Setting up a J2EE AS on Linux

[Andy]

Hi,

I have no prior knowledge of J2EE / EJB and the likes and want to set
up a J2EE application server on my PC running Fedora Linux 2. Can
anyone please suggest what would be a good and easily available app
server that I could setup and with which I could test out most of the
code that I write.

Also what all do I need to have installed before embarking on
installing a J2EE App server.

Any links which could help me setup my system are very welcome.
So are names of books.

Cheers,
Andy

 

[Andrew Thompson]

I have no prior knowledge of J2EE / EJB and the likes and want to set
up a J2EE application server on my PC running Fedora Linux 2. Can
anyone please suggest what would be a good and easily available app
server that I could setup and with which I could test out most of the
code that I write.

Apache/Tomcat should do the trick..
<http://jakarta.apache.org/>
<http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/>

HTH

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology
http://www.lensescapes.com/ Images that escape the mundane

 

[Chris Dodds]

Apache/Tomcat should do the trick..
<http://jakarta.apache.org/>
<http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/>

HTH

Sun application server runs well on Fedora Core 2

http://java.sun.com/j2ee/1.4/download.html#sdk

Chris

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

Apache/Tomcat should do the trick..
<http://jakarta.apache.org/>
<http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/>

HTH

Tomcat is a webcontainer, not an j2ee server. JBoss is a nice j2ee
server which is very easy to set up (just unzip, start with run.sh and
drop your applications in server/default/deploy directory). It comes
with a simple database (but can connect to any) and uses tomcat as it's
webcontainer.

Oracle JDeveloper 10g is also nice (just unzip), and comes with
appserver (oc4j) embedded. You can register on otn.oracle.com and
download for non-commercial/educational purposes (check the licence).
Just make jdev.conf point to your java home on linux. You can easily
make applications that will run on jboss with jdeveloper.

Several other alternatives exist also, but I have no experience with
them. Jonas is another opensource alternative to jboss and ofcourse you
have websphere and weblogic, I suppose they run on linux, though i'm not
sure about weblogic with their jrocket jvm ...

 

[Sudsy]

Jon Martin Solaas wrote:

Several other alternatives exist also, but I have no experience with
them. Jonas is another opensource alternative to jboss and ofcourse you
have websphere and weblogic, I suppose they run on linux, though i'm not
sure about weblogic with their jrocket jvm ...

Both WebSphere and WebLogic run on Linux. I know; I've had both of them
up on my servers at various times. JBoss did (does?) have some serious
limitations like not being able to specify the deployment directory (it
was created dynamically) but you can program around it.

 

[Edwin Martin]

Apache/Tomcat should do the trick..
<http://jakarta.apache.org/>
<http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/>

Tomcat does not support EJB's.

J2EE application servers supporting EJB's are:

- JBoss: http://www.jboss.org/index.html
- Resin: http://www.caucho.com/resin-3.0/
- Geronimo (not stable yet): http://geronimo.apache.org/

They're all free.

Edwin Martin

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

Jon Martin Solaas wrote:



Both WebSphere and WebLogic run on Linux. I know; I've had both of them
up on my servers at various times. JBoss did (does?) have some serious
limitations like not being able to specify the deployment directory (it
was created dynamically) but you can program around it.

Under jboss you can create any configuration you like. "all","minimal"
and "default" are pre-configured. They correspond to different
directories below .../server, and the specific configuration is made up
of the various features of jboss deployed in the
..../server/[config]/deploy directory. Possibly you can alter the
placement of the .../server directory in some configuration file.

All the time your ejb is invalid as soon as you access the filesystem
programatically it'd be interesting to know how you do when you program
around it. Or do you mean like in patching jboss itself? It'd be nice if
deployed files stayed somewhere in the /var/... hierarchy. Also it'd be
nice if different users had their own deployment directories in their
/home/... This would perhaps make JBoss a more widespread solution for
web-hotels. It's hard to find anyone offering Tomcat support, and next
to impossible to find support for JBoss ...

Generally, JBoss might lack some features (albeit I do not really know
which you refer to, really I think you should tell ...) that others
have. I think the most important features of JBoss, besides being
opensource, is the ease of installation, configuration and deployment.

 

[Andy]

Tomcat is a webcontainer, not an j2ee server. JBoss is a nice j2ee
server which is very easy to set up (just unzip, start with run.sh and
drop your applications in server/default/deploy directory). It comes
with a simple database (but can connect to any) and uses tomcat as it's
webcontainer.

Oracle JDeveloper 10g is also nice (just unzip), and comes with
appserver (oc4j) embedded. You can register on otn.oracle.com and
download for non-commercial/educational purposes (check the licence).
Just make jdev.conf point to your java home on linux. You can easily
make applications that will run on jboss with jdeveloper.

Is Oracle JDeveloper 10g an application server like JBoss, or is it an
IDE? Also does it have any dependencies with the Oracle RDBMS engine
-- because I will stick to my PostgreSQL for the moment.

On the question of IDEs, is NetBeans a good enough IDE?

Several other alternatives exist also, but I have no experience with
them. Jonas is another opensource alternative to jboss and ofcourse you
have websphere and weblogic, I suppose they run on linux, though i'm not
sure about weblogic with their jrocket jvm ...

Are there non-commercial versions of weblogic / websphere available
that run on linux (no 30 day trial or so)?


Cheers,
Andy

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

Is Oracle JDeveloper 10g an application server like JBoss, or is it an
IDE? Also does it have any dependencies with the Oracle RDBMS engine
-- because I will stick to my PostgreSQL for the moment.

JDeveloper is an IDE. oc4j, the j2ee appserver (similar to JBoss) from
Oracle, is included and integrated. JDeveloper is not depending on
Oracle RDBMS, however I do not know how well table/schema creation from
JDeveloper models work with other databases, though. But if you already
work with PostgreSQL you already have tools for that.

On the question of IDEs, is NetBeans a good enough IDE?

Depends what you need. It doesn't have support for EJB (it's been a long
time since I've used netbeans). Xdoclet can help you there, but then
again, xdoclet is better integrated with Eclipse. Try it out and see if
you like it. What it does it does well, in my experience.

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

Edwin Martin wrote:

....

- JBoss: http://www.jboss.org/index.html
- Resin: http://www.caucho.com/resin-3.0/
- Geronimo (not stable yet): http://geronimo.apache.org/

They're all free.

Resin is not free.
http://www.caucho.com/sales/sales.xtp

 

[Yogo]

- JBoss: http://www.jboss.org/index.html

Resin is not free.
http://www.caucho.com/sales/sales.xtp

Resin is free for students / hobbyists

 

[Oscar kind]

Resin is not free.
http://www.caucho.com/sales/sales.xtp

Resin 3.0.9 exists in two versions: one GPL'ed, the other not. The closed
version supports clustering and several speed enhancements, the GPL'ed
version doesn't. See "Distribution/licensing changes" (the first item):
http://www.caucho.com/resin-3.0/features/resin-3.0.9.xtp

 

[Jon Martin Solaas]

Resin 3.0.9 exists in two versions: one GPL'ed, the other not. The closed
version supports clustering and several speed enhancements, the GPL'ed
version doesn't. See "Distribution/licensing changes" (the first item):
http://www.caucho.com/resin-3.0/features/resin-3.0.9.xtp

You're completely right.