Java problem

[Les Mikesell]

Craig White wrote:

> ----
> openNMS isn't packaged or distributed with Fedora is it?

No, I'm not interested in being restricted to the subset of programs 
that are included in a distribution.  Are you?

> ----
>>> not if you run
>>> alternatives --config java # and set it to Sun's installation
>> But it doesn't work with Sun's RPM, which my point.
> ----
> it doesn't? It has worked for me on Fedora 7/8 CentOS 5 and RHEL 5
> 
> I must be lucky then.
> ----

It's more than luck.  It's a miracle if that happened after just 
installing Sun's RPM.

> ----
>>  And RedHat does for their 
>> paying up2date customers, while still claiming they "can't" redistribute 
>> for fedora users: http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2007-0582.html
> ----
> but that is on a separate CD and isn't installed by anaconda. It's no
> different than you can download directly from Sun and it isn't even the
> current version
> ----

Ummm, somehow I'd expect a package named 
java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.13-1jpp.1.el5.i586.rpm to have the jpackage style 
additions that RH makes necessary instead of being the stock Sun rpm.

> seriously though, java just hasn't been a problem for me and I've been
> fooling with it quite a bit lately with Alfresco, docbook-XSL and even
> managed to implement ruby-java-bridge for ongoing Ruby on Rails
> development.

It's not completely impossible to make it work but not trivial and I 
think you have to admit that you aren't an average user.

> ----
>> The only straightfoward way I've found is the yummable version at the 
>> opennms site, with dropping the sun binary under /usr/java and replacing 
>> every shred of the alternatives system you can find with direct symlinks 
>> as a distant second.
> ----
> again...opennms is not a fedora/redhat package so it's pre-requisites
> are not of fedora packaging concerns.

Yes, that's a generic complaint that the packagers don't give a crap if 
anyone else's stuff works or about cooperating with anyone else.  Your 
comment seems to imply that should be assumed and accepted.

> Do you really run opennms on a
> Fedora system anyway? I thought you were more inclined to install stuff
> like this on an 'Enterprise' type server.

No, but historically if something is broken in fedora, it will be 
equally broken for the next 7 years when the RH cut happens.  They fixed 
the brokenness after the fact in RHEL5 with the package I pointed out, 
but CentOS doesn't carry it and fedora users don't get it.


> I just looked at the openNMS site and it appears that java isn't
> included in openNMS packages so you still have to manage a separate
> install.

You can install it separately if you want, but their yum repository 
includes the jdk.  Click/install the appropriate yum config from
http://yum.opennms.org/ (you'll want the 'unstable' version). Then 'yum 
install opennms' to get everything and you are up to the 'Configure 
OpenNMS' heading on http://www.opennms.org/index.php/Installation:Yum.

A few minutes compared to several weeks of looking for jpackage'd SUN 
instructions before that - Oh, and the CentOS5 tomcat didn't work with 
the Sun JDK until an update a few months after release because the jars 
were built with the broken included java - apparently RH fixed theirs 
somewhat earlier but Centos didn't catch it.  This version doesn't need 
tomcat but the earlier ones did.

> By the way, I've been using Zenoss which appears to be similar to
> OpenNMS...have you any comparison to offer?

Haven't used Zenoss, but OpenNMS compares favorably to anything I've 
ever seen in terms of autodiscovery and assuming that you have enough 
machines that you don't want to see them all on the screen at once. It 
auto-discovers services and notifies you when they stop, and graphs 
interface/cpu/memory/disk SNMP values with sensible defaults. 
Considering the huge framework underneath it, I'm impressed by the 
current rapid development without breaking anything.  As an example of 
what it can do, if you enable link discovery and have snmp on your 
switches it will show what devices are connected to each switch port. 
It can do maps, but that's not a real strong point.  It's better at 
consolidating the problems on a viewable screen and doing notifications 
on errors and thresholds.  It's weak link is that some of the 
configuration still has to be done by editing xml files although each 
revision moves more control into the web interface.  I'm also impressed 
by the ability to grab the svn source and rebuild a trunk snapshot with 
the build script pulling in all of the components you need.

> ----
>> I think its amusing that Linux browser plugins haven't worked for so 
>> long, yet it is so highly touted.
> ----
> which ones don't work for you? That hasn't been an issue for me

64 bit java and flash (both are supposed to work in Solaris), and 
probably others.

> ----
>> I had hoped that Nexenta was going to give us the perfect combination of 
>> OpenSolaris with zfs and an up to date Ubuntu based userland, but the 
>> team seems to have gotten sidetracked building a commercial file server 
>> appliance first.  Maybe Apple will get their zfs out soon.
> ----
> begin holding your breath now. When Apple does get around to releasing
> something like this, it should only take a few updates to actually get
> it to work as they seem stuck in a perpetual beta loop. Apple
> continually ships broken software - i.e. Back to My Mac
> http://db.tidbits.com/article/9346 / Quicktime which has had a horrible
> year wrt security issues and on and on.

So which one is perfect? There's nothing particularly mac-specific in 
the problems of connecting inbound through NAT routers. At least Apple 
doesn't just say 'you can't have it because its license isn't 
restrictive enough to be called free'.  And they don't go out of their 
way to make their system difficult to use with 3rd party programs - 
mostly, anyway.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com