Every operating system should be equipped with Java and a number of websites utilize JavaScript in their websites but it has been found out that most of the Linux distributions do not work with Java because of the license fee. Did you ever realize that installation of Java on linux system was quite easy? All you are required to do is reach the Java site and select the OS you would like to download. After choosing the download file, install it. Here the latest version is 5.0 Update 5 which uses the self-extracting binary is mentioned below:

# mkdir -p /usr/local/java # cd /usr/local/java # mv /path/to/jre-1_5_0_05-linux-amd64.bin . # chmod u+x jre-1_5_0_05-linux-amd64.bin # ./jre-1_5_0_05-linux-amd64.bin

In case you require the Java installation to be site wide then it must be installed as root but in case you require it for self then the package should be extracted in ~/bin/java or some other location. In the above case the JRE has been installed in /usr/local/java/jre1.5.0_05/.

Now run java executable as a quick test:

# cd jre1.5.0_05/bin # ./java -version

Further in order to make Java available to everybody, it should be added to the default PATH settings by editing /etc/profile and adding:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/java/jre1.5.0_05/bin JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java/jre1.5.0_05 export $PATH $JAVA_HOME

Finally you are all set to use Java on your Linux system.