Maven by Example
2.1. Verify your Java Installation

While Maven can run on Java 1.4, this book assumes that you are running at least Java 5. Go with the most recent stable Java Development Kit (JDK) available for your operating system. Either Java 5 or Java 6 will work with all of the examples in this book.

% java -version
java version "1.5.0_16"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_16-b06-284)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_16-133, mixed mode, sharing)

Maven works with all certified Java™ compatible development kits, and a few non-certified implementations of Java. The examples in this book were written and tested against the official Java Development Kit releases downloaded from the Sun Microsystems web site. If you’re working with a Linux distribution, you may need to download Sun’s JDK yourself and make sure it’s the version you’re invoking (by running java -version). Now that Sun has open-sourced Java, this will hopefully improve in the future, and we’ll get the Sun JRE and JDK by default even in purist Linux distributions. Until that day, you may need to do some of your own downloading.