How to install Java application to my linux system

Question

I have written a Java application that analyzes my phone bills and calculates the average. At the moment I execute it like:

$ java -jar analyze.jar bill_1.pdf bi         


        

Answer 1

One neat little trick is that you can append a basic shell script to the start of the jar file which will run it appropriately. See here for the full example but the basics are:

stub.sh

#!/bin/sh
MYSELF=`which "$0" 2>/dev/null`
[ $? -gt 0 -a -f "$0" ] && MYSELF="./$0"
java=java
if test -n "$JAVA_HOME"; then
    java="$JAVA_HOME/bin/java"
fi
exec "$java" $java_args -jar $MYSELF "$@"
exit 1

Then do...

cat stub.sh helloworld.jar > hello.run && chmod +x helloworld.run 

And you should be all set! Now you can just call the script-ified jar directly.

./helloworld.run

Answer 2

What you did so far is basically "the native" way.

You have to keep in mind: Java applications are compiled to byte code. There simply is no binary for your application that you could invoke. You do need this detour of calling some JVM installation with a pointer to the main class you want to run. In owhther words; that is what the vast majority of java applications are doing.

Theoretically, there are products out that there that you could use to actually create a "true" binary from your application; but that isn't an easy path (see here for first starters); and given your statement that your just looking for more "convenience" it is definitely inappropriate here.