Java in Windows on X

[Randall R Schulz]

Brian,

Interfacing to platform-specific facilities such as graphics / windows, 
audio, file systems etc. is not, strictly speaking, a JVM issue. The JVM 
per se is primarily tied to a processor architecture, instruction set and 
programming model and to a lesser extent to the memory address layout that 
is usually OS-specific (and which is somewhat different in Cygwin than in 
native Windows, I believe).

So Java AWT libraries for X would indeed give you the ability to run 
graphics-based Java programs under XFree86/Cygwin. If you wanted Cygwin I/O 
and process functionality, e.g., you'd need to go with a complete set of 
Cygwin-built Java libraries, which would no doubt be most closely akin to 
the Linux or another Unix port or work-alike.

I don't know how well the graphics / AWT libraries are separated from the 
I/O and process portions of the library and hence how easy it would be to 
mix and match, say, XFree86/Cygwin graphics (and mouse / keyboard) with 
Windows I/O and processes, e.g. Presumably it's not too bad.

Apple has been through this, of course, in having two Java platforms 
encompassing two different I/O systems and two different UI systems 
(between MacOS 8x. / 9.x / Classic on the one hand and MacOS X on the 
other. The former is completely proprietary, of course, while the latter 
uses Darwin / FreeBSD and so mostly Unix-like in its I/O and process, 
memory and library architecture and has its own UI subsystems.)

I know of one person (Ted Neward, <mailto:tneward@javageeks.com>) who's 
working on a full Cygwin-based Java platform. He reported recently to the 
Advanced Java list at DevelopMentor.com that SCSL JDK release was oriented 
toward MKS and he was having trouble running some of the build scripts 
under Cygwin.

Randall Schulz
Mountain View, CA USA


At 07:14 2002-08-06, Brian Genisio wrote:
>Benjamin Riefenstahl wrote:
>>Hi Stuart,
>>
>>>Stuart Adamson wrote:
>>>
>>>>>I thought it would be neat if there were a way to run a Java app
>>>>>in Windows, and display on an X server.
>>A quick web search on "Java", "X11" points me to
>>http://sourceforge.net/projects/escher/ .  Sounds interesting.
>>
>>so long, benny
>
>Yeah, that does sound interesting... It looks more like a Java interface 
>to the X libraries.  I can see how this would be extremely useful.
>
>Unfortunately, what I am looking for (just peeking for time being), is the 
>existence of  a VM that supports this functionality, like the *nix 
>versions do.  It would be neat to run the java VM with a flag that used 
>the X protocol instead.
>
>...
>
>B