Silicon Graphics, Inc.

New Features

The setenv commands given below assume that your command shell is csh or tcsh. If you are using a different shell, you will have to modify the commands accordingly.


MIPS n32 ABI

This release supports both the MIPS o32 and n32 ABI's; releases prior to 3.1 supported only o32. For a basic description of the MIPS ABI's, you can use the following command to refer to the man page for abi(5):

This release contains both o32 and n32 versions of the Java software, and both are installed by default; see Correctly Installing Java and Related Software.

SGI_ABI

To specify that the o32 or n32 version of any Java software should always be run, set the SGI_ABI environment variable in one of the following ways:

-o32 and -n32

The -o32 and -n32 command-line options can also be used, and they override the setting of the SGI_ABI environment variable. For example:

These options (and the thread package options, described below) must precede all other options on the command line.

All the tools in the JDK use n32 by default. To achieve the same behavior as in releases 3.0.1 and earlier (in terms of ABI), you must use the -o32 flag or set SGI_ABI appropriately. In both the command-line and environment variable cases, -32 is a synonym for -o32.

Choice of an ABI has further ramifications if you are using applications that contain native code (code written in C, C++, assembly language, etc., and then compiled into a DSO). If so, see our suggestions for setting up your environment to run Java correctly, particularly the section on LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_LIBRARYN32_PATH.

To support both ABI's, our distribution has additional lib32 and bin32 directories which are analogous to the familiar lib and bin directories; o32 components are under lib and bin, and n32 components are under lib32 and bin32.


Native Threads

The default Java threads package on IRIX is known as green threads. Green threads are user-level threads, implemented within a single Unix process, running on a single processor. This release allows the use of native threads (implemented using POSIX threads, or pthreads), therefore taking full advantage of multiprocessors when running your Java code.

Both green threads and native threads implementations are installed by default; see Correctly Installing Java and Related Software.

THREADS_FLAG

To specify that green threads or native threads should always be used when running Java software, set the THREADS_FLAG environment variable in one of the following ways:

-native and -green

The -native and -green command-line options can also be used, and they override the setting of the THREADS_FLAG environment variable. For example:

These options (and the ABI options, described above) must precede all other options on the command line.

All the tools in the JDK use green threads by default.

More technical information on native threads

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