This section answers introductory questions about the Blackdown JDK and also provides an orientation for new mailing list participants. We hope you take a minute to read this before posting! Last Update

$Id: 01-intro.sgml,v 1.4 1998/11/15 22:05:40 stevemw Exp $ What is the Blackdown JDK?

The Blackdown JDK is one of the ports of Sun's Java Developer's Toolkit to Linux. The JDK includes the basic tools needed for developing and running Java applications, including (among other things) the following: A Java Virtual Machine, or JVM. The virtual machine interprets and executes Java byte codes (a more condensed, intermediate form for Java instructions) inside a software-only machine. In other words, the JVM emulates a hardware platform, including registers, program counter, and so forth. A Java compiler, which takes a text file containing Java syntax and transforms it into Java byte codes. An appletviewer for executing Java applet code. A Java debugger. Example Java programs. The Java 1.1 class library, including platform-independent library source. A tool for creating and managing Java security keys. A remote method stub and skeleton generator. A registry server for remote method invocations. C and C++ headers for extending the JVM with interfaces to native code. Native libraries for the platform-dependent portions of the JVM, including AWT layer above Motif and X11. Native libraries for embedding a JVM in other native applications. There are static and dynamic versions of the core Java binaries, as well as versions compiled with and without debugging symbols. Documentation for the JDK APIs is available separately from Javasoft at .

For information on the Blackdown JDK porting project itself, including who the major contributors have been, please see section . Suggestions for List Participants

Please read (also found in the Blackdown JDK distribution). Choose a descriptive Subject: line for your mail. When reporting problems, please follow the guidelines in section . Posts with lines wrapped at 75-80 characters are easier to read! Spamming the list or using members' E-mail addresses for commercial purposes is forbidden. Some list users may ignore messages created in HTML or that include proprietary attachments. Do not followup improper postings to the entire list; copy only the sender and , the list administrator. Please avoid inflammatory language. OK Then, What Topics Are Appropriate?

makes this suggestion: Please only post things that are related to Java and Linux to the java-linux mailing list. If you have general Java questions or general Linux questions, please find a more appropriate group. The quality of discussion on java-linux is very high, and it may be tempting for you to post a generic question there because you can get help. But please don't -- if we water down the mailing list with non-java-linux questions, the list will be spoiled for all. How can I get subscribed? Unsubscribed?

Please don't send E-mail directly to the list requesting these status changes! Visit and follow the links to instructions or use the links provided in the next paragraph.

The following URL would work in Netscape Mail to subscribe you:

And this should unsubscribe: Where Can I Find Archived Postings from this List?

Karl Asha has arranged for the list to be archived here: .