Install Java SDK6 to my EeePC

Recently I have bought a PDA phone HTC Hero which is running the Google Android platform 1.5. Although this system is Linux based, I found that there is no root access and is lacking some basic commands to hack the system in a teminal. After googling for a day, I found that I need to install the Android SDK to flash and downgrade the ROM to get root access. And one of the system requirements to install Android SDK is to have Sun Java JDK6 installed.

Installation of JDK6 has been discussed in length in this thread of the EeeUser Forum and as suggested by SublimePorte in post 65, I have worked out a much easier way to install from Debian package rather than compiling from source downloaded from Sun.

---

1) Add Debian "etch-backports" to your repositories source list

Open a terminal and edit /etc/apt/sources.list as root:

/home/user> sudo bash
eeepc-albkwan:/home/user> kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list &

Add this new entry for Debian "etch-backports" repositories:

deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ etch-backports main contrib non-free

Now update apt cache:

apt-get update

2) Now install sun-java6-jdk either with apt-get or its frontend synaptic. Here I did it in a terminal with the command apt-get:

eeepc-albkwan:/home/user> apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre
Suggested packages:
binfmt-support sun-java6-demo sun-java6-doc sun-java6-source sun-java6-plugin
ia32-sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts ttf-baekmuk ttf-unfonts ttf-unfonts-core
ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sazanami-gothic ttf-kochi-mincho ttf-sazanami-mincho ttf-arphic-uming
Recommended packages:
libnss-mdns gsfonts-x11
The following NEW packages will be installed:
sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 85 not upgraded.
Need to get 51.0MB of archives.
After unpacking 152MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

After installation has finished, you can verify if it is successful by checking current java version:

eeepc-albkwan:/home/user> java -version
java version "1.6.0_07"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_07-b06)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 10.0-b23, mixed mode, sharing)

---

With the unlimited Internet access through 3G and GPRS of my mobile phone network, I would like to set up WiFi or USB tethering of my EeePC to my HTC Hero to gain Internet access for my EeePC on the road. This is possible with the android-wifi-tether package, but the pre-requisite is to have "root" access.

On the other hand, while I am travelling aboard, it would also be good to have Ad hoc WiFi network from my EeePC as Wireless AP to my mobile phone (i.e. the reverse way) so as to save roaming charges. Of course, provided that the hotel have broadband Internet access (by LAN cable). This will also require "root" access. This something I need to work out next.