[12:38] <martin_> what's the best technology to use to for ubuntu gui java programming?
[12:39] <persia> martin_, CMOS?
[12:39] <persia> Kidding aside, the "best" technology is hard to answer.
[12:39] <persia> If you're building a standard GUI app, I'd recommend using swing for maximum portabilty.
[12:39] <martin_> what they best supported for native looking apps
[12:40] <persia> There are higher-level toolkits if you're looking for that.
[12:40] <martin_> can I bind java to gtk ?
[12:40] <persia> Well, "native" depends on the desktop environment.  Last I looked, the GTK bindings in Ubuntu were confusing (lots of incompatible versions), but that was a while ago.
[12:40] <persia> I remember hearing something about issues with QT, but that's pure hearsay, I haven't looked myself.
[12:41] <persia> Yes.  There are gtk bindings.  Getting the right version might be tricky, but that's it.
[12:41] <martin_> I heard of swing, I must research maximum though, thanks
[12:43] <martin_> do you know of a good place on the web for unix/linux introduction to java programming?
[12:43] <martin_> i mean linux centric
[12:46] <persia> Actually, no.
[12:47] <persia> My experience is that most of the time it doesn't matter if you're coding for linux or windows or OS/400.  The trick is to use the abstraction classes whenever you need services from the OS (e.g. file names need to use FILENAME_SEPARATOR rather than \ or / or :)
[12:48] <martin_> thanks for the advice
[12:49] <martin_> do you use eclipse or just a text editor?
[12:51] <persia> I mostly use a text editor for quick stuff, but I don't do that much Java development anymore.  When I did a lot of Java, I used netbeans.
[12:54] <martin_> when I attempted to use eclipse a while in ubuntu it was really slow so I didn't bother with java anymore, but now using Suns JVM in it seems like a native app for speed, I really now want to get into java, android spurred my interest again
[12:54] <martin_> * a while ago
[12:56] <persia> As I understand things, it's still an ancient version of eclipse.
[12:57] <persia> I know netbeans is up-to-date: perhaps it's worth a try.
[13:03] <martin_> I'm using the eclipse download from their website, codenamed ganymede or something like that!
[13:03] <martin_> Version: 3.4.1
[13:04] <persia> That works on Ubuntu?
[13:06] <martin_> yeah, properly fast too, if your using Sun JVM
[13:07] <persia> How about with OpenJDK?
[13:08] <martin_> I don't know the difference between versions to I went with the sun version
[13:09] <martin_> what exactly is openJDK v Sun's version?
[13:10] <slytherin> martin_: what do you mean?
[13:13] <martin_> well when installing the java run time and java jdk i went with the ones with sun in the name,
[13:15] <martin_> i have sun-java6-jdk & sun-java6-jdk installed and not openJDK
[13:16] <martin_> but I don't know the difference, but it seems really fast now
[13:19] <slytherin> martin_: openjdk is GPLed version of Sun's JDK. It may not be 100% compatible to Sun's JDK, but it is close. Also it is far better than any of the other free java compilers/runtimes
[13:21] <martin_> but hasn't sun released all of java under the GPL, which I presume would mean sun-java6-jdk is GPL'ed right, having said it did ask me to accept a license
[13:23] <slytherin> martin_: No. Not all of the APIs were completely developed by Sun. So Openjdk does not contain all the apis that Sun JDK contains. I don't have any link handy to show compatibility status.
[13:24] <persia> The versions with "sun" in the name are older versions, before the license change.  So OpenJDK is newer than those, but (as noted) only contains those bits that could be open-sourced.
[13:29] <martin_> yeah I was reading that sun couldn't open some parts as they don't own the copyright on them
[13:30] <martin_> which seems strange to me how they can incorporate things into a language that they don't own
[13:31] <persia> martin_, Well, for instance, if pre-opening, Sun wanted to have an MP3 encoder, they'd go to the MP3 inventors, and negotiate some licensing and sample code, and then they'd implement something.
[13:31] <persia> That license might not permit them to release the code open-source, so they'd have to remove that for the open-source version.
[13:32] <persia> With it now open, it's much more likely that any arrangements like that would include a clause to make sure the resulting code could be open.
[13:32] <martin_> oh I see, good point, I never thought of that, yeah good point
[13:32] <martin_> I guessing openJDK is exactly the same baring the stuff not included and so should run and comparable speed?
[13:34] <slytherin> martin_: right
[13:35] <persia> Might eve nbe faster, as it's a newer snapshot of the trunk code, so contains various improvements and fixes.
[13:36] <persia> Plus it's licensed to allow patches, and has gotten a few.
[13:45] <martin_> I might dabble in using that then, thanks
[13:51] <persia> It's the default Java everywhere it works, and it's the JRE against which we test most things.
[17:10] <icheyne> hi
[17:10] <icheyne> I can't get java to work on my new Intrepid install
[17:10] <icheyne> if I type "java" into the CLI I get nothing
[17:10] <icheyne> :(
[17:11] <persia> Did you install default-jre?
[17:11] <icheyne> persia, er
[17:11] <icheyne> I have sun-java6-jre
[17:12] <persia> Oh.  I'm not sure if that has the right glue.  `dpkg -L sun-java6-jre` to see where it put the files.
[17:13] <icheyne> ah ok
[17:16] <icheyne> I pasted the text here
[17:16] <icheyne> http://paste.ubuntu.com/72440/
[17:16] <icheyne> lots of text!
[17:16] <icheyne> no executables, AFAIKT
[17:25] <persia> icheyne, Hrm.  Dunno.  You might try reading the README
[17:26] <persia> Perhaps you need to run update-alternatives, although I'd think the maintainer scripts should do that for you.
[17:26] <icheyne> I'm just trying a reinstall right now
[17:26] <icheyne> purge, autoclean, etc
[17:30] <icheyne> sweet
[17:30] <icheyne> it works now
[17:30] <icheyne> 90% of stuff can be fixed with that
[17:30] <icheyne> somehow my install was borked and aptitude didn't realise it
[17:30] <icheyne> :D