Getting the SDK 1.3SE

You can download the SDK 1.3SE right off the Sun's Web site (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/). You will have to decide which version you need, because there are three versions that you can download depending on which platform you plan to do your development on. Although Java code is portable, the development tools take advantage of the underlying platform that the code is being developed and run on for performance and other requirements. The download sizes are large, so make sure you have a decent Internet connection and free disk space for the download. Table A.1 shows the size of the download files for each of the platforms available.

Table A.1. SDK 1.3 Download Sizes per Platform

Platform	Download Size
Windows	~30MB
Linux	~40MB
Solaris(SPARC)	~36MB
Solaris(Intel)	~34MB

These files are large, but get even larger when installed. For example, the size of the Windows installation is approximately 150MB, so make sure that you have enough free disk space to download and install.

Caution

At the time of this writing, the Linux version of the Java 2 SDK version 1.3 is only available as a release candidate. The general release is expected before the end of the year assuming the release candidate goes well. This is important if you plan to use the 1.3 version in production applications.

If your Internet connection is limited, certain platforms allow you to split up the download into smaller chunks of the much larger installation file. For example, the Windows version allows you to download multiple files a few at a time; each file is 1.44MB or less. This will help in case you don't have time to sit and wait for 30MB to download. Besides, some Internet service providers (ISP) terminate connections after a certain time has elapsed, so this might be your only hope.

Unfortunately, if you want the documentation (which most do), you must download and install it separately. You can find these downloads at the following URL:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs.html

Caution

When installing the documentation, make sure you specify the root directory of where you installed the SDK. If you put the documentation somewhere else, the URL links in the documentation might not work.

Note

Make sure you download the full version of the SDK (SDK 1.3SE) and not just the runtime version (J2RE 1.3). The runtime version does not contain the development tools.