Hallo Ean, * Ean Schuessler wrote: >> After having this discussion, because they are not 'similar enough' to >> rely on the alternative system. >Well, they *could be* similar enough if we specify exactly what Debian >expects a JAVA_HOME setup to provide.
It's not the java.home or anything else. That's only important for apps like ant, which rely on java.home/bin/javadoc and such thing. The problems are: * different commandline option. Try -Xm256mb or the JIT options with different VMs... * different API level: are the XML/whatever APIs available with every VM? * is this special feature actually implemented? Read the mails from proposal one to three, where this was discussed and the conclusion was, that you can't even rely on sun derived VMs to be that similar, that it works. The problem is, that you also can't version this things: virtual packages don't have versions, and if you need a new virtual package or bin/java-version every time, you end up with hundreds... >The packages of those special VMs would need to provide wrappers that >adapt their behavior to the Debian JAVA_HOME standard. Also, the 'JAVA_HOME standard' does not exist, as the only thing which defined it is the sun layout. And even IBM does it diffrently with 'put all jni headers into $JAVA_HOME/include'. >> Consider: kaffe, sunVM, sablevm and gij. User has installed kaffe and >> gij, the alternative system has put gij as /usr/bin/java. App runs on >> kaffe and sunVM. App calls /usr/bin/java (or /usr/lib/jre/bin/java). >> Crash... >Tell me again how findjava fixes that problem? The fix is more that you don't call any alternative managed app, but the VM directly. for vm in /usr/bin/kaffe /usr/lib/j2sdk/1.4/bin/java ... ; do if [ -x $vm ] JAVACMD="$vm" break fi done if [ ! -x "$vm" ] echo "No Java Virtual Maschine found, abort... exit 1 fi findjava takes this aproach and puts a level of abstraction inbetween (the package names of the VM) and factors this code into one place: the findjava script. It also makes it possible to choose one default VM, which should be used, if this VM is 'known working'. For more information, please read the discussion from the 3 Proposal up to now, which helds all the arguments about this. Also, the implementation is at www.katzien.de/debian/java/. Jan -- Jan Schulz [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm." -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]