Skip site navigation (1) Skip section navigation (2)

Site Navigation

FreeBSD Java™ Project: Newsflash

September, 2005

  • September 3, 2005:
    Greg Lewis has released the second patchset in the JDK™ 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

January, 2005

  • January 19, 2005:
    Greg Lewis has released the initial patchset (patchset 1) in the JDK™ 1.5 series. See the JDK 1.5.x page for more details.

December, 2004

  • December 13, 2004:
    Greg Lewis has released the seventh patchset (patchset 7) in the JDK™ 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

November, 2004

  • November 25, 2004:
    A security vulnerability was announced in the Java browser plugin. The jdk14 port was fixed in 1.4.2p6_7. The jdk13 port is still vulnerable. You can check the exact ports and versions which are vulnerable here.

December, 2003

  • December 30, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released the sixth patchset (patchset 6) in the JDK™ 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.
  • December 19, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchset 9) for the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

November, 2003

  • November 11, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released the fifth patchset (patchset 5) in the JDK™ 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

October, 2003

  • October 10, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released the fourth patchset (patchset 4) in the JDK™ 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

August, 2003

  • August 26, 2003:
    The FreeBSD Foundation announces native support for JDK™ 1.3.1 on FreeBSD.

March, 2003

  • March 7, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released the third patchset (patchset 3) in the JDK™ 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

February, 2003

  • February 12, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 8) for the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.
  • February 4, 2003:
    Greg Lewis has released the second patchset (patchset 2) in the JDK™ 1.4 series. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

November, 2002

  • November 15, 2002:
    Greg Lewis has released a first patchset (patchlevel 1) for the JDK™ 1.4.0 software. See the JDK 1.4.x page for more details.

September, 2002

  • September 18, 2002:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 11) for the JDK™ 1.2.2 software. See the JDK 1.2.x page for more details.
  • September 17, 2002:
    Right after Sun released J2SE 1.4.1 FCS, the Linux version was made available in the FreeBSD Ports system. See J2SE 1.4.1 page for more details.

July, 2002

  • July 26, 2002:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 7) for the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

February, 2002

  • February 13, 2002:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 6) for the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

December, 2001

  • December 22, 2001:

    This was posted to announce@FreeBSD.org:

    The FreeBSD Foundation has secured a license from Sun Microsystems to distribute a native FreeBSD version of both the Java Development Kit (JDK™) and the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Thanks to the great efforts of the FreeBSD Java team, these should be available for inclusion with the upcoming release of FreeBSD 4.5 in January, 2002.

    The general availability of a distributable version of Java will benefit end users, commercial users, and developers who use FreeBSD. Java continues to grow in popularity and has become heavily used in server side web applications, one of FreeBSD's core areas of strength. With an officially licensed binary Java distribution, FreeBSD becomes an ideal platform for execution, development, and deployment of Java based solutions.

    This agreement would not have been possible without the efforts of Nate Williams. Nate not only started the FreeBSD Java porting effort, but also brought Sun Microsystems and the Foundation together to negotiate a license.

    You can find full text of the announcement here.

October, 2001

  • October 16, 2001:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 5) for the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.

September, 2001

  • September 10, 2001:
    Greg Lewis has released an updated patchset (patchlevel 4) for the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. See the JDK 1.3.x page for more details.
  • September 6, 2001:
    Maxim Sobolev has created a port of the Sun's Forte[tm] for Java[tm], release 3.0 Community Edition integrated development environment (IDE). It can now be built from the ports directory ports/java/forte.

    The port can be used either with native JDK™ 1.3.1, or with Linux JDK™ 1.3.1.

August, 2001

  • August 27, 2001:
    Greg Lewis has released a long-awaited port of the JDK™ 1.3.1 software. It can now be built from the ports directory ports/java/jdk13. See JDK 1.3.x for more details.

    It should be noted that this is very much a developer-only release and it is not recommended for use in production environment.

