Cannot run *Tools with Ubuntu. Help?

[Remote.DM]

I put this in general, because it happens with ALL of the tools, instead of a specific one (which has its own board).

I need to prep for a game on my laptop, at the very least. Maybe even run off my laptop. Unfortunately, I'm on Ubuntu 14.04, and none of the tools want to work.

Going to the Launch page prompts me that <filename>.jnlp is something Firefox needs to be told what to do with it: open with <program> or <save file>. Clicking "open file" generates a new tab, which prompts me that it's opening <filename>.jnlp, and "What should Firefox do with this file?" and the process loops infinitely. If I save the file, and attempt to run it (per the directions on the launch page), the same thing happens then, as well.

Downloading the jar from the site means that when I double-click the file to open it, it opens a new window displaying everything in the jar.

Linux was not my choice, but it's one of the reasons my laptop is even alive right now. I honestly know very little about how to use it as an OS, but the promise of being able to run maptools straight from my browser made me happy, until it didn't work... I tried searching the forums before signing up, and only came up with some really old threads that didn't address my problem.

Can anyone give me a hand solving my open source ineptitude issues?

[d4rkAlf]

Are you comfortable using a terminal? If so then try running the following command from the same folder as "maptool-1.3.b91.jar". (Make sure to type the exact name of the file that you are actually using. Note that Linux is case sensitive.)

Code: Select all

java -jar maptool-1.3.b91.jar

[Remote.DM]

Terminal told me I needed to apt-get any of a number of packages with java in it. I installed default-jre.jar the way it prompted me to, and then I ran your command.

I'm looking at a running version of maptools.

You're awesome.

...I will probably be talking to you many, many more times in the future.

<_<

>_>

v_v

[d4rkAlf]

Terminal told me I needed to apt-get any of a number of packages with java in it. I installed default-jre.jar the way it prompted me to, and then I ran your command.

I'm looking at a running version of maptools.

You're awesome.

...I will probably be talking to you many, many more times in the future.

<_<

>_>

v_v

Haha, thank you! I'm just happy that I could help you.

Jar files are (as their name suggests) just containers for everything Java needs to run a particular program. So unless your PC knows this it will just open up the container so that you can view its contents. That's why you got the original behaviour.

From your reply it seems that Java maybe wasn't installed already. I've read that during installation it will be set up so that in the future when you double-click a jar file it will execute the program instead of opening the container. You could try that in case you prefer starting Maptool that way.

And don't worry about running Ubuntu on your laptop. I haven't tried recent versions of it, but the Linux eco-system in general is pretty amazing. The biggest hurdle for me when trying Ubuntu for the first time was that I didn't realize that it truly is a completely different operating system with its own idioms.