For obsolete instructions for Fedora Core 5 (FC5)
and Fedora Core 6 (FC6) version of this page look
[ Here ].
The update for this page was inspired by email
from David Nedrow (dnedrow at mac com). He sent me a short synopsis
of how to do it with new Java 6 and Fedora 7, and I got new strengths
to go through these steps again on my laptop. Thanks David...
If you want to upgrade JDK version but there is no
compat package for it yet on JPackage site, read
entire document
without touching anything on your computer
and then you will have known what to do.
What is the problem with F7 and JDK from Sun?
Fedora & Linux distribution comes with the GNU Java.
This is a part of the popular GNU C compiler suite that also
includes support for other programming languages, like Fortran.
The GNU Java now supports most of the features of Sun Java 1.5
and in many cases can be augmented by additional open source
packages to be almost functionally equivalent to the latest JDK from Sun.
It has also some important advantages (e.g., option to produce
native machine code) but it is by necessity behind with the features
of the latest Java Development Kit from Sun. More information can
be found at the GNU Compiler for the Java page at:
http://gcc.gnu.org/java/.
Recently Sun announced that it is legal to redistribute their
Java Development Kit, however, it is unlikely that it will be
a part of Fedora.
The reason for this is that Sun Java Development Kit is
not provided with the complete source code, while the Fedora Core Linux
only provides packages that are open source. This may change in the future,
but it is today
In most cases you will be fine with the
Open Source, GNU Java. Most open source projects that
need Java Development Kit do work with the GNU Java.
But some do not... Especially those that push latest standards
to the limits and require the latest features of the Java SDK
from Sun. With the race to new standards for Java, you may need
the Sun's Java SDK, but you also do not want to break
the code that assumes that GNU Java is available on your machine.
You will definitely need the Sun JDK if you use their latest
and greatest IDEs or Enterprise type solutions.
But YOU DO NOT WANT TO BRUTALLY DELETE/UNINSTALL the GNU Java
or just put the Sun JDK into /opt and change the
$JAVA_HOME and $CLASSPATH. Luckily there
is a nice solution via alternatives package that
comes with Fedora. We are even more lucky that there is
a JPackage.org project and that Fedora
supports it.
Make Sun JDK your default
Note: There are many approaches to installing
Sun JDK under Linux. Some go through the route of building the RPM with paths
and directories suitable for Fedora. What I describe here is
a different approach in which the original Sun JDK RPM file
is used, but it is brought into compliance with Fedora via
creating symbolic links and the alternatives command
through the JPackage.org RPM package.
Start from becoming a root by logging in
as root or by sudo or simply by:
su -
and get the latest JDK from Sun
http://java.sun.com/downloads.
Select the Java SE (Java Standard Edition), and then
Java SE (JDK) 6.
Choose the latest edition (at this writing it was JDK 6 Update 2,
and get the Linux RPM in self-extracting
file (DO NOT DOWNLOAD Linux self-extracting file!). You should
get a file like jdk-6u2-linux-i586-rpm.bin
that is about 65 MBytes in size. If it does not have
the rpm.bin at the end, you took the wrong one.
I would also (and strongly advise if you have disk to spare) to
get the Java SE 6 Documentation (a jdk-6-doc.zip file) which
is about 52 MBytes. There is also a Japanese version of docs
but I do not speak this language. Once the documentation docs
arrive, you can unpack them under your web server document tree, e.g.,
is you are using standard Apache on F7 do:
cd /var/www/html
mkdir JDK-1.6
cd JDK-1.6
unzip ...jdk-6-doc.zip
and then view the docs under:
http://localhost/JDK-1.6/docs.
Of course, watch for Copyright. My advise is: make sure it cannot be
seen by people from outside your organization.
While you can view docs as files under FireFox, they have examples
that may not render well without web server (applets and JavaScript
will not run on a file: URL for security reasons).
While you are downloading this large file,
please downloads the keys for the JPackage repository:
rpm --import http://jpackage.org/jpackage.asc
and install the JPackage repository information
for the yum:
cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage17.repo
If it did not work, maybe you do not have wget.
