Installing JavaMint on MacOS

Here are some quick instructions on how to download and install Java Mint.

MacOS

1. You need to have Java 6 installed.
   
   Note: If you have a 32-bit Mac that does not have an Apple version of Java 6, you can use SoyLatte. Please install it in /usr/local/soylatte, i.e. the Java compiler should be /usr/local/soylatte/bin/javac.


2. Download the "binaries only" Java Mint zip file from the Java Mint implementation page. In this example, I have saved the file on my desktop, i.e. at /Users/mgricken/Desktop.
   
3. Open a console.
4. Change into the /usr/local directory:
   cd /usr/local
5. Unzip it as root. This means you have to type in your password:
   sudo unzip /Users/mgricken/Desktop/JavaMint-r13871-binaries.zip
6. Set the MINT_HOME and PATH environment variables:
   export MINT_HOME=/usr/local/JavaMint
export PATH=$PATH:$MINT_HOME/langtools/bin
7. To make this permanent, edit your .bash_profile or .bashrc file and put the two lines from step 6 line at the end of the file.

Now you can compile programs using mintc and run them using mint.

mintc Power.java

mint Power

There are samples in the /usr/local/JavaMint/langtools/mintTest directory. You cannot compile them there, however, because the directory is read-only unless you are the root user. So unzip the Java Mint implementation zip file somewhere else, e.g. in your Documents directory.

The easiest way to experiment with Mint is to download DrJava with Mint. Here are more instructions on how to run DrJava with Mint.

Note: If you are using SoyLatte as your Java 6, please start DrJava with Mint from inside an X11 terminal window.