October, 2000

  • October 14, 2000:
    Maxim Sobolev has produced a port of the JDK™ 1.2.2 software. It can now be built from the ports directory ports/java/jdk12-beta. See JDK 1.2.x for more details.

    All the issues noted below are still in place, however.

    So anyone who has a Java2 port you've been waiting on submitting, now is your chance.

September, 2000

  • September 15, 2000: From the Java news desk:
    Sean O'Connell and Andrew Gallatin have created patches to enable FreeBSD to run IBM's JDK™ 1.3.
    Ernst de Haan has been able to get Sun's Linux JDK™ 1.3.0b9 running on 4.0-STABLE.

    Full details on both can be found here.

August, 2000

  • August 10, 2000: On August 7th, 2000, the FreeBSD JDK™ team was given access to Sun's JCK (Java Compatibility Kit), which will allow us to test and (hopefully!) release a binary version using the current set of patches. Unfortunately, we are unable (for legal reasons) to distribute a JDK™ that hasn't been run against the JCK like we were able to with the JDK™ 1.1.* releases.

    Unfortunately, as told by Sun (we have no experience *yet*), running the JCK against the port is a difficult and time-consuming process. Hopefully it won't take us the 3 months that Sun expects it to take. :(

    Finally, there are still some issues regarding Motif® that need to be resolved before a full public release can be made. Sun is working on that front, and we need to try contacting the OpenGroup to see if we can get a special exception for Motif binary distributions to use in the JDK™ release.

May, 2000

  • May 3, 2000: Native JDK™ 1.2.2 port enters alpha test phase
    Greg Lewis has just announced that the native FreeBSD JDK™ 1.2.2 port has entered alpha test stage.
    In its current form, the port will build and run on most FreeBSD releases (3.4, 4.0 and 5.0 on x86) and work is being done on the others (2.2.8 on x86 and 4.0 alpha). Most demo applets and applications run.
    Currently we are looking for enthusiasts who are willing to spend a little time testing the new port. While this is not a trivial task, there are clear step-by-step instructions on how to build and use the port.
    The patches may be found, as usual on:
    http://www.eyesbeyond.com/freebsddom/java/jdk.html
    More information, open issues and step-by-step instructions may be found at:
    http://www.kjkoster.org/java/index.html
  • May 1, 2000: Request for Enhancement - Now the number 1 RFE
    We have petitioned Sun to provide an official FreeBSD JDK2 port. We are currently in 1st place in the vote count. If you are a member of the Java Developer's Connection (it's free), you can vote for it as well http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4288745.html

March, 2000

  • March 22, 2000: Pre-Alpha JDK™ 1.2.2 patches available.
    Greg Lewis releases the pre-alpha patches for enterprising Java users to build their own native FreeBSD JDK™ 1.2.2 from. This process is not for the faint of heart, and the resulting JDK™ is not for production systems. Having said that, most AWT and Swing demo's have been found to run. There is plenty of work to do, and we need all the testers we can find. Patches and build instructions may be downloaded from http://www.eyesbeyond.com/freebsd-jdk122-patches-latest.tar.gz. Currently open issues and test results may be found at http://www.kjkoster.org/java/index.html.

January, 2000

  • January 30, 2000: Blackdown 1.2.2RC4 JDK™
    The Linux Blackdown Port Team has released RC4 of JDK™ 1.2. It has been tested on FreeBSD 3.4-STABLE and later and runs all demo applets and jfc demos. Several people have mentioned some problems running it with Apache JServ. Until it can be added to the FreeBSD port tree, it can be found at http://www.jmcm.org/tech/ports/linux_jdk.html. (Reported by Jose Marques)

November, 1999

  • November 28, 1999:Request for Enhancement
    We have petitioned Sun to provide an official FreeBSD JDK2 port. We are currently in 2nd place in the vote count. If you are a member of the Java Developer's Connection (it's free), you can vote for it as well http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4288745.html
  • November 9, 1999:Another JDK™ 1.1.8 release to fix a separate class of multicast bugs.

