I want to set an fsc process running on a box that I can then access remotely.
I understand I need to share a temp directory.
However, I'm struggling to even get it going on my laptop.
I'm trying:
fsc -Djava.io.tmpdir=/tempscala -server 127.0.0.1:8080
but it just gives me the usage options...
Help?
I think you're mis-understanding what fsc does. fsc starts a daemon process which stays alive between calls to compile, so it doesn't have to do all the initializing work each time. You can't actually run the compile on a completely separate box unless you have a shared file system.
As Jeha says, you should specify a temp directory with -D, then the scala files you wish to compile (this is why you're getting the usage instructions - it's missing a vital piece of information).
You also need to drop the -server, as fsc picks the port it's going to run on, and tells you it the first time you run it. You'll see lines something like this:
Then, when you want to recompile, you just call the same command again (still no need to specify server ports), then finally when you're done run
fsc -shutdown
see here for the man pages