README

NetBeans IDE 3.2.1

Contents
System Requirements
MS Windows, Solaris, Linux, OS/2, OpenVMS, MacOS X, other platforms
Installation
Startup Parameters
Upgrading from Previous Versions
Known Problems
When You Need Help
Welcome to NetBeans IDE version 3.2.1, a modular, standards-based integrated development environment (IDE), written in Java. It currently has support for Java, but its architecture lends itself to supporting other languages as well.

This README gives you the basic information to help you install and run the IDE.

System Requirements

MS Windows platforms

Hardware

Minimum configuration: Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT with a P133 processor, 64 megabytes of RAM, and 40 megabytes of disk space.
Recommended configuration: Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT with a P300 processor and 128 Mbytes of RAM.
Optimal configuration: Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT with a P300 processor and 192 Mbytes of RAM.

Note: If you have 64 Mbytes, you should set the configuration file (ide.cfg) startup flag to -Xmx48m.

Software

NetBeans requires a Java 2-compatible JVM. The Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, for the Windows environment is available for download from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download-windows.html (v. 1.3 Production Release) and http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/ (v. 1.2.2_005).

Solaris platform

Hardware

When running on the Solaris platform, you should have at least 40 Mbytes of free disk space.

Minimum configuration: SparcStation 5: 170 MHz, 128 Mbytes of RAM, 16 Mbytes.
Recommended configuration: UltraSPARC 5: 333 MHz, 256 Mbytes of RAM.
Optimal configuration: UltraSPARC 10: 440 MHz, 512 Mbytes of RAM.

Software

NetBeans requires the Java 2 SDK, v. 1.3 for the Solaris environment. The latest SDK is available for download from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download-solaris.html.

Linux platform

The Linux JVM is more resource-intensive, so Linux users may want to have a higher memory configuration.

The latest SDK is available for download from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download-linux.html.

OS/2 platform

Hardware

Minimum, recommended and optimal hardware configuration should be similar to the MS Windows platform requirements.

Software

The JDK for OS/2 ships with the operating system or it can be obtained at: http://service.boulder.ibm.com/asd-bin/doc/en_us/catalog.htm.

OpenVMS platform

Hardware

Minimum configuration: OpenVMS 7.2-1 or later with at least a 500MHz Alpha processor, 128 megabytes of RAM, and 75,000 blocks of disk space.
Recommended configuration: OpenVMS 7.2-1 or later, 667MHz Alpha processor, 256 megabytes of RAM.

Software

NetBeans requires a Java 2-compatible JVM. The Java 2 1.3.0 SDK, Standard Edition, for the OpenVMS Alpha environment is available for download from http://www.compaq.com/java/alpha/index.html
The Java 2 FastVM 1.3.0-beta or later for the OpenVMS Alpha environment is also required and available at http://www.compaq.com/java/alpha/index.html

MacOS X

Hardware

At least 128MB RAM (the min required for MacOS X). 256MB is recommended.

Software

Please see the Installation section for information about specifics of MacOS X installation.

Other platforms

Since NetBeans is written in pure Java, it should run on any working implementation of Java(TM) 2 SDK, Standard Edition. People have reported success running the IDE on other platforms as well, but we don't have specific numbers to give you here.

Installation

For all platforms you can download the .zip or the .tar.gz archive file and unpack it on the hard disk using your favorite tool. Then you must customize the startup parameters to tell the IDE where to find the JDK. Please read the section below for details.

On Microsoft Windows platforms you can download and run an .exe point-and-click installer, which will guide you through the required steps.

On OpenVMS

On MacOS X

Startup Parameters

The IDE is run by a launcher. There are several variants of it for Microsoft Windows and UNIX platforms. The launchers are placed in the bin subdirectory of the installation directory.

For UNIX, the Bourne shell script runide.sh is the launcher.
For Microsoft Windows,.EXE executables, runide.exe and runidew.exe, are the launchers. (The runide.exe is Microsoft Windows console applications. When run, a console opens on the desktop with stderr and stdout output from the Java program. You can type Ctrl-Break to get the thread dump, or type Ctrl-C to quit the whole program. The file, runidew.exe is window application. Otherwise it works exactly the same way. This is similar to java.exe and javaw.exe.)
For OS/2 runideos2.cmd is the launcher.
For OpenVMS runideopenvms.com is the launcher.

The launcher loads the JVM (1.2 or compatible), builds the IDE's classpath, passes it along with some default parameters to the JVM, and lets the JVM launch the Java application. It also restarts the IDE after an auto update. You can specify additional options:

-h
-help
prints usage
-jdkhome jdk_home_dir
use the specified JDK version instead of the default one. By default the loader looks into the Windows registry and uses the latest JDK available.

-hotspot
-server
-client
-classic
explitcitly specifies the JVM variant to be used

-cp:p additional_classpath
prepends the specified classpath onto the IDE's classpath

-cp:a additional_classpath
-cp additional_classpath
appends the specified classpath to the IDE's classpath

-Jjvm_flags
passes specified flags directly to the JVM

-ui UI_class_name
use a given class as the IDE's LookAndFeel
-fontsize size
use a given size in points as the font size for the IDE user interface
-locale language[:country[:variant]]
use specified locale
-userdir userdir
explicitly specifies the userdir which is the location where user settings are stored. If this option is not used on UNIX the location is ${HOME}/nbuser32, on Windows the launcher will asks the user to specify the userdir and stores the value in the registry for later use.

On UNIX you can modify the shell scripts yourserlf to suit your needs.

On Microsoft Windows options can also be put in the file ${IDE_HOME>/bin/ide.cfg. The .EXE launcher tries to read this file before it starts parsing the command line options. In the ide.cfg file you can break the options into multiple lines.

Upgrading from Previous Versions

You can use the Settings Import Wizard which is launched automatically on th first start of the IDE to import settings from NetBeans 3.1.

If you used multiuser installation for previous version of the IDE please use the -userdir userdir switch described in the Startup Parameters section to point the launcher to your user directory. This will import your settings automatically.

Known Problems

When You Need Help

The What's New document, in the installation directory, contains the list of new features and information especially useful to users who upgrade from an older version of the IDE. To browse the online help documentation, run the IDE, go to the Help menu and choose Contents.

There is extensive information on the NetBeans project website, http://www.netbeans.org/. Included on the website are a FAQ and instructions on how to subscribe to mailing lists where you can post questions, comments, or help others.

As NetBeans is an OpenSource project you can get access to the source code, bug tracking system etc. on http://www.netbeans.org/.