installing VMWare Fusion is a relatively simple process. I downloaded version 2.0.1-12 from the net and purchased a serial number from VMWare. The VMware site has excellent documentation and even supplies videos to walk you through the process. Here's what I did: 

1. Download the .dmg file from vmware. (http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/buyfusion.html).
2.  Double click on the .dmg file to mount it. The file will be mounted and displayed in a Finder window.
3. Double click the Fusion Icon. The installation assistant will walk you through the process. 
4.  To Start Fusion, navigate to Applications in Finder, and choose the VMWare Fusion Icon. 

The Fusion window will open, and you can create a new Virtual Machine at this point. Next I installed 2 different virtual machines - a copy of my old pc and a fresh Ubuntu install to house the Oracle Database. 

I followed the conversion guide for bringing my old pc over. The guide that comes with fusion (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/fusion_getting_started_11.pdf) has a link to a flash video that walks you through the process. The process took about 8 hours for the vmware converter to bundle my old pc onto an external disk drive and for me to boot the pc on the mac. It was pretty cool. The problem that I had was that my copy of XP only had 1 license, (it came bundled on the pc when I bought it) , and Windows required a new activation key. So I only had access to my old pc on the mac for 3 days. I would not do this unless you know you have multiple licenses. 

To install Ubuntu, I went to the Ubuntu site (http://www.Ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download) and downloaded the 8.10 version on 32 bit. I chose the 32 bit because the 64 bit has some issues with downloading and installing packages. Once downloaded, simply open the vmware fusion :

1. Choose new 
   
2. Click the continue without disk button. 
   
3. Choose the "Use Operating System Disk image file" option.
   
4. Choose the Ubuntu file you downloaded above from the finder that opens. 
   
5. Click Continue and Finish. The new virtual machine will appear in the Fusion window. 
   
6. Click the start button next to the Ubuntu vm, and fusion will open a window with the Ubuntu installation running within it. 
   

I ran through the installation by specifying users and some configuration. I simply accepted the defaults. 

Sage Advice: 

Install VMWare tools immediately after the Ubuntu installation occurs. Choose Install VMWare tools from the virtual machine menu item on the mac. To do this, move the untarred vmware tools distib to the /tmp directory.  Then run : 

• sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Choose the defaults, and when complete, add the toolbox to the startup of your Ubuntu session: 

1. Preferences>Sessions>StartUp Programs>+Add>
   
2. Specify vmware-toolbox as the command to execute. 
   

Fusion allows you to take snapshots of your vm. DO THIS!!!! . Comment well the snapshot state, so that when you screw something up you can return to a stable state.  As I was installing the various applications to the Ubuntu system , I would stop and take a snapshot along the way after each milestone. This will save you considerable time. 

eclipse on mac

I run eclipse against an oracle instance with htmlUnit tests banging away on tomcat. Running the complete suite of unit tests on my dev box can eat processor and memory big time. Its like watching a kid coming home from college for the first time in months and invading the fridge. On a pc there was no processing time left for me. When I set up my env on the mac, and ran with the base settings, it died by running out of heap space.

So I try to allocate enough memory and set the parameters on the various running jvms (ant, tomcat and eclipse) in the hope that they wont die after running for 50 minutes with a heap space space issue. My box has 4G of memory, and I have oracle running in a separate vmware fusion vm on Ubuntu. I am using eclipse Ganymede with java 5 (1.5.0.13) , Tomcat 5.5 and and use ANT4.7.

On Mac, the eclipse.ini file is under your eclipse installation at /Eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS/eclipse.ini . You will need a terminal window to get there as the directory doesn't show up in Finder. You could perform the following to find it:

sudo find / -name "eclipse.ini"

When I opened this for the first time I found that the parameters were triplicated - so I cleaned this up. I jack up the max memory, specify to use parallel GC, and keep the eden space low. I specify the following arguments:

-Xmx1024m (the max heap size)
-Xms128m (Startup heap size)
-Xmn64m (the eden space or young generation garbage collectible space)
-XX:+UseParallelGC (Run Parallel GC)


In java there are two GC threads running. One is a very lightweight thread which does incremental collections primarily on the Eden (a.k.a. Young) generation of the heap. The other is the Full GC thread which traverses the entire heap when there is not enough memory left to allocate space for objects which get promoted from the Eden to the older generation(s). If there is a memory leak or inadequate heap allocated, eventually the older generation will start to run out of room causing the Full GC thread to run continuously. This GC thread eats the processor and eventually eclipse has no pie - it won't be able to respond to requests and they'll start to back up.


The amount allocated for the Eden generation is the value specified with -Xmn. The amount allocated for the older generation is the value of -Xmx minus the -Xmn. Generally, you don't want the Eden to be too big or it will take too long for the GC to look through it for space that can be reclaimed. If you watch the memory monitor closely, you can see the garbage collector releasing memory periodically. Keeping the amount allocated to the eden space low affects the periodicity of this cleanup. Developers can see this on their machines when running the complete stack of tests.

These parameters seemed to work for me- my memory consumption remained nearly constant across the task. Before, the memory usage would creep up and reach a terminal point - on my old pc at about 2.4GB. At this point the tests just stopped running. Viewing the memory usage after applying the new args, you could see where GC ran periodically and brought the usage back to a baseline. The tests ran faster. But there was still an occasional lockup.

Another consideration is whether to run ANT, Tomcat and Eclipse in the same jvm. I tried experimenting with combinations of virtual machine with these processes. I also experimented with the memory allocations for each. What I found was that if you run them all in the same jvm, then the memory allocation on your machine remains high even after the tasks complete. When you run these in separate jvms, the memory allocation is returned to the system as each process completes. I found that the machine performed best when running separate jvms.


Caveat Emptor: Please be aware that not all jvms support the run parallel GC option.

To specify the jvm parameters for ANT, go to the ANT view, right click on the build file or a task, click 'Run As' and then 'external tools configuration'. In the dialog that appears, choose the JRE tab and specify the vmargs and the jvm to use for the file/task.

To Specify the jvm parameters for Tomcat, double click on the tomcat instance in the servers view. Update the vmargs by clicking the Launch Configuration link.