Starting Vassal in Linux

Technical Support & Bugs
1

Hi,
I am running Fedora 27 with Java 8 U151. After downloading the file, I went into the terminal and unpacked the file using the ‘tar’ command. It seemed like everything unzipped fine, but when I go to run the ‘VASSAL.sh’ file, nothing happens. The cursor blinks for a couple of seconds and then the prompt comes up again. I’m new to Linux and I don’t really know the terminal commands very well. So I don’t know if maybe there are other steps I missed or if it is something else.

Here are the contents of my ‘VASSAL.sh’ file (copied and pasted from the file):
#!/bin/sh

Execute this file to launch VASSAL on MacOS or Linux

Find absolute path where VASSAL is installed

INSTALL_DIR=$(cd “$(dirname “$0”)”; pwd)

Launch VASSSAL

java -Duser.dir="$INSTALL_DIR" -classpath “$INSTALL_DIR”/lib/Vengine.jar VASSAL.launch.ModuleManager “$@”

2

Thus spake cyberjockey via messages:

Hi,
I am running Fedora 27 with Java 8 U151. After downloading the file, I
went into the terminal and unpacked the file using the ‘tar’ command. It
seemed like everything unzipped fine, but when I go to run the
‘VASSAL.sh’ file, nothing happens. The cursor blinks for a couple of
seconds and then the prompt comes up again. I’m new to Linux and I don’t
really know the terminal commands very well. So I don’t know if maybe
there are other steps I missed or if it is something else.

Here are the contents of my ‘VASSAL.sh’ file (copied and pasted from the
file):
#!/bin/sh

Execute this file to launch VASSAL on MacOS or Linux

Find absolute path where VASSAL is installed

INSTALL_DIR=$(cd “$(dirname “$0”)”; pwd)

Launch VASSSAL

java -Duser.dir=“$INSTALL_DIR” -classpath “$INSTALL_DIR”/lib/Vengine.jar
VASSAL.launch.ModuleManager “$@”

My guess is that you have only headless Java installed, which lacks all
of the libraries for displaying anything graphically.

What’s the output when you run this in your terminal?

rpm -qa | grep openjdk

–
J.

3

This is what i get for output:
java-1.8.0-openjdk-headless-1.8.0.151-1.b12.fc27.x86_64 (copied and pasted from terminal screen)

4

Thus spake cyberjockey via messages:

This is what i get for output:
java-1.8.0-openjdk-headless-1.8.0.151-1.b12.fc27.x86_64 (copied and
pasted from terminal screen)

Yep, that’s your problem. You have only headless Java installed. The
package you need to install is called java-1.8.0-openjdk.

–
J.

5

That seemed to be the problem. I installed the Openjdk and Vassal is now working. Thanks for the help.