October, 1999

  • October 11, 1999: Work has re-started on the Java2/JDK™ 1.2 port. Expect an early 'alpha' release in the coming weeks for FreeBSD 3.3-stable/ELF boxes.

September, 1999

  • September 22, 1999: Re-rolled the JDK™ 1.1.8 yet again to fixup some minor bugs that people have found, as well as to speedup the JDK™. For details checkout the README.FreeBSD supplied in the releases.
    • jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-9-22.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.
    • jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-9-22.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.

July, 1999

  • July 19, 1999: Re-rolled the JDK™ 1.1.8 release to fix a couple of minor (but annoying bugs). First, the netpatch (see below) was incorporated into the build, and second an annoying Floating Point bug was found and fixed. The latter bug affected multi-threaded code that did floating point calculations and based on the code could produce completely bogus results.
    • jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-7-19.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.
    • jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-7-19.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.
  • July 2, 1999: Organization of FreeBSD 'CommAPI' porting team which is an effort to make JAVA's CommAPI freely available to the FreeBSD community. Project is coordinated by DRICOT Jean-Michel and will officially be maintained in http://student.ulb.ac.be/~jdricot/commapi/. Feel free to contact him if you want to join the project.

June, 1999

  • June 8, 1999: A small bug was found in the JDK™ 1.1.8 release which affected people using UDP sockets. If you tried to send a packet to the broadcast address, the FreeBSD JDK™ refused with a permissions error. This error was fixed, and rather than re-releasing the entire release a small patchset was re-rolled for those folks who are experiencing this problem. If you experience this problem, feel free to download the gzipped tarfile and untar it wherever you installed the jdk. It will install itself over top of the old version. If you aren't experiencing the bug, there is no need to apply the patch, although it wouldn't hurt.
  • June 3, 1999: JDK™ 1.1.8 for A.OUT and ELF releases. This release adds support for older 3.*/ELF releases (without requiring any runtime loader changes), as well as fixes bugs in LOCALE and timezone support for all FreeBSD releases.
    • jdk1.1.8_AOUT.V99-6-3.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.
    • jdk1.1.8_ELF.V99-6-3.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.* and 4.* which use the ELF binary format.
  • June 1, 1999: JDK2 status
    • Work on JDK™ 1.2/JDK2 has been going very slow as the development team has been focusing it's effort on solid JDK1 releases. For most JDK2 development issues, you can use the JDK1 release and the Swing releases provided by Sun for JDK1, which works very well under FreeBSD.

April, 1999

  • Apr. 16, 1999: New JDK™ 1.1.7 A.OUT release. This fixes build problems in the March release. A new ELF release will be made to support older 3.0 releases as well sometime in the near future.
    • jdk1.1.7_AOUT.V99-4-16.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.

March, 1999

  • Mar. 26, 1999: ELF support for JDK™ 1.1.7, as well as a new A.OUT release which includes minor bugfixes.
    • jdk1.1.7_AOUT.V99-3-24.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 2.2.*, which use the A.OUT binary format.
    • jdk1.1.7_ELF.V99-3-25.tar.gz. For FreeBSD versions 3.x and 4 which use the ELF binary format. Note: This requires changes made to the runtime loader to support dladdr() functionality made on 1999/3/24. You will need to be running 3.1-stable or 4.0-current dated later than 1999/3/24. If you don't have the new loader binary or are not tracking -stable or -current, you can download it from here and install it as /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1 (you need to be root to do this): 
      # install -c -s -o bin -g bin -m 555 -C -fschg ld-elf.so.1 /usr/libexec
  • Mar. 16, 1999: Updates on current development:
    • ELF JDK™ 1.1.7 : An ELF build of JDK™ 1.1.7 (for use on FreeBSD 3.x and later) is currently entering it's initial internal testing phase. A beta release should be available in a few weeks.
    • JDK2 (aka JDK™ 1.2): Several individuals are working on porting JDK2 to FreeBSD, but the work is progressing slowly. This is primarily due to a lack of developer time to work on this project. (The release of Blackdown's JDK2 port will assist our development when they release their source diffs.)

