Last Updated: 22 December, 1997
- About the FAQ.
- Introduction to the GG-Java list.
- How Do I Subscribe?
- How Do I Unsubscribe?
- Answers to the obvious questions.
- Can I view applets from my Amiga browser?
- Can I run Java applications with graphics?
- Can I run Java applications without graphics?
- What do Kaffe and Guavac do?
- What do I need to run Kaffe?
- What do I need to run Guavac?
- What projects are running currently?
- Answers to common technical questions.
- How do I install Kaffe?
- How do I install Guavac?
- Why doesn't Kaffe compile?
Firstly, what is an FAQ? It stands for Frequently Asked Questions. So this document attempts
to answer some of the common questions that have occurred on the GG-Java mailing list.
Mostly these are about the implementations of Java which are being ported to the Amiga
under the banner of the Geek Gadgets (GG) Project (formerly Amiga Development Environment).
The FAQ was held on the WWW at
http://www.spirit.net.au/~jamesd/GG-Java.html.
You can also get a text copy by sending an email to me.
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Please note that this list and majordomo are gone!
What is the GG-Java list for? Well, it is there for discussions about the porting to
the Amiga of compilers and interpreters for Sun's Java language. The major restrictions
are that the final product has to be made available under the GNU public Licence, or
something similar. Basically, you can't charge for the finished product except for the
media it's on.
Currently the focus is on two free products - Guavac, a Java compiler, and Kaffe, a Java
run-time interpreter.
If you wish to receive the GG-Java mailing list, you can send mail to
majordomo@ninemoons.com with the following command
in the body of your email message:
subscribe GG-Java your-address
Where you replace your-address with the email address at which you wish to receive
the GG-Java mailing list. If this is different from the address you are mailing from,
then there will be a delay as the request has to be approved by the human list admin.
If you ever want to remove yourself from the GG-Java mailing list,
you can send mail to majordomo@ninemoons.com with the following command
in the body of your email message:
unsubscribe GG-Java your-address
Where you replace your-address with the email address at which you receive the GG-Java
mailing list.
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The first questions of nearly everyone who joins the list are about running Java
on their Amiga. The following sample of questions will hopefully bring you up to
speed with what the current situation is.
Nope. There is no implementation of Java which allows for graphics and WWW
browser integration on the Amiga. There are a number of people working towards it,
but it will be a few months before this, their final objective, is realised.
Again, no. Graphics, sound and other Amiga front-end type things require a
package of Java classes called the AWT (Abstract Windowing Toolkit) to be
implemented for each target machine. Work is going on to implement this, but
it is not yet ready for release.
Yes (finally something positive)!! This is something that works. If the application
doesn't do any graphics, or sound, then it should
work on the Amiga now. To run your Java application, you will need to use Kaffe.
Guavac is a Java compiler. It takes your Java source code, validates it and
then outputs your application in Java bytecode. The bytecode is what you put
onto your web page, or execute later on.
Kaffe is a Java interpreter. It executes the bytecode and produces a result. As there
is a Java based compiler included, it will also compile your Java source code. As the
compilation is interpreted, it is a bit slower than Guavac. Kaffe also includes a
Just In Time (JIT) compiler, which turns the byte code into native instructions for the
target machine. At this stage, the JIT compiler has not been implemented for the Amiga.
Kaffeh is also included in the Kaffe package. It is used when including native C code in
your Java program. It will generate the .h (header) files for your native code and C source
code for the glue functions required to have the Java and C programs talk to each other.
The following is a list of what is required to run Kaffe.
The main site for Kaffe is http://www.kaffe.org. This is
where you will find out information about the
latest versions and the other systems on which it will run.
In response to many requests, here is the Kaffe 0.7.1 binary with no MMU/FPU requirement.
The main archives are obtainable as described above, and the copyright and other information
in those files should be downloaded and read. Hopefully I am not stepping on anybody's toes
by putting this here.
The following is a list of what is required to run Guavac.
The main site for Guavac is
http://HTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~engberg/guavac/.
This is where you will find out information about the
latest versions and the other systems on which it will run.
There are three projects associated with the porting of Java to the Amiga Development Environment currently. They are each
detailed below. Other projects may well be underway, but these are the ones I know of.
Guavac has been ported to run under GG by Joop van de Wege (Joop.vandeWege@medew.ento.wau.nl).
The last version released for GG (I think) is 0.2.5, which came out on 07 August, 1996.
Kaffe has been ported to run under GG by Matthias Hopf (mshopf@informatik.uni-erlangen.de).
The last version released for GG is 0.7.1, which came out on in early 1997. The
Amiga specific changes have been put back into the main source, but the versions after
that have all been unstable in some way on the Amiga. The last JDK1.0.2 release
was 0.8.4. Kaffe is now JDK 1.1 compliant. The most recent release was Kaffe 0.9.2 on 5 October, 1997.
An Amiga AWT implementation is being written by myself (jamesd@spirit.net.au)
and David McPaul (dlmcpaul@spirit.net.au).
A release is expected at either the end of 1997, or early 1998, as it has had to
be built from scratch. When competed it will run under Kaffe 0.8.4.
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- Be sure you have a reasonably current GG snapshot. Kaffe won't compile
with old snapshots. For compiling Kaffe you will need a number of GG
tools, make and gcc alone are not sufficient.
- Enter 'sh configure amigaos' and wait...
- Enter 'make' and wait again...
- Kaffe-0.5.5 and former versions as well as the kaffe-0.6.0 from the kaffe
homepage had to be configured with 'sh configure amigados' (note the 'd')
- At least kaffe-0.5.6 is totally broken for AmigaOS, kaffe-0.6.0 from the
kaffe homepage won't compile, too...
- Read the files 'COMMONPROBLEMS.amiga' and 'BUGS.amiga' available begining
with the kaffe-0.6.0 snapshot from GG. You will find these files inside
the directory config/m68k/amigaos for kaffe snapshots received from the
kaffe homepage and in the main directory for snapshots received from GG.
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This document was compiled by James Dempsey
(jamesd@spirit.net.au).
Contributions, comments and corrections are welcome.
Please send them either to me, or to the list.
Last updated on 22 December, 1997.
4413 people have consulted the FAQ.
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