You can check it with:
rpm -qi wget
and if you do not have it, install it with:
yum install wget
and try again to get the jpackage17.repo file.
The jpackage17.repo file comes with the jpackage-generic
repository enabled. However, I personally disabled the automatic
retrieval of updates and packages from the
JPackage.org
repository by editing the /etc/yum.repos.d/jpackage17.repo
file and changing line(s) enabled=1 to the
enabled=0 . I do not want to
risk the situation when, due to some dependency, the new Java packages
will be installed on my machine without my knowledge during
updates that are run automatically at night. Moreover,
Fedora 7 default Java packages are already in the
Fedora repositories (i.e., were officially blessed
by Fedora team), and it is probably better to
try these repositories first rather than to go directly to the JPackage.org and
risk messing up some naming convention and/or dependencies.
At the same time, JPackage repository can be always enabled
in yum by adding the:
--enablerepo=jpackage-generic
--enablerepo=jpackage-generic-nonfree
options on the command line.
Note... There are Fedora repositories on
JPackage.org but there are no files in them from what I see.
The jpackage17.repo file that you downloaded in the part
[jpackage-generic-nonfree]
name=JPackage (non-free), generic
mirrorlist=http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage_generic_nonfree_1.7.txt
failovermethod=priority
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage.asc
enabled=0
is just wrong (at least on Sept 3, 2007 when I was trying).
The problem is that the file:
http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage_generic_nonfree_1.7.txt
just does not exist. So rather than use a mirror list, I placed there
specific URLs to the repositories. Therefore, edit the jpackage17.repo
to read:
[jpackage-generic-nonfree]
name=JPackage (non-free), generic
baseurl=
ftp://jpackage.hmdc.harvard.edu/JPackage/1.7/generic/non-free/
ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/jpackage.org/1.7/generic/non-free/
http://sunsite.rediris.es/mirror/jpackage/1.7/generic/non-free/
ftp://ftp.pbone.net/pub/jpackage/1.7/generic
failovermethod=priority
# Check list on: http://www.jpackage.org/mirroring.php#mirrors
# mirrorlist=http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage_generic_nonfree_1.7.txt
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage.asc
enabled=0
Of course, the other repositories in
jpackage17.repo file also
may need changing, but I did not go that far, since I am now only
installing JDK and I will worry later as also will you.
Since you will be dealing with RPMs, make also sure that you have packages
to manipulate them:
rpm -qi rpm-build
rpm -qi fedora-rpmdevtools
If you do not have them, install them:
yum install fedora-rpmdevtools
yum install rpm-build
Check if you have packages
for GNU Java compiler/libraries installed, since you most likely
need to have some symmetry
between GNU and Sun JDKs so the alternatives
is not confused. But, frankly, I do not know the intrinsics of it,
though it cannot hurt and disk space is cheap.
yum list available '*gcj*'
will list the available but not installed yet
pieces of gcj (GNU Java compiler) and you can install
these packages as:
yum install package1 package2...
or just:
yum install '*gcj*'
Please read the man page for
alternatives:
man alternatives
When your Sun JDK Linux RPM self-extracting file
finally arrives you need to execute it, since it is a shell script.
It contains the license agreement and the compressed RPM package with
Sun JDK. It will ask you if you agree to the long license. Say yes,
then it will uncompress the RPM with JDK, and then it will install it
together with bunch of other modules. To run it do:
chmod 755 jdk-6u2-linux-i586-rpm.bin
./jdk-6u2-linux-i586-rpm.bin
Unfortunately, the Sun RPM package puts files
in different locations than the ones required by Fedora 7.
After running the script you will see a new directory
/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_02 with JDK files and directories and
the new directory /opt/sun. In the directory where you ran
the jdk-6u2-linux-i586-rpm.bin a bunch of *.rpm were
created:
jdk-6u2-linux-i586.rpm
sun-javadb-client-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
sun-javadb-common-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
sun-javadb-core-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
sun-javadb-demo-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
sun-javadb-docs-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
sun-javadb-javadoc-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
You can look what files that are inside the RPMs by
running rpm
rpm -q -l -p jdk-6u2-linux-i586.rpm
rpm -q -l -p sun-javadb-client-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
rpm -q -l -p sun-javadb-common-10.2.2-0.1.i386.rpm
...
