What are my options for running Java 6 on OS X?

Question

What are my options for running Java 6 on OS X?

My MacBook Pro Intel Core Duo is running Mac OS X 10.4. Do I have any ability to run Java 6 on this hardware and OS?

Related questions: Which Macs (current or upcoming) support 64-bit computing? Are there any Apple laptops (current or upcoming) that will have a 64-bit architecture?

Any relevant links would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Since Core 2 Duo, all available Intel macs are 64-bit. If you have an early adopter and I have the same one as an Intel Mac based on Core Duo (note the missing 2), your computer does not support 64-bit (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_duo )

An example is the first Macbook (Pro) and Mac mini.

However, as mentioned in SoyLatte ( http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/static/soylatte/ ), it's pretty easy to get Java 6 running on your Mac. I went through the installation steps and I could successfully run Java 6 applications (e.g. Osmosis http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Osmosis ).

Apple Java 1.6 is deployed only on 64-bit Mac computers, i.e. even if you have Leopard, you will not have Java 6 on your Core Duo Mac.

Answer 2

People there are working to make OpenJDK 6 work 10.4. I have never tried myself, but soy latte , the Mac Os port, the openjdk BSD port , looks promising. Version 10.4 appears to be only 32-bit.

Answer 3

I thought all current Macs were 64 bit?

http://support.apple.com/downloads/Java_for_Mac_OS_X_10_5_Update_1 for Java 6 support.

Answer 4

Leopard (OS X 10.5) was the first version of OS X to make the Java 6 (1,6) JRE available through an update. Unfortunately, only the 64-bit version of Java 6 JRE is available for Leopard, so only those with 64-bit Intel processors can run Java 1.6.

Since Core 2 Duo, all available Intel Mac 64-bit capable. If you have a Core Duo-based Mac Mac (note the missing 2), your computer does not support the 64-bit version. An example of this is the first MacBook (Pro) and the first Mac mini. Your particular computer is 32-bit, so you won’t get Java 6 with Leopard, and of course you don’t have it with Tiger (10.4).

Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) comes with Java 6 out of the box. Thus, if you get a new Mac with Snow Leopard or upgrade to Snow Leopard, it includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Java 6. If you upgrade your 32-bit Intel Mac to Snow Leopard, you will get Java 6 (32-bit).

For those Intel Mac owners who do not want to upgrade to Snow Leopard, or who cannot upgrade (Snow Leopard requires 1 GB of RAM), you can install SoyLatte for Java 6.

SoyLatte ( http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/static/soylatte/ ) is obtained from the FreeBSD Java 6 JRE port and runs on Mac. SoyLatte is only for Intel-based Macs and includes only a 32-bit JRE.

Just download and extract SoyLatte, set JAVA_HOME and PATH and run your program. Here's a sample:

$ export JAVA_HOME=/Users/madams/Desktop/soylatte16-i386-1.0.3 $ export PATH=/Users/madams/Desktop/soylatte16-i386-1.0.3/bin:$PATH $ java -jar /Users/madams/Desktop/test.jar 

Also note that Snow Leopard only includes Java 6 and automatically removes old JREs. This means that Java 1.5 is no longer available, although the paths for previous versions are related to the current one.

In addition, Java 6 in Snow Leopard is used by default for the 64-bit JRE on 64-bit Mac computers, so if you invoke 32-bit native libraries (JNIs), this will not work. You must invoke java using the -d32 command line option to run the 32-bit version of the Java JRE on a 64-bit Mac with Snow Leopard.

Answer 5

Apple currently has very limited support for Java 6. There is no support at all for 10.4, and 10.5 support is limited only to the 64-bit version. Although this may not seem to matter, since all newer Macs have a Core 2 Duo and support 64-bit, Safari is still a 32-bit application and therefore cannot run 64-bit plugins such as the Java applet container.

Answer 6

Unfortunately, for java 6, your only option is to wait until Apple releases it.

EDIT

Which, incidentally, has already happened in 10.5: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2733 :)

This release updates Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_07, J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_16, and J2SE 1.4.2 to 1.4.2_18.

So, I think only for OS update :(

Answer 7

Your first question has been answered in some detail. To answer your second question: all Intel computers are implicitly compatible with 64-bit versions, and with each version of OS X, the OS is becoming more and more 64-bit. (Unlike Windows, OS X is no different from 32-bit and 64-bit.)

As I understand it, the next release 10.6 will be almost completely 64-bit. You can learn a lot about 64-bit and OS X here .

In particular, a page on a 64-bit transition is probably exactly what you are looking for.

Answer 8

You can. Honestly, its also not so difficult (at the moment its dead easy). Java applications usually stand out (poorly), I would really like to consider deploying using a more native language.