December, 1998

  • Dec. 21, 1998: jdk1.1.7.V98-12-21.tar.gz.
    • Bugfix version of JDK™ 1.1.7. Thanks go to Keith White who tracked down a couple annoying (and serious) bugs in the JDK™, notably the modulo bug. This release also has the 256 file-descriptor limit bumped up to 2048. The JRE should also be much more usable, again thanks to Keith.

November, 1998

  • Nov. 14, 1998: jdk1.1.7.V98-11-5.tar.gz.
    • Updated to JDK™ 1.1.7. Thanks go to Patrick Gardella patrick@FreeBSD.org who provided most of the testing for this release.

September, 1998

  • Sept 23, 1998: jdk1.1.6.V98-9-23.tar.gz.
    • The August 14 build had jre incorrectly linked in both the JDK™ and the JRE, so a new release was rebuilt with the correct linkage. Otherwise, there were no changes from the older release.

August, 1998

  • Aug 22, 1998:
    • Updated page to list numerous sites who have agreed to mirror the JDK™ and provide ftp access. Thanks to all!
  • Aug 14, 1998: jdk1.1.6.V98-8-14.tar.gz.
    • The SO_REUSEADDR option is now correctly set on ServerSockets (may affect other sockets as well.)

July, 1998

  • July 21, 1998: jdk1.1.6.V98-7-21.tar.gz.
    • Updated port to JDK™ 1.1.6. Thanks go to Keith White kwhite@site.uottawa.ca who did most of the work to make this release happen!
    • More standard 'naming' for java.version and such.
    • Fixes for UDP/Multicast sockets.
    • The signal abort error may be fixed (knock on wood).
    • Add support for the "KOI8-R" and "CP866" encodings.
    • Timezone's now work correctly under FreeBSD (this required some native code, but it is embedded in the JDK™ so shouldn't affect users. However, FreeBSD has one of the few (only?) VM's that correctly support Timezones now).
    • sysRmdir() now correctly removes directories.
    • Link in the xpg4 library to support CJK locales.

May, 1998

  • May 5, 1998:
    • Updated page to include instruction on how to get Sun's JWS (Java Work Shop) working under FreeBSD.

February, 1998

  • February 25, 1998: jdk1.1.5.V98-2-25.tar.gz.
    • JDK™'s built on 2.2.2 should now work again.
    • The AWT now correctly sets the Window name.
    • Fixed obscure bug that could cause a core dump if you hit a button in a dialog box multiple times.
    • Fixed bug where SHMEM wasn't released when using images, causing a leak.
    February 12, 1998:
    • Johan Larsson graciously provided an ftp mirror site for the JDK™, so if you have an aversion to using HTTP, then feel free to grab it from his site.
    • Replaced the 'Steaming Cup of Java' logo with the 'Jump to Java' logo, which is more politically (and legally) acceptable to SUN's lawyers.
    February 9, 1998: jdk1.1.5.V98-2-8.tar.gz.
    • Fixed bugs in Process.waitFor()
    • Modified the way the Motif library was linked in. This will allow anyone with a Motif library (static or dynamic) to build their own JDK™ once the patchkit is released. If their Motif license allows for it, they can also make binary releases available.
    • Non blocking reads on PIPE did not work reliably on all versions of the OS.
    • Multicast now works.

January, 1998

  • January, 1998:
    • Organization of FreeBSD JDK™ porting team, which now jointly creates new JDK™ releases for FreeBSD.
    • New JDK™ 1.1.5 binary, which has Motif statically compiled in. (Unfortunately, this release was lost in a disk crash on the ftp server.)