Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool - like make, but without make's wrinkles. :-) Ant is extended using Java classes. The configuration files are XML-based, calling out a target tree where tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object that implements a Task interface. This package is using upstream's recommendation of ANT_HOME=/usr/share/ant apache-ant uses `javac` and friends to compile java projects. If you use the stock 'gcc-java' package, then you will need to export the JAVA_HOME environment variable, and make it point to the Java5 run-time provided by the GNU Compiler Collection, e.g.: export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm (for Slackware, 32-bit) or: export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib64/jvm (for Slackware64) If you need a more recent Java run-time, then any of the jdk or openjdk packages from slackbuilds.org will work just fine.