How to setup full-fledged Java development environment under FC5?

[Dan Thurman]

Folks,

I am at an impasse in deciding if it is worth taking the time
to get a Java development environment setup on FC5 for the
simple reason that FC5 recommends using their NATIVE ports
instead of using the "normal" download apps such as Sun's software,
Eclipse's software and so on.  The confusion lies in not knowing
what course of action to take coupled with the FC5 caveat that
by not using the FC native ports and properly installing Java
applications may break your work on Java.  This caveat alone
stops me from considering FC5 as a serious contender for a Java
development platform.

On top of all of this, FC5's Java porting time-line plans states
that there are some serious work needed to get it all working right
(Swing/AWT, others?) so it seems to me that FC5 is just not ready
for a serious Java programming development environment and who
knows when and if it will be ready?

Can anyone give me some pointers on how to get a serious
Java development environment setup going?  I want to have
full flexibility to download and install Eclipse tools and
applications without being unencumbered with Fedora's port
version preventing such operations, for example if I need
to get RCP, WSP, Swing, AWT, and the zillions of other things
that are rapidly being released by the Eclipse community.

BTW: I have already visited the Fedora Java Wiki site
(http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/JavaFAQ) and
(http://www.jpackage.org/) but it is not "HOW TO" setup your Java
development environment.

So...  how can I proceed?

Totally confused,
Dan

[Ian Pilcher]

Dan Thurman wrote:
> Can anyone give me some pointers on how to get a serious
> Java development environment setup going?  I want to have
> full flexibility to download and install Eclipse tools and
> applications without being unencumbered with Fedora's port
> version preventing such operations, for example if I need
> to get RCP, WSP, Swing, AWT, and the zillions of other things
> that are rapidly being released by the Eclipse community.

It takes a little work, but it can be done.  For a 100% "real" Java
environment, you'll first want to remove all the gcj-compiled packages
from your system.  The vast majority of these can be identified with:

rpm -qa | egrep 'jpp|eclipse'

Removing these packages should identify any other gcj packages.

(Note that you probably don't want to remove the gcj/gij runtime,
because OpenOffice.org uses it.)

Now ensure that you won't actually pull any of these packages from the
Fedora yum repositories by adding the following line to all of the
fedora* files in /etc/yum.repos.d:

exclude=*jpp* eclipse*

Now you can set up the JPackage yum repositories as described on the
JPackage site.  I recommend adding the following line to all three
repositories in jpackage.repo:

exclude=postgresql*

Good luck!

[Andrew Haley]

Ian Pilcher writes:
> Dan Thurman wrote:
> > Can anyone give me some pointers on how to get a serious
> > Java development environment setup going?  I want to have
> > full flexibility to download and install Eclipse tools and
> > applications without being unencumbered with Fedora's port
> > version preventing such operations, for example if I need
> > to get RCP, WSP, Swing, AWT, and the zillions of other things
> > that are rapidly being released by the Eclipse community.
>
> It takes a little work, but it can be done.  For a 100% "real" Java
> environment, you'll first want to remove all the gcj-compiled packages
> from your system.

What for?  They will still work.

Install whatever runtime environment you want via an RPM from
jpackage.org and use /usr/sbin/alternatives to switch to it.

Andrew.

[Ian Pilcher]

Andrew Haley wrote:
> Ian Pilcher writes:
> > It takes a little work, but it can be done.  For a 100% "real" Java
> > environment, you'll first want to remove all the gcj-compiled packages
> > from your system.
>
> What for?  They will still work.

I think it's more accurate to say that they *should* work.  The OP
expressed some concern about this.
> Install whatever runtime environment you want via an RPM from
> jpackage.org and use /usr/sbin/alternatives to switch to it.

I've done this on Fedora Core 5, and everything is working so far.

Nice work!

[Joshua Daniel Franklin]

On 4/1/06, Ian Pilcher wrote:
> Andrew Haley wrote:
> > Ian Pilcher writes:
> > > It takes a little work, but it can be done.  For a 100% "real" Java
> > > environment, you'll first want to remove all the gcj-compiled packages
> > > from your system.
> >
> > What for?  They will still work.
>
> I think it's more accurate to say that they *should* work.  The OP
> expressed some concern about this.

