Installing Sun's Java environment on Debian

Several popular tools require a Java runtime environment, or JRE, to work. Whilst there a growing number of open Java environments at times installing Sun Java environment is the pragmatic approach - unfortunately the software doesn't come in a Debian package. This short recipe shows how to install a Java SDK, or JDK, as a Debian package, and make it work inside your browser.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with installing software outside the control of the Debian packaging system, it's not something that should be undertaken lightly as it makes it hard to keep track of installations, and it complicates updating a number of machines from a centralised Debian package repository.

Thankfully there are facilities available which make it a simple job to install Sun's Java as a Debian package.

Two packages we're going to need are java-package, and fakeroot. These can be installed simply:

apt-get install fakeroot java-package

Once the relevent packages have been installed you will need to download the Sun release of the Java package from http://java.sun.com

At the time of writing the most current version can be found here:

• http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp

Once you agreed to the license presented to you, and have downloaded the file you will have something like jre-1_5_0_03-linux-i586.bin.

To turn this into a Debian package you should run:

fakeroot make-jpkg jre-1_5_0_03-linux-i586.bin

This command will first prompt for confirmation, then :

• Ask you for your name
• Ask you for your email address
• Display a license agreement:
  • Press Space to scroll down, or q to quit.
  • Type "yes" to indicate you agree with the terms.

(The name, and email address, you give will be inserted into the Debian package information - and not sent to Sun.)

Once these questions have been answered the process will inform you that your package has been built shortly afterwards. The final output you should expect to see will look something like this:

The Debian package has been created in the current directory. You can
install the package as root (e.g. dpkg -i sun-j2re1.5_1.5.0+update03_i386.deb).

As the instructions tell you it is now possible for you to install the package by becoming root and running:

dpkg -i sun-j2re1.5_1.5.0+update03_i386.deb

One final step might be for you to ensure the Java software works for Mozilla Firefox, or the Mozilla browser.

The package you've installed should include a plugin for your browser. At the time of writing the most recent Sun Java version we've been using will install a plugin for you at the following location:

/usr/lib/j2re1.5-sun/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Create a symlink to this directory in your home directory:

ln -s /usr/lib/j2re1.5-sun/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so \
  ~/.mozilla/plugins/

If you wish to do this for all users on the current system instead run, as root:

ln -s /usr/lib/j2re1.5-sun/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so \
  /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

(You might find that the plugin has been automatically installed for all users - so it's worth checking whether you need to complete this last step yourself.)

SVN on SourceForge (5)

In the section, I will introduce how to retrieve the project from SourceForge.

1. File->new project->Checkout projects from SVN
2. Create a new repository location, http://chabofortrac.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/chabofortrac
3. Select the folder to be checked out from SVN
4. Checkout our the lastest version 1 ^_^

Also, Here are the tips how to commit your change to the SVN server on Sourceforge.

1. Right click the project ->Team->Commit..
2. Give username and password
3. Type the description comment and select which resources will be committed.

SVN on SourceForge (4)

Up to here , we already installed all the software which we are going to use. So the next task is to upload the source code to SourceForge.net from Eclipse by using SVN.

1. Right click the project ->Team->share project
2. Select the repository type is SVN
3. Create a new repository location, http://chabofortrac.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/chabofortrac
4. Give the right username and password
5. Type the description comment and decide which resources will be committed.
6. Version 1 of Chabo is created successfully
   

SVN on SourceForge (3)

I am using Eclipse 3.3. Same thing here, the default revision control system for Eclipse is CVS. So we have to install install a plug-in for svn here. SubClipse

Subclipse exists to provide an outstanding user interface to Subversion from within the Eclipse IDE. Subclipse includes support for all Subversion commands and features and is a mature project with an established user community. The software is released under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0 open source license.

Installation of SubClipse

1. Select Help->Software Updates->Find and Install.
2. Select Search for new features to install and select Next.
3. Select New Remote Site.
4. Enter "subclipse" for the name and insert the download site given on the Subclipse downloads page. http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x (for Eclipse 3.2 +)
5. Check all the checkbox; install all of the available features of Subclipse.
6. Read the license agreements, accept or decline as appropriate
7. Restart Eclipse
8. Select Help->Software Updates->Find and Install.
9. After restarting Eclipse, check whether the installation was successful.
Select Window->Preferences->Team->SVN

SVN on SourceForge (2)

SourceForge.net provides Subversion (SVN) service to projects, allowing them to centrally store the source code to the software they are developing. This central storage allows easy access both for project developers and end-users. Projects have the option (it is not mandatory) of using the SourceForge.net SVN service to maintain their source code; each project is provided their own SVN space, called a repository.

Site users may retrieve the very latest source code from SVN. Project developers are able to pose their changes back to the source code stored in SVN. SVN helps to prevent developers from overwriting changes made by other developers. SVN also keeps track of each change made to the source code, including who made the change. Each change in the SVN repository may be used to generate a patch which could be applied to another version of the software, or may be removed if need be.

