Download J2SE 5.0 Release Candidate

Anonymous: 91916 told us that Sun has a new version of its Java 2 Runtime Environment Standard Edition, version 5.0 Release Candidate, ready for us. J2SE 5.0 is an important release for Sun with many updates and new features, but still remains compatible with older versions. The full release notes can be found on this one page, but here are a few for the highlights:

The development of J2SE 5.0 was led by Sun and progressed following the Java Community Process (JCP) to include input from a variety of constituents. Some highlights of J2SE 5.0:

• New language updates: Metadata, Generics, Enumerated types, Autoboxing or primitive types
• New JVM Monitoring and Management API
• Improved out-of-box performance New (but compatible) default Java look and feel[break]The following downloads are available:
  Windows Online Installation (221KB)
  Windows offline installation (13.9)
  Linux RPM file (15MB)
  Linux BIN file (16MB)
  Solaris SPARC 32-bit (19MB)
  Solaris SPARC 64-bit (8MB)
  Solaris x86 (14MB)
  Windows AMD64 (14MB)
  Linux AMD64 RPM file (15MB)
  Linux AMD64 BIN file (15MB)