Java on Debian (wow that was easy!)

[Randy Edwards]

 > I was not aware of java-package.

   That's one of the growing pleasant problems of Debian -- there's so many 
packages I'm continually discovering "must-have" stuff and wondering, "Why 
didn't I know about this before?" :-)

 > Using java-package (as is illustrated in the referenced HOWTO link) 
 > could not be easier.

   To me, the idea of downloading the JVM, running 1 command, and then 
installing the resulting generated *.deb file falls within the range of "easy 
enough".    I like the idea that I can then just copy the *.deb over to other 
machines and install it, and the fact that java-package's *.deb does things 
like install the Java browser plugins into the various browsers on the box.

 > Trying to download JDK from Sun's website and installing it on your own
 > has just not worked for me well in the past,  with a variety of distros and
 > many attempts. 

   I found that a PITA and a recipe for problems.  I always just installed the 
JVM into /usr/local and created a symlink of /usr/local/java which pointed to 
the real JVM's subdirectory.  Still, it was a problem setting classpaths and 
was much easier just to reference the executables with the full path.  But 
java-package makes that mindlessly simple now.

 Regards,
 .
 Randy

-- 
The US is by far the world leader in prison population. We have more people in 
jail than China, which has 4 times the population of the US. And we dare call 
ourselves the "land of the free?"