Re: [gentoo-dev] Java 9 on Gentoo

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 01:23:58 -0600
R0b0t1 <r030t1@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> I am confused. I was aware that IcedTea was a build system, but I am
> not aware as to how Ubuntu packaged OpenJDK 9.

Not sure without looking, but likely just shipping the binary of OpenJDK
http://download.java.net/java/GA/jdk9/9.0.1/binaries/openjdk-9.0.1_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz

Basically oracle, less branding, etc. Could copy over oracle-jdk-bin,
and likely use those sources. Maybe not sure. Never messed with them.

 > I expect the releases to lag, which is why I had been using Oracle's
> JDK. Can you explain why there is an IcedTea ebuild but not an OpenJDK
> ebuild?

Yes, in short, no one cares about Java on Gentoo.

The icedtea from source ebuild is a result of RedHat. The main person
at RedHat responsible for their open source Java is the author of
Icedtea. He uses Gentoo as his development/test platform. Gentoo
usually will have that at least the same time as others, if not before
all others.

If it was not for him, and RedHat paying him. I doubt Gentoo would have
from source Java. Not to discount Chewi/James efforts. But the author
of Icedtea is the one maintaining that in java-overlay.

No one has interest in Java other than expecting others to make things
available for them in Gentoo. Or preventing others from doing such.
It has been this way for close a decade.

> > Also icedtea on Gentoo does not have OpenJavaFX. I am not
> > sure any distro has OpenJavaFX packaged. I am not aware of any
> > ebuilds ever for that. Probably be me someday if I ever have
> > interest. Which can bind many to oracle for JavaFX. Which includes
> > myself.
>
> OpenJDK now contains an implementation of JavaFX.

The openjdk binary above may contain that. The OpenJDK project is not
the same as OpenJFX project. I am very aware of it all.

Icedtea on Gentoo has no support for OpenJFX. There is no ebuild to my
knowledge anywhere. Not that I have looked much.

> http://openjdk.java.net/projects/openjfx/

That is the OpenJFX project. It is a separate package.

> Debian and Ubuntu
> have it packaged. For general instructions, see the following:
>
> https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/OpenJFX/Building+OpenJFX

You or anyone is welcome to create a Gentoo ebuild for that. To date no
one has. I am not to interested in doing what others are not. I do
enough of that regarding Gentoo Java...

> Packages:
>
> https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/openjfx
> https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/openjfx

That does not seem like part of OpenJDK if they are separate packages.
I am not sure I am not following what is going on there. It does not
really help or have any effect. They are making and shipping binaries.
That is considerably easier than a from source package.

> I have recently been interested in JavaFX. It is far more user
> friendly. Many open source applications still target Swing however, to
> be compatible with old OpenJDK releases.

I have done Swing for over a decade, and JavaFX is rather nice.
Transition from one to the other is fairly straight forward. It will
take some time for things to completely move off Swing. Even my own
stuff is partial. Though I haven't been working on that for sometime.
 
> My response to this is the same as above: Can you explain why the
> Gentoo build system is the way it is? If you have any suggestions as
> to what I should look at to better understand the OpenJDK build system
> I would very much appreciate them.

Look at icedtea ebuild, not the -bin the from source. Build OpenJDK
stand alone. Get familiar with that. Learn ebuilds. Connect all
together. It is not trivial.
 
> At a certain point, would it make sense to drop old packages and not
> bother to update them?

I try hard to only keep the latest of any version around, and ideally
one slot. Many times I will modify upstream code. At times I
will submit patches/PRs. Other times just do what I need to in ebuild.
In a few case I became the upstream and took over the project to update
to current dependencies, tag, etc.

> This seems to have helped with the stabilization of Python 3.5, and
> Python 3.6 looks like it will go the same direction. Hopefully this
> will occur for Java 9.

I do not bother with stabilization. 

icedtea:8 is NOT stable now, only icedtea-bin which Chewi/James makes
from icedtea from source package. For Java 9 to be stable there has to
be a stable version of icedtea:9.

I battled with Chewi/James over this back when 1.8 came out. People
complained about having Oracle forced on them. With it being the only
option, till an icedtea package was available. Basically the whole
thing gets slowed down due to icedtea.

Having a openjdk-bin package may help there. But that is not really
ideally. Why not make Gentoo a binary distro? oracle-jdk-bin is one
thing. But that there are sources for OpenJDK. Having a -bin is not
really ideal. Just lazy option.

> If I understand correctly, it is possible to install the JDK but not
> set it to system VM? It is not clear to me why other languages need
> more Portage machinery to handle coinstallation of different versions.

You can run stuff on Java 9. You will have problems with emerging or
building Java packages on Gentoo. Unless you are developing your own
application in Java. It is fine for development use. There are just
problems with merging other Java packages if 9 is set as your system vm.

You may experience problems running stuff on Java 9 as well.

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.