Prerequisite requirements for the information center

When you set up the IBM® Eclipse help system, you need to make sure that your workstation, operation system, browser, and hardware meet the requirements described in this topic.

Browser requirements

To work with the IBM Eclipse Help System, you need to install Microsoft® Internet Explorer Version 6.0 or 7.0, or Firefox 2.0 or 3.0. To ensure that all the functions of this version of the IBM Eclipse Help System are usable, you need to enable cookies and JavaScript™ in the browser and disable the browser's function of blocking pop-up windows.

Operating system environment requirements

To work with the IBM Eclipse Help System, you need to install a Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) version 6.0. See the following table for detailed requirements.

Table 1. Operating system environment requirements
IBM Eclipse Help System version operating systems Operating system and JRE requirements
IBM Eclipse Help System for Microsoft Windows® 32-bit
  • Windows XP Professional Intel 32-bit
  • Windows Vista Business Intel 32-bit
  • This version of the IBM Eclipse Help System includes an embedded IBM JRE. You can remove it from the package if you do not want to use the embedded JRE. You must have JRE 6.0 installed on your system to run the IBM Eclipse Help System.
IBM Eclipse Help System for Linux®
  • Red Hat Linux Enterprise 5 Intel®32-bit
  • This version of the IBM Eclipse Help System includes an embedded IBM JRE. You can remove it from the package if you do not want to use the embedded JRE. You must have JRE 6.0 on your system to run the IBM Eclipse Help System.
  • On these operating systems, you can use the help system in the base mode through the Konqueror browser.
  • To display bi-directional characters, double-byte characters, or multi-byte characters in the help system, install the corresponding font on the system and set the font as the browser's display font.
  • To support multiple languages, set the system locale to UTF-8 before starting the help system.
IBM Eclipse Help System for AIX®
  • AIX 5.3 PPC 64-bit
  • This version of the IBM Eclipse Help System includes an embedded IBM JRE. You can remove it from the package if you do not want to use the embedded JRE. You must have JRE 6.0 installed on your system to run the IBM Eclipse Help System.

Hardware requirements

z/OS®

To run the IBM Eclipse Help System on z/OS, you must make sure that z/OS meets the requirements of real memory size and REGION size.

Other operating systems

The minimum memory needed is 128 MB RAM. 256 MB or more is recommended.

Note: You need to increase the memory according to the size of the documentation plug-ins. For example, if the size of the documentation plug-in is 100 MB, add at least 80 MB of additional RAM.

Supported customization

You can configure the help system by using the org.eclipse.help.base_<version number>/preferences.ini file under the eclipse/plugins directory, though it is suggested that you use the default configuration. For detailed information about customizing your help system by using the preferences.ini file.

Do not modify the following parameters; otherwise the help system might not work properly:

always_external_browser
For Microsoft Windows operating systems, the default configuration of this parameter is always_external_browser=true. When you start the help system in the stand-alone mode, this setting helps you open the default browser of the operating system instead of the browser embedded in the help system. You do not need to set always_external_browser=true for operating systems other than Windows.