How to manage multiple JVMs

[Joe Emenaker]

I browsed through the latest Debian Java Policy doc, but didn't see anything that looked like it addressed this problem, so I'll ask...   One of my clients has a web site that's visited by people with old browsers that don't really handle applets compiled by JDK 1.1 or higher. For this reason, I kinda have to keep JDK 1.0 around. However, I sometimes need JDK 1.1 for other projects.   As things stand now, I either have to keep them on separate machines or wrestle with the stuff in /etc/alternates.   On my Windows machines that I use, I have a couple of batch files that let me switch back and forth. I type "jdk10" and any subsequent "java", "appletviewer", or "javac" commands go to the JDK 1.0 installation. "jdk11" does the same for JDK 1.1.   It sure would be nice to be able to switch between these this easily on Debian. However, it would have to be on a per-user basis, so modifying things in /etc/alternatives doesn't really cut it.   Also, it would be nice if there was a file somewhere (like $HOME/.javarc or $HOME/classpaths) where one could specify paths and jars that they wanted included no matter what JVM they ran. After having to add about 7 or 8 items like "/usr/share/java/javax.activation.jar" to my classpath variable in .bash_profile AND .bashrc, you get a little sick of it. Another nifty thing would be if there were a directory where a user could put jars (or symlinks to them, of course) and the directory would be scanned and all jars would automatically be put in the classpath that gets passed to the JVM. So, for example, there could be a directory like $HOME/.java/jars that contained a few .jar files. The scripts that launch the JVMs could check that directory and add the paths to those jars to the classpath fed to the JVM.   What would be even *cooler* is if the user could change this directory with an environment variable. This way, someone could have multiple directories of jars all over the system that were for development on different projects. So, something like "JARPATH=$HOME/projects/foo/jars" or "JARPATH=$HOME/projects/bar/jars"   Is there going to be any development of the Debian Java Policy towards something like this?   - Joe