Running Alice from source

Hi,
I'm having trouble running Alice from source. I'm running Mac OS X and Eclipse.

I downloaded the source code for Alice and set up a project in Eclipse. I got the "Contents" folder out of the disk image and placed all the required .jar files on the classpath. The project builds without errors, but when I run the program the spash screen with the Alice picture comes up and then nothing else. Messages written to the console are paste below.
I searched on the message "*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for" online and I think that it has something to do with the jython cachedir. I found such a folder in the jython folder provided with Alice but I have no idea what to do with it. Can someone please tell me what to do?

Help greatly appreciated!

Kristina


attempting to register mp3 capability...
Registered succesfully
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/CoreAudio.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/CoreAudio.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/dns_sd.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/dns_sd.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/j3daudio.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/j3daudio.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/j3dcore.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/j3dcore.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/j3dutils.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/j3dutils.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/jai_codec.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/jai_codec.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/jai_core.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/jai_core.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/mlibwrapper_jai.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/mlibwrapper_jai.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/MRJToolkit.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/MRJToolkit.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/QTJava.zip'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/QTJava.zip'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/QTJSupport.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/QTJSupport.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: processing modified jar, '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/vecmath.jar'
*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for '/System/Library/Java/Extensions/vecmath.jar'

Originally Posted by kwin

Hi,
I'm having trouble running Alice from source. I'm running Mac OS X and Eclipse.

I downloaded the source code for Alice and set up a project in Eclipse. I got the "Contents" folder out of the disk image and placed all the required .jar files on the classpath. The project builds without errors, but when I run the program the spash screen with the Alice picture comes up and then nothing else. Messages written to the console are paste below.
I searched on the message "*sys-package-mgr*: can't write cache file for" online and I think that it has something to do with the jython cachedir. I found such a folder in the jython folder provided with Alice but I have no idea what to do with it. Can someone please tell me what to do?

Help greatly appreciated!

Kristina

Hello Kristina,

To begin with, I probably can't help you solve your problem because I know absolutely nothing about a MAC OS.

However, your posting has captured my interest, particularly with regard to the possible difference in installation requirements between a MAC OS and Win/XP.

You mentioned that you extracted the jar files, put them on the classpath, did a build, etc. The thing that interests me is that the procedure you described is completely alien to the installation of Alice on a Win/XP system. I'm wondering if installation on a MAC is so much different.

On a Win/XP system, there is really no "installation" in a "windows installation" sense and no builds or compilations are required, unless they happen automatically the first time you load and run the software. Also, although I'm not certain, I don't believe that Alice on Win/XP has any involvement with the classpath.

On XP, all you have to do to "install" Alice is extract the folders and files from the file named Alice.zip into a folder somewhere on your disk. You can even extract them to an external USB memory stick if it has sufficient capacity, and you can later run alice from the memory stick.

Also, I'm almost certain that there is no requirement for you to have any Java software installed on the machine for Alice to run successfully under Win/XP. All of the Java software that is required is included in the folder at C:\...\Alice\Required\jre1.3.1_10_win32 that is extracted from the file named Alice.zip.

Is there a possibility that installation of Alice on a MAC is more similar to installation on a Win/XP machine and that you may not need to build from Java source code after all?

Just curious,
Dick Baldwin
http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm

Hi Dick,

Thanks for your response. I guess I need to clarify my problem a bit.

I can run the executable version of Alice without any problem. Like you said it does not need installation or classpath variables.

However, I am interested in altering the code based to solve a different research problem, a problem in software engineering, which is why I was trying to build it from source.

I still haven't figured out how to do this... So please if anyone has ideas

Kristina