Skotty's Distributed Robocode Server
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I spent a little time tonight seeing if I could get my server up and running like I have been planning to do, now that I have fixed my hardware (replaced the dead CPU fan among other things).
Unfortunately, I only have Java 6, and the system requirements say I need Java 7. Since Linux generally hates me, it came at no surprise that to install Java 7 on my outdated Fedora install, I first have to update Fedora. I tried both the Oracle JDK 7 and the OpenJDK 7, but neither would install. I'm on Fedora 13 now, and it is my understanding that you cannot upgrade more than 2 revisions, so if I want to upgrade to current, it will take several back to back upgrades (I think the current release is Fedora 18, so I would probably have to upgrade to Fedora 15, then Fedora 17, then Fedora 18, though I could just stop at whatever the first version is that allows Java 7). The recommended method for upgrades prior to Fedora 18 is to use DVDs with the Anaconda installer. I'll probably have to create several upgrade DVDs and include some time to make sure everything works for each step in the upgrade sequence.
Long story short, I'm looking at probably several hours to get to a point where I have a functioning copy of Java 7 on my server. So I am shelving the effort until a weekend when I have a whole day to dedicate to upgrading my server.
Whenever I get around to it again, I will post another update here.
As much as i want to love Linux, this is just another example in a long history of examples of why I will probably always stay with Windows. I shouldn't have to upgrade my OS just to upgrade my Java version. It would be like having to upgrade to Windows 8 in order to install Java 7. Ridiculous.
However, one thing I haven't tried yet is just unpacking Oracle Java 7 manually and figuring out how to change my path and environment variables to point to the manually unpacked Java 7. It seems like that might work. But if it doesn't, then it's just more wasted time.
Actually there are some programs that require a specific windows version to run. For example DirectX 10-11 requires Vista or above. There are Windows 8 only programs.
Linux doesn't keep stable ABI between kernel versions, so although it means binaries aren't compatible with old/new versions, it also means that a lot of cruft can be cleaned out, making it a more efficient, less bloated piece of software. Chances are, if you wanted you could take modern OpenJDK source and compile it against your old kernel. But there have been a lot of kernel fixes and improvements since F13, so it's probably worth the upgrade from a security standpoint anyway for anything that will be public-facing.
