Question

My java program was written on a windows machine and I am trying to get it installed and running on a Ubuntu 10.04 machine. I have created a .tar.gz file with myProgram.jar in it as well as 5 supporting library .jar files in a lib folder. Where do I put these files? Do I need to extract it on the Linux machine to a usr/bin folder? Does the shell script go inside the tar.gz? I have read that if you write the shell script on a windows machine you can have issues once you move it to the Linux machine, so I am writing the shell script on the Linux machine using gedit. I am just not sure what to do next.
So far in my script I have,

#!/bin/bash 
java -jar myProgram.jar

I am going to try and extract the tar.gz file to the usr/bin directory and see if it runs.
Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Ray

Answer 1

Your question is quite “broad” :). I hope you find the following useful.

Do not extract the files to /usr/bin. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard on where and where not to put files on a *nix system.

1. Extract the jar’s to e.g. /opt/yourProgram/*.
2. The shell script should be inside there too. Make sure its executable (i.e chmod 755 script.sh)
3. In your shell script add cd /opt/yourProgram to have the proper working directory for your program before you invoke java.
4. If you want this program to be started easily by everyone create a symbolic link in /usr/bin or better in /usr/local/bin pointing to your script. Do this as last step after everything else is working.

In your shell script you’ll have to add the other jars to the classpath e.g.

java -cp lib/some.jar:lib/other.jar -jar myProgram.jar

or

java -cp lib/some.jar:lib/other.jar:myProgram.jar com.acme.ClassContainingMain

Recommended practice: Add set -e at the very beginning of your script

As you already mentioned it’s considered harmful to edit a shell script using a windows editor. The reason is that the windows editor will encode line-breaks (i.e. you hit the Return key) differently. This will make bash puke 🙂