JavaServer Faces

Installing the Java Software Development Kit

Tomcat 5 is a pure Java web server with support for the Servlet 2.4 and JSP 2.0 specifications. In order to use it, you must first install a Java runtime environment. If you don’t already have one, you can download a Java runtime for Windows, Linux, and Solaris at http://java.sun.com/j2se/. I recommend that you download and install the Java 2 SDK (a.k.a. JDK), as opposed to the slimmed-down Runtime Environment (JRE) distribution. The reason is that JSP, and therefore JSF applications that use JSP, requires a Java compiler, included in the SDK but not in the JRE.

Another alternative is to use the JRE plus the Jikes compiler from IBM (http://www10.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/jikes/). Tomcat can be configured to use Jikes instead of the javac compiler available in the Java 2 SDK from Sun; read the Tomcat documentation if you would like to try this. To make things simple, though, I suggest installing the Java 2 SDK from Sun. The examples were developed and tested with Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, v1.4.2. I suggest that you use the latest version of the SDK available for your platform.

If you need an SDK for a platform other than Windows, Linux, or Solaris, check your operating-system vendor’s web site. Most operating-system vendors have their own SDK implementation available for free. Installation of the SDK varies per platform, but it is typically easy to do. Just follow the instructions on the web site where you download ...