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

legacy Legacy or Legacies may refer to: Arts and entertainment Comics * " Batman: Legacy", a 1996 Batman storyline * '' DC Universe: Legacies'', a comic book series from DC Comics * ''Legacy'', a 1999 quarterly series from Antarctic Press * ''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 graphi ...

developed first by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

and then by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

after the 2010 Oracle acquisition of Sun. Java Desktop System is available for Solaris and was once available for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

. The Linux version was discontinued after Solaris was released as

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

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 painting ...

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 paintin ...

, a

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

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. Rather, it is built around a modified version of

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

along with other common free software projects, which are written mostly in C and C++. The name reflected Sun's promotion of the product as an outlet for corporate users to deploy software written for the

Java platform Java is a set of computer software and specifications that provides a software platform for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms fr ...

Versions

JDS was originally made available via a titular "operating environment", which was a custom

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based upon

SUSE Linux openSUSE () is a free and open-source Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. It is offered in two main variations: ''Tumbleweed'', an upstream rolling release distribution, and ''Leap'', a stable release distribution which is so ...

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

(using the Blueprint theme) * StarOffice *

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

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* MP3 and CD player * Java Media Framework's Java Media Player * Gaim multi-service instant messaging *

RealPlayer RealPlayer, formerly RealAudio Player, RealOne Player and RealPlayer G2, is a cross-platform media player (software), media player app, developed by RealNetworks. The media player is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multimed ...

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 Oracle VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and InnoTek VirtualBox) is a hosted hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH, which was ac ...

. 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 2003 software

Versions

OpenSolaris Desktop

Availability

See also

References

External links