You can also use your browser (say FireFox) to look
at the docs, but linking the doc location to a directory under
web document tree. For example as:
cd /var/www/html/JDK-1.6 # or create it, if not created as described above
ln -s /opt/sun/javadb javadb
and you will be able to point your browser
to http://localhost/JDK-1.6/javadb and learn all the exciting
details about Apache Derby for doing DB under Apache. Nice stuff, but
not here... The actual RPMs are left in the directory where you ran the Sun's
jdk-6u2-linux-i586.rpm.bin script, however,
you do not need to process the RPMs, since the script already did it.
You may, however, use the RPM packages later, if you want to install
the JDK on another machine.
Now, you are ready to install the SUN JDK compatibility RPM
from the JPackage.org
yum --enablerepo=jpackage-generic-nonfree install java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp
It should ask you for your Yes and announce:
Installed: java-1.6.0-sun-compat.i586 0:1.6.0.02-1jpp.
This will create a bunch of links in the
/etc/alternatives, /usr/share/man/man1,
/usr/lib/jvm and others to the /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun
link that points to the link that points to ... files in
/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_02 where the Sun JDK distribution resides.
To check which files were affected do:
rpm -q -l java-1.6.0-sun-compat
Check if the Sun JDK is really a default by doing:
java -version
If you get:
java version "1.5.0"
gij (GNU libgcj) version 4.1.2 20070502 (Red Hat 4.1.2-12)
Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
(or similar) then something
did not work.
If you get:
java version "1.6.0_02"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_02-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0_02-b05, mixed mode, sharing)
then the Sun JDK is your
default. You can use
alternatives to check (or change) the default JDK by:
alternatives --config java
It should show something like:
There are 2 programs which provide 'java'.
Selection Command
-----------------------------------------------
1 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.4.2-gcj/bin/java
*+ 2 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.5.0-sun/bin/java
Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number:
Hit [Enter] key if you want Sun JDK to
be a default, or enter 1 if you want to change back to GNU Java.
The JPackage compatibility should also make you a link for Java plug-in
for Firefox browser. To make sure it did, do:
cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
ls -l
If you get:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 77 Jun 17 20:47 libjavaplugin_oji.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun-1.6.0.02/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
you should be fine. If you do not have it, make
this link yourself (but then worry, since something is not right):
cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun-1.6.0.02/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so \
libjavaplugin_oji.so
The Firefox should look for plug-ins in the
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins directory.
If your Firefox still does not work with Java,
put the link above also in the directory
/usr/lib/firefox-2.0.0.5/plugins,
or whatever is your particular version of Firefox that you can dig out from
the script that runs it: /usr/bin/firefox or whatever is reported
by:
which firefox
There are different distros of Firefox, so you
may be special but for your own sake, use yum to
update Firefox.
Updating your Sun JDK
If there is no compat rpm for the new JDK on the
JPackage site, do not despair, and read further.
Now, there will be times, when you want to get rid
of Sun JDK and its entries for alternatives.
DO NOT TOUCH THESE
LINKS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS. Use yum to uninstall the
JPackage Java compatibility package first and then erase
the Sun JDK with rpm:
yum erase java-1.6.0-sun-compat
rpm -e jdk-1.6.0_02-fcs
Be bold... Do not worry...
You can always reinstall it as described above. Of course, you
can choose to use rpm command directly rather than
yum to work with packages. But yum has a lot
of advantages, since it will maintain the packages and upgrades
and makes a lot of checks to see if things will not break.
