Am 11.11.2011 11:16, schrieb Willie Wong: > On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 11:01:56PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: >>> (i) What is icedtea-web? >> >> If you had actually clicked on the homepage link in the emerge -s >> output you posted, you would have seen in the very first bullet point >> right at the start of the page that icedtea-web is mostly Java Web Start > > The problem is: that doesn't help me at all. What the heck is Web > Start? The corporate-lese at > http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/tech/index-jsp-136112.html > doesn't really tell me why or whether I need it. >
It is the applet launcher you mentioned further down in your email. It also allows starting standalone applications straight from the web. There is a difference between these two capabilities but I think they are now served by the same plugin. >>> (iv) Do I really need to have so many different java things on my >>> computer? >> [...] >> So, if you want Java as implemented by iced-tea, pick between source >> and -bin. If you want JWS, then emerge that too. >> >> Did you even attempt to google this and find answers yourself? > > Did you read my question? The problem is not that so many JDKs are > available. The problem is "why does portage want to install them all"? > (Scroll up to the top of my message and see the emerge --update output > which wants to SLOT all three of icedtea, icedtea-bin, icedtea-web.) > > So cut the snark, Alan. To spell out the question for you more > clearly: > > Why does portage want to install ALL three kinds of icedteas, > when all I really need is a JRE? Is there some subtle differences > between the three such that I must have all three available? Is the > 6->7 major version update one which they significantly changed the API > so things start breaking left and right? > Yes, there are new features and APIs available with java 1.7 but I doubt any applications in the stable portage tree already use these. Otherwise it should be backwards compatible. Since 1.7 is pretty new I guess there are still many packages explicitly requiring virtual/jdk:6 just because the devs haven't yet tested the transition. On the other hand, some packages will just require virtual/jdk and therefore trigger portage to install the newer slot. > <rant> [...] > What I don't > know (as I admitted so much in the first sentence of my original post) > is Java. I don't code in it. I don't (to the best of my knowledge) > have any packages installed via portage that has code written in Java. > All I need is a JRE to look at some applets on the internet and run a > couple pre-compiled Java applications on my desktop. It may be that I > somehow acquired a need for a JDK and I forgot, I don't know, but why > is it that portage wants to installed two JDKS and on top of that some > web-based JRE at the same time? > </rant> > > W To find out why portage wants the JDK, run `emerge -pv --depclean virtual/jdk`. Repeat until you find @world or something looking familiar. I bet you have LibreOffice installed with USE="java". There is an old thread from earlier this year which describes what functionality you loose when you deactivate that flag. All things considered, though, I think it will be faster to install a JDK than to re-emerge LibreOffice with USE="-java". Regards, Florian Philipp
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
