Re: [gentoo-java] [Fwd: Advice on Gentoo support for java]

["Wiktor Wandachowicz" <siryes@gmail.com>]

> I want to use Java 5.0 JDK and netbeans 5.5 and java EE5. and
> also the sun glassfish open source server on Gentoo if it is possible

My experience is that they work perfectly, with one minor hiccup: there
are currently no ebuilds for all things you've mentioned. However, after
downloading them and installing manually all things work very well. I've
been running on such setup for over a year already (with different beta
versions and daily builds of Java 5/Java 6/NetBeans/GlassFish) and I'm
very happy with it.

> 1- Are these now available on the Gentoo disks or are they supported
> by Gentoo ?

sun-jre-1.5.0 and sun-jdk-1.5.0 are supported very well. New NetBeans
(note that it is still in beta!) and GlassFish are not yet fully
supported, as far as I can tell. But eventually they will be ;-)

> 2- where are the precise instructions to download the above mentioned
> packages (if they not installed already on Gentoo)? Is it a simple
> process?

For JDK 5.0 it's as simple as following the new Java guide and unmasking
some packages. The rest is done via emerge. See:
* http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/java.xml

For NetBeans 5.5 you need to download a Linux installer directly from
www.netbeans.org, make it executable and run it as root. By default it
installs NetBeans IDE in /opt and proposes to install Sun's application
server 9.0 (aka GlassFish) in /opt as well. This procedure is very
similar to the Windows installation, and only the paths are different.

It's also possible to install GlassFish separately. Instructions can
be found on the GlassFish site:
* https://glassfish.dev.java.net/public/downloadsindex.html
in section "Instructions to unbundle and configure GlassFish".

> 3- Can I run javaEE5 built applications on Gentoo with only the jdk
> 5.0 kit installed or do also need to install javaEE5?

Java Enterprise Edition is just a standard for building solutions
(application servers, libraries, etc.) which provide services compliant
with Java EE standard. For what is worth, it's enough to install some
application server (newest GlassFish or JBoss for example) to be able
to perfectly run Java EE 5 applications.

> Sorry for the length of questions but I have tried hard to get a good
> linux distro with good java support and I am hoping Gentoo is the one
> for me.

I stayed with Gentoo exactly for its first class Java support. Even some
good folks from Sun are involved in gentoo-java mailing list and have
interest in helping to provide one of the best Java support for Gentoo.
I sincerely hope that you will like it. Right now it requires a bit of
manual work to get a full-blown developer environment with the latest
and the greatest Java packages. But IMHO it's still far less work than
with any other Linux distributions out there.

See also:
* http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.java
* http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.java/1231
* https://jdos.dev.java.net/

Hope this helps. Cheers!
Wiktor Wandachowicz

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