[CentOS] Java installation problem. -- Alternatives ...

Sun Aug 7 18:19:59 UTC 2005
Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>

On Sun, 2005-08-07 at 14:06 -0400, Jim Perrin wrote:
> Okay, so that's a NO from BJS on useful information in an email reply.
> Does anyone else have something related to /etc/alternatives
> documentation to contribute? I'd very much like to learn this as it
> seems cleaner than my current methods.

Matt basically gave you the example command:  

  alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/local/java/bin/java 3

Now just re-apply the same logic to _all_ java-related files
in /etc/alternatives.  Hit "man 1 alternatives" when in doubt.

The alternatives framework is LSB, so it's good to know (for all LSB
compliant Linux distros).  I was just commenting that one of these days
someone needs to generate an RPM that does this for you without getting
into all the redistribution issues (i.e., don't include Sun Java in the
package).**

-- Bryan

P.S.  AFAICT, I was the _first_ person to catch the original poster not
realizing that /usr/bin/java was GCJ (while everyone else largely
ignored the CGJ issue, and gave "install blah" until Matt's latter
post):  
  http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-August/009470.html  

**P.P.S.  Java, like Perl and other development systems, is one area
where "Emerge" might be a better way to do things -- both legally and
technically.  I.e., the ports tree could handle the administrative end,
while fetching the JRE/JDK directly from Sun.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     b.j.smith at ieee.org     http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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