Unable to run Java GUI programs with Ubuntu

Question

I am learning GUI in Java, and for that I have created a demo program:

import java.awt.*;

public class FrameDemo extends Frame {

    public FrameDemo(){
        super("Frame Demo");
        setSize(200, 200);
        setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String args[]){
        new FrameDemo();    
    }
}

It was compiled successfully. But when I tried to execute the program, I found the following error:

Exception in thread "main" java.awt.HeadlessException
    at java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment.checkHeadless(GraphicsEnvironment.java:173)
    at java.awt.Window.<init>(Window.java:437)
    at java.awt.Frame.<init>(Frame.java:419)
    at FrameDemo.<init>(FrameDemo.java:4)
    at FrameDemo.main(FrameDemo.java:9)

I am using Xubuntu 10.10 and java -version gives:

java version "1.6.0_20"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.9.5) (6b20-1.9.5-0ubuntu1)
OpenJDK Client VM (build 19.0-b09, mixed mode, sharing)

What should I to do?

One more thing: It is the same sort of error I got when I tried to execute Dr. Java and HJSplit's jar file.

Answer 1

Ubuntu has the option to install a headless Java -- this means without graphics libraries. This wasn't always the case, but I encountered this while trying to run a Java text editor on 10.10 the other day. Run the following command to install a JDK that has these libraries:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk

EDIT: Actually, looking at my config, you might need the JRE. If that's the case, run:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre

Answer 2

I stopped getting this exception when I installed default-jdk using apt . I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr), and the problem appears to have been the result of having a "headless" Java installed. All I did was:

sudo apt-get install default-jdk

Answer 3

In my case

-Djava.awt.headless=true

was set (indirectly by a Maven configuration). I had to actively use

-Djava.awt.headless=false

to override this.

Answer 4

I too had OpenJDK on my Ubuntu machine:

$ java -version
java version "1.7.0_51"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 2.4.4) (7u51-2.4.4-0ubuntu0.13.04.2)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.45-b08, mixed mode)

Replacing OpenJDK with the HotSpot VM works fine:

sudo apt-get autoremove openjdk-7-jre-headless

How to install the JDK on Ubuntu (Linux)

Answer 5

使用“env”命令检查您的 X Window 环境变量。

Answer 6

Use JFrame instead of Frame. And do not extend from JFrame. Just write a class that has a JFrame property named gui , which configures this JFrame with the available methods, because it is better style doing it like this. Extending here is wrong the use of OOP.

Answer 7

Check what your environment variable DISPLAY's value is. Try running a simple X application from the command line. If it works, check DISPLAY's value for the right value.

You can experiment with different values of and environment variable on a per invocation basis by doing the following on the command line:

DISPLAY=:0.0 <your-java-executable-here>

How are you calling your program?

Answer 8

I would check with another Java implementation/vendor. Preferrably Oracle/Sun Java: http://www.java.com/en/ . The open-source implementations unfortunately differ in weird ways.

Answer 9

This command worked for me.

Sudo dnf install java-1.8.0-openjdk (Fedora)

Sudo apt-get install java-1.8.0-openjdk

Should work for Ubuntu.