Java Desktop System, briefly known as OpenSolaris Desktop, is a legacy

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...

developed first by Sun Microsystems and then by Oracle Corporation after the 2010 Oracle acquisition of Sun. Java Desktop System is available for Solaris and was once available for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

. The Linux version was discontinued after Solaris was released as

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

in 2005. Java Desktop System aims to provide a system familiar to the average computer user with a full suite of office

productivity software Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings ...

such as an

office suite Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital painting ...

, a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

, calendaring, and instant messaging. Despite being known as the Java Desktop System, it is not actually written in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. Rather, it is built around a tweaked version of GNOME along with other common free software projects, which are written mostly in C and

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

. The name reflected Sun's promotion of the product as an outlet for corporate users to deploy software written for the Java platform.

Versions

Sun first bundled a preview release of GNOME 1.4 on a separate CD for Solaris 8. JDS version 2 included: *

* GNOME (using the Blueprint theme) *

StarOffice StarOffice is a discontinued proprietary office suite, intended to compete with the marketing-leading Microsoft Office. It served as the basis for open-source suites OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice. StarOffice supported the OpenOffice.org XML f ...

* Mozilla *

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

and CD player *

Java Media Framework The Java Media Framework (JMF) is a Java library that enables audio, video and other time-based media to be added to Java applications and applets. This optional package, which can capture, play, stream, and transcode multiple media formats, exte ...

's Java Media Player * Gaim multi-service instant messaging * RealPlayer JDS Release 2 was available for Solaris and for the SuSE-based Linux distribution. JDS Release 3 was released in 2005. It was included with Solaris 10 — upon installation of Solaris, one has the choice of using either the CDE or JDS. It was based on GNOME 2.6 and available only for the Solaris 10 platform.

OpenSolaris Desktop

OpenSolaris received its own version of the Java Desktop System. OpenSolaris Desktop was tied to the OpenSolaris operating system, and did not have its own release schedule. OpenSolaris Desktop 01 (released October 28, 2005) was based on GNOME 2.10 and OpenSolaris Desktop 02 (released December 23, 2005) was based on GNOME 2.12. The last version was released with the release of OpenSolaris 2009.6, and was based on Gnome 2.24. It also included Firefox 3.1, OpenOffice 3 and Sun VirtualBox. The OpenSolaris Desktop line of the Java Desktop System became defunct with the end of the OpenSolaris project.

Availability

With the end of the OpenSolaris project, JDS Release 3 is now the last release of the project on a currently supported operating system Solaris 10. Newer Solaris based operating systems have abandoned the Java Desktop System. Solaris 11 and projects based upon the OpenSolaris codebase such as OpenIndiana use a stock version of GNOME.

References

External links

Oracle Documentation

OS News review
December 2003
eWeek Review
December 2003 {{Sun Microsystems Desktop environments Java platform software Oracle software Sun Microsystems software Desktop environments based on GTK Free desktop environments GNOME Software forks

Versions

OpenSolaris Desktop

Availability

See also

References

External links