But sometimes they break. A popular situation is when you
used rpm to install some package (or the package
was installed with an install (older package is
kept) rather than an update (older package is
removed). In this case, yum gets confused with
dependencies and complains, and it does not want to install
a package. To see if this is a case, list all the installed
rpm packages for some package name with a command:
rpm -qa | grep "^java" | sort
(Helpful suggestion from Bob Gustafson, Thanks!)
for example. If you see two versions
of the same rpm, just erase the older (i.e., with
the lower revision number) one. Use the
rpm -e full_package_name_with_version
(but skip the .rpm) and then
try yum update
or yum install again. I am telling you this,
since we will definitely have more javas and compats
coming, and the mess happens. For example (at this time
a hypothetical one), if you got stuck with two compat
packages when updates to the JDK were processed:
rpm -qa | grep "java-1.6.0-sun-compat"
java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp
java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.03-1jpp
remove the older package as:
yum erase java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp
or, if still no go:
rpm -e java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp
or
rpm -e --nopostun java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.09-1jpp
[ in general, if you see the error: %postun(...) scriplet failed you should try:
rpm -e --nopostun the_package_name to delete
the stubborn package ].
(Suggestions above from Bob Gustafson, Thanks!)
and check again if something is still left with:
rpm -qa | grep "^java" | sort
If you are still stuck, try deleting the
Sun JDK first, e.g.:
rpm -e jdk-1.6.0_02-fcs
and then try to delete the compat RPMs again.
This problem showed up in FC6 while upgrading JDK
and I still do not know if this
is an ugly bug or an interesting feature.
Updating your Sun JDK when the compat
rpm package is not yet available from JPackage site
I upgraded from jdk-1.6.0_02-fcs to
jdk-1.6.0_03-fcs on Oct 5, 2007, and there was no
java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.03-1jpp at that time.
Of course, the stuff changes and can change enough that this simple
patch to older compat rpm will not work. So... This is experimental
at best.
First you need to erase your old compat rpm and
Java SDK as described above. In this case the following did it:
yum erase java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp
yum erase jdk-1.6.0_02-fcs
Then you need to get a new JDK from Sun. In
this case:
- Retrieved the new JDK from Sun
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/
- Take: JDK 6 Update 3, Linux RPM in self-extracting file
- Click on Accept License Agreement
- Click on jdk-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin link and have
a coffee when it downloads.
Then install the new JDK
chmod 755 jdk-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin
./jdk-6u2-linux-i586-rpm.bin
Then you have to downloads the old compat
package but not the one you used to install the JDK but its source
version. If you browse the JPackage site with the browser,
http://www.jpackage.org/browser/browse.php?jppversion=1.7,
they will be under non-free java-1.6.0-sun-compat at the
end, then under the [S] link. In my case it was at:
http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/jpackage/1.7/generic/non-free/SRPMS/java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp.src.rpm .
I also edited (or created, if you do not have it), the file:
/root/.rpmmacros and placed there a line:
%_topdir /usr/src/redhat/
Then (as a root of course) I did
rpm -ihv java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.02-1jpp.src.rpm
and the thing installed the following files:
/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/java-1.6.0-sun-compat-register-java-fonts.xsl
/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/java-1.6.0-sun-compat-unregister-java-fonts.xsl
/usr/src/redhat/SPECS/java-1.6.0-sun-compat.spec
You will need to edit the SPEC file
(java-1.6.0-sun-compat.spec)
before you can build the updated rpm package for the new
JDK. In this case it is VERY EASY (I believe...). I changed the line:
%define buildver 02
to a line:
%define buildver 03
Then I ran the rpmbuild (which you have
installed long time ago, didn't you? I talked about it at the top of this
document).
cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS
rpmbuild -ba java-1.6.0-sun-compat.spec
This created a new, updated, compat rpm
package in the directory /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i586. So now
what you need to do is:
cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i586
rpm -ihv java-1.6.0-sun-compat-1.6.0.03-1jpp.i586.rpm
and you should be in this place in this document
where you installed the compat package using yum and the
JPackage repository
So... Where the heck is my JAVA_HOME?
Relax...
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java
export JAVA_HOME
or if you are C-shellish:
setenv JAVA_HOME /usr/lib/jvm/java
Jan K. Labanowski
Computational Chemistry List, Ltd.
http://www.ccl.net
If you think that I erred, please let me know
and I will be thankful and will correct... I promise... One more thing
(a disclaimer...): If you believed in anything what I said, and you lost time
and money, it is your fault... I am telling you again... I may have made
a mistake, and I do not guarantee that anything will work as described...
jkl at ccl . net