Richi Plana wrote:
I'm not sure I understand. Shouldn't you be able to use any version of a jvm, packaged or not, without specific dependencies, just like you could use different media players to play the same file? Or even run more than one of them at once?
Sorry, that was a bit vague. I just meant that a piece of java bytecode is usually designed to be executed in one way (either as a java application, web application, applet, etc.) or 2 or 3 at the most. Media files can be used in so many ways, not just playing them (editing, converting, analysis, etc.) Anyway, the point is that it's just not the best example to illustrate your point, and not that it doesn't.
OK, the likely scenarios are that you have different apps that only work with one JVM each, and even with one app you always want to be able to test it under different JVM verions (including the next update) before thinking about changing the system default.
Yes, thanks, and sorry - I missed the one actual answer in the first link, but I was confused by the comment somewhere about parts going to private and export directories that didn't seem to be under the same top level. Is everything expected to be under JAVA_HOME actually still in one place?
I honestly don't know. 1) So far, it's worked for me, 2) looking at the contents of the JRE (java-1.5.0-(sun|ibm)), it seems that apart from a couple of JAR files located in jvm-exports/ and jvm-private/, all the files are in (quotes) "$JAVA_HOME". Anybody read the pertinent JSR on JAVA_HOME directory layouts care to comment?
The answer I have really been looking for is that the concept of JAVA_HOME reliably still exists, and how to use it in spite of the efforts to hide where it lives in the alternatives universe.