In order to access a SVN repository, you will need a SVN client. TortoiseSVN 1.2.6 and above. TortoiseSVN configuration is documented here.

The documents of installing TortoiseSVN and configuring TortoiseSVN can be found here.

SVN on SourceForge (1)

We created a project in sourceforge. The default version control system is CVS (Concurrent Versions System). But we supposed to use SVN as our version system. So adding SVN to the project is the precondition to use SVN.

1. Goto the the Summary page for the project
2. choose Admin tab and scroll down to subversion then click that.
   
3. On the subversion page check the box that says "enable subversion".
   
4. There are subversion hooks you can install at the bottom of that page.
5. Click update button
6. Now we have SVN appeared in Code tab
7. The url for svn is http://chabofortrac.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/chabofortrac

Our project in sourceforge.net

We have registered our project in sourceforge.net and the Unix name is "chabo". But we haven't put any repositories yet, but we promise to put as soon as we are set to do so.

Project group meeting!

On 17th. January 2007 (Thursday) we had a project group meeting with our supervisor to update him about the Steering group meeting that we had on 4th.January 2007. Also discuss some issues regarding the project plan and necessary modifications on the plan so as to make the project in a right track.

We agreed on lot of good stuff and we got some real good suggestions from him. As a result we have updated our project plan document and now we are up and proceeding with project development.

Question about customlayout in ITMILL Toolkit 5

I have a user interface for browsing the tickets from the Trac database. But the customlayout is not working well. The problem is the ticket-list table always located on the left of the customlayout. This is the screen shot from the firebug. The table highlight in the image, I don't know where it is coming from. I can not add 'aglin=center' in the css-style editor right side. but I can change it in the html code left side. then it was working fine. The table was in the center of the page.
So how can I control that table? (I will post into the forum also)

The table marked by red box is the one which suppose in the center, but it wasn't there.

Unix Time Stamp

In our project, Trac is saving datetime data as Integer type fields in database. That is called unix time stamp.
The unix time stamp is a way to track time as a running total of seconds. This count starts at the Unix Epoch on January 1st, 1970. Therefore, the unix time stamp is merely the number of seconds between a particular date and the Unix Epoch. This is very useful to computer systems for tracking and sorting dated information in dynamic and distributed applications both online and client side.

String date = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss").format(new java.util.Date (epoch*1000));

Some useful links for Tac with PostgreSQL database

1. Trac database schema
2. PostgreSQL Connection String for Trac
3. Trac data models
4. Psycopg2 - PostgreSQL database adapter for the Python

Schedule and Milestones

Milestones		Description	Milestone Criteria	Planned Date
M0		Start Project		<2008-01-04>
		Start-up meeting	Got the requirements.	<2008-01-04>
M1		Start Planning		<2008-01-07>
		Write thesis project plan	thesis project plan ready	<2008-01-07>
M2		First iteration start		<2008-01-08>
		Install Trac and related software on the Linux-server. Browsing tickets, sorting tickets, viewing a ticket	user interfaces created, coding of functionality finished	<2008-01-31>
M3		Second iteration start		<2008-02-01>
		Creating new tickets	user interfaces created, coding of functionality finished	<2008-02-23>
M4		third iteration start		<2008-02-26>
		Commenting a ticket	user interfaces created, coding of functionality finished	<2008-03-14>
M5		forth iteration start		<2008-03-17>
		Hiding tickets, testing the system, finish writing thesis. add attachment (if have time)	user interfaces created, coding of functionality finished, thesis ready	<2008-03-31>
M6		System acceptance testing , Return thesis to supervisor	System tested by users, thesis marked by supervisor	<2008-04-01>
		fix system, correct the thesis		<2008-04-15>
M7		Close Project		<2008-04-20>

The birth of chabo

It is the very new year, 2008. we still have lots of flashbacks of the year 2007, and the winter in Finland is taking its way by fulfilling its duties, it is -3 Centigrade today (7th.January.2008 Helsinki).

Am at Haaga-Healia premises with my colleague Che Zhong the master of (CSS) we are in our very first days of a project. A system software project to be precise. We are about to create a chabo...yes chabo...an EYE TO TRAC..

as for those who the term trac doesn't ring a bell, take a peak at trac website
now after you get a glimpse of what trac is, we will tell you what we are about to do. We want to make an embed application that will be used to show some of the track information to users and developers who will be interested in some of its inside info for their daily development projects of other related issues.

But to do this and make it a cutting age stuff, we are going to use a sophisticated ajax framework tool (ITMILL toolkit) in combination with GWT (Google web toolkit) to make this eye have the sight.

we are just laying down the foundation now..getting ready to kickoff ..so welcome aboard and visit here frequently to get the updates of our progress, you are welcome to leave comments to make this project even better.

NOTE the word of advice: If you are a web app guru and you happen to use JAVA as your way of communicating with some compilers. then take a look at this tool (Itmill toolkit) . You will know what i mean.

for the moment...let me go back to work. ..will give you some updates soon


ciaoo.