Compiling and running Java programs on Unix/Linux

To compile and run programs on Linux you have first to login into your account in linux.uwsuper.edu with your login and password provided by the instructor.

  1. Go to cs470 folder by entering the command cd cs470. Linux machine will respond with a different prompt as it is shown below:
    student@linux:~> cd cs470
    student@linux:~/cs470>

  2. To compile your program use instruction
    student@linux:~/cs470> javac Myfile.java (make sure to use .java extension)
    If the compilation is successful you will see no warnings on the screen. Just a new prompt appears in the line following the javac instruction. If the compiler finds an error, the number of the line in your source file containing the error will be displayed.

  3. After successful compilation of your program by using the javac command you will get file Myfile.class in the same directory. In order to run it enter the command
    student@linux:~/cs470> java Myfile (no .class extension)

    If your program hangs up type Ctrl-C to terminate it.

Some useful Unix/Linux commands

Unix as well as Windows is an operating system, and a number of very convenient text editors and window managers are designed for it. However, since we use just a remote access to Linux machine via a text interface, we have to type in all the shell commands.

Shell commandsComments
ls
cd Mydir
mkdir dir_name
rmdir dir_name
rm file_name
cp old_file new_file
mv ol_file new_file
vi file_name
joe file_name
nedit filename
less filename 		list files in current directory
go to subfolder Mydir
make new folder dir
delete (empty only) folder dir
delete file file_name
copy old_file to new_file
rename old_file to new_file
edit file with vi editor
edit file with joe editor
edit file with nedit editor (in graphics mode only)
open file only for reading

For more information refer to Linux tutorial for beginners