The Java Tutorials have been written for JDK 8. Examples and practices described in this page don't take advantage of improvements introduced in later releases and might use technology no longer available.
See Java Language Changes for a summary of updated language features in Java SE 9 and subsequent releases.
See JDK Release Notes for information about new features, enhancements, and removed or deprecated options for all JDK releases.
The Java Development Kit (JDK) is required to compile and package your application. The installable bundle must be created on the platform on which the self-contained application will run. For example, if your application runs on Windows and Linux, you must run the packaging tool on Windows to create a .exe or .msi bundle, and run the packaging tool on Linux to create a .rpm or .deb file.
Third party tools are required to create the installable bundle. The following table identifies the tools for each supported platform.
| Platform | Format | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | EXE | Inno Setup 5 or later |
| Windows | MSI | WiX Toolset 3.8 or later |
| Linux | RPM | RPMBuild |
| Linux | DEB | Debian packaging tools |
| OS X | DMG | |
| OS X | PKG |