[Live-demo] Where should JAVA_HOME be set (if overriding default=openjdk 1.7)?

[Cameron Shorter]

Edgar, Hamish,
For the upcoming osgeo-live 5.5, I suggest that we install both openjdk7 
and sun-java6, with the default java being sun-java6.

Hamish,
My reasoning for introducing openjdk now rather than wait till next 
release is to spread to migration workload between two release. I'm 
expecting there  may be teething problems for some projects with 
switching to openjdk (as stated already), however other projects have 
already noted that their application is working with openjdk.

By splitting the java migration between two releases, we hopefully 
should be able to build up experience with the early adopter projects in 
osgeolive5.5, then draw upon that experience when migrating the others 
in osgeolive6.0.

I wonder whether it would be possible to set up a little gui widget 
which switches the JAVA_HOME between openjdk and sun-java. This could be 
used by testers to turn on openjdk and find out if applications work or not.

On 13/01/12 08:53, Hamish wrote:
> edgar.soldin wrote:
>> we should also take care that the default java
>> binary in path points to the new default. this is
>> how openjump finds its jdk. does
>> /etc/alternatives/java point to openjdk7?

/etc/alternatives/java currently links to 
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java

> it's probably a good idea to explicitly run
> `update-alternatives` in the install_java script
> so that the result is clear.
To be clear, I'm suggesting that we keep sun-java as the default for the 
next release.
>
>
>> easiest solution i see is: as all projects set up
>> symlinks in /usr/bin they can as well put a
>> wrapper script there instead which fixes the
>> environment (JAVA_HOME,PATH) and runs the
>> launcher.
> as a rule, custom things go into /usr/local/bin
> not /usr/bin.
> a number of things (I'm mostly thinking about
> tomcat here, but..) already start with wrapper
> scripts, so it's not a big deal to continue on with
> that.
>
> do we have a list of projects which will not work
> with the openjdk packages available? how big is
> the problem?
It seems that the geotools based projects are reluctant to move at this 
point. This includes a couple of our cornerstone projects like GeoServer 
and GeoNetwork. We have heard concerns about UDig to.

I expect ~ 1/2 the java projects will be ready to move to openjdk for 
5.5, half will need to wait till 6.0.


>
> not using the ubuntu packaged version of that (or
> anything..) requires extraordinary justification.
> (e.g. so `update-alternatives` etc still works...)
>
> for 5.5 can we just continue with the sun packages
> and put off worrying about openjdk for 6 months?
See above, however I am open to this suggestion.
>
>
> Hamish
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-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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