On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 18:39, Jan Schulz wrote: > On package system level, it isn't a problem. It becomes a problem, > when you have alternatives. I have a VM, which provides java.net and > java2-runtime-1.4 and another VM, which provides java.nio and > java2-runtime-1.4. Now we have Program, which Depends on nio *and* > net and jre1.4. apt will install both VMs and the program will call > /usr/bin/java-1.4 and will think that everything should work. And it > will not, as on of the java packages is not in the classpath. > > Therefore we need alternatives for each combination of virtual packages: > VM -> Provides: net, nio > -> provides alternatives for java-nio, java-net and java-nio-net > > Even if you could setup the bootclasspath in your packages, this > wouldn't work, as this would mean, that we have to seperate the > rt.jar of the bigger VMs. This would break for example every IDE > out there.
Why is there a one-to-one relationship with provides/depends and alternatives? You can certainly have: foojvm: provides: java.net, java.io, java.awt /usr/share/java/rt.jar -> /etc/alternatives/rt.jar -> /usr/share/foojvm/rt.jar barjvm: provides: java.net, java.io, java.nio /usr/share/java/rt.jar -> /etc/alternatives/rt.jar -> /usr/share/barjvm/rt.jar But having a single definative java and a single definative base class jar seems to imply conflicts between VMs. It doesn't have to be that way. Its not even clear to me that the /etc/alternatives approach even works for Java. Base rt.jar alternatives don't really seem that desirable to me. How often does Debian have packages that depend on a group of other packages that provide partial and competing support for the same standards? I know GTK has similar problems but at least it only has version problems rather than DebianGTK -vs- XimianGTK. > The other thing is, that IMO noone wants to run tomcat under full load > on a JVM, which doesn't do any JIT compilation. This is real world, > too... A. Kaffe has a JIT compiler. B. It doesn't matter what proprietary software provides. This is Debian. -- _____________________________________________________________________ Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com