FC4 / java / bin files

Rich Stanford rich at stanfordsystems.org
Wed Jul 20 01:30:00 UTC 2005


On Tuesday 19 July 2005 2:48 pm, Paul Howarth wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 10:56 -0700, Kam Leo wrote:
> > On 7/19/05, Robert Locke <lists at ralii.com> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 14:09 -0300, Ted Gervais wrote:
> > > > I am trying to get java working in fc4 and in particular version 1.5.
> > > > I downloaded this file:
> > > >
> > > > jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586-rpm.bin
> > > >
> > > > And thought I could 'run' that file to produce an RPM file. From
> > > > there, I should have been able to install it.
> > > >
> > > > No luck.
> > > >
> > > > Where have I gone wrong?
> > >
> > > First, you haven't read the release notes for FC4 that explicitly said
> > > not to use the RPM from Sun....
> > >
> > > Second, take a look at www.fedoranews.org as there have been a couple
> > > of articles over there about getting Java installed in FC4....
> > >
> > > Good luck,
> > >
> > > --Rob
> >
> > There is nothing wrong with using Sun's Java software on Linux.  You
> > can go with either the JPackage route or use Sun's product(s).
>
> If you use Sun's RPM you may find that it gets uninstalled at a later
> date because it gets replaced by a Fedora package - this is because Sun
> specify the "provides" for their package differently to everyone else,
> and this is what is alluded to in the FC4 release notes. That's why the
> JPackage route is better than just installing Sun's RPM.
>
> Paul.
> --
> Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>

I have to do development utilizing, currently, two different versions of Java.   
In order to facilitate this, I do not do installs using the RPM.  Instead, I 
download the JDK from Sun and install it (as root) in /usr/local.  (This 
method will work with other JDK's)  I then create a symbolic link which 
points to the version of Java I want to use:

ln -s /usr/local/jdk1.5.0 /usr/local/java

I then make a couple of entries in my .bash_profile file in my home directory:

JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java

PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:"$PATH
export JAVA_HOME PATH

Note that the reference to JAVA_HOME has to come first in your PATH statement.  
Then, later, if I need to change versions of Java, I change the symbolic link 
in the /usr/local directory.  The change is instantaneous, and allows you to 
experiment with different java versions.

Later,

Rich





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