Depending on what you want to do with them, they do work. The
rebuilt JAR files include all the normal java class files that Sun/IBM/BEA
java need, but also the native stuff for gcj. See, for example:

https://www.zarb.org/pipermail/jpackage-discuss/2005-October/008918.html

So there is no need to remove gcj-compiled packages.
> > Install whatever runtime environment you want via an RPM from
> > jpackage.org and use /usr/sbin/alternatives to switch to it.

This certainly works. What I currently recommend to devs using eclipse
here is to download the latest eclipse and run it from their home directory
(so if you might remove the gcj native ecplise so /usr/bin/eclipse doesn't
confuse them, but that's optional). I recommend that because eclipse is
still somewhat picky about where it finds things, and if (for example) a dev
installs the WTP plugin, eclipse is going to download everything to their
home directory anyway. In this sense the /usr/share/java/ jars don't "work"
but that's not JPackage or Fedora's fault, it's an Eclipse platform decision.
Someday it might get all smoothed out.

[Dan Thurman]

Folks,

I have pretty much downloaded just about everything I have
needed to get back to the development level I wanted when
I was using Eclipse under the windoes environment but I have
encountered some strange situations so here it is...

[
Note: I followed recommendations per Paul Howarth's JPackage
      installation guidelines so as not to blow apart the
      gcj (native) java port.
]

Success:
========
1) Installed SubEclipse successfully and it appears for all users.
2) Installed GEF and EMF successfully and it appears for all users.  
3) Installed PhpEclipse successfully and it appears for all users.

Unknown:
========
1) Downloaded and installed JEM, but I was not able to determine
   if the package was installed successfully as it does not appear
   in the configuration list for "Manage Configurations".  I do note
   however JEM (Java EMF Model) does appear listed in the 'About
   Eclipse' feature listings.  I assume all is well but cannot
   confirm this.  GEF, EMF, and JEM is required for WST.

Problems:
=========
1) As any user (root and non-root), I am unable to uninstall
   any older plugins (or packages).  I was trying to remove
   pyDev 0.9.3 because a newer version of pyDev 0.9.8.7
   supersedes it and the 'uninstall' menu item refuses to
   appear for selection.  I got this new update via the
   Help->Software Updates->Find and Install...  Please
   note that the update for 'Change Logs' was a very weird
   one and it causes problems if you try to update this one.
   Someone should probably remove this unless it is really
   needed?

2) Downloaded and installed WTP 1.0.1 as root user (login)
   and it was installed into /usr/share/eclipse.  When I
   brought up eclipse, I noticed that the JSEE (WTP) was
   not within the IDE, so I proceed to the Help->Software
   Updates->Manage Configurations, and enabled the 'Show
   disabled features', WTP appeared but was not enabled.
   Ok... then I enabled it, and closed Eclipse and brought
   it back up and added the J2EE perspective and all seems
   to be there.  Haven't tried to see if J2EE works at this
   point.

Now here is the weird part.  I logged out as 'root' user
   from Gnome, logged in as myself, and started up Eclipse.
   This is a first-time eclipse start-up.  Ok, proceeding,
   I wanted to add the J2EE perspective but it wasn't there.
   Hmm...  ok, then I again selected Help->Software Updates->
   Manage Configurations and this time I note the following is
   not enabled:

1) J2EE for standard tools (JST) SDK 1.0.1.v200602130105
     2) SDK for Web Standard Tools (WST) 1.0.1.v200602130105

I tried to enable these plugins but now for (1), a message pops up:

"The requested operation could not be performed because it will
   invalidate the configuration. See details for more information."

Details:
Requested operation cannot be performed because it would invalidate the
current configuration. See details for more information.
  J2EE Standard Tools (JST) SDK (1.0.1.v200602130105) The site is not
updateable: file:/usr/share/eclipse/.
  J2EE Standard Tools (JST) (1.0.1.v200602130105) requires feature
"org.eclipse.wst".
  JST Common Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
"org.eclipse.wst.common_core.feature (1.0.0)", or equivalent.
  JST Server Core Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
"org.eclipse.wst.server_core.feature (1.0.0)", or equivalent.
  JST Web Core Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
"org.eclipse.wst.web_core.feature (1.0.0)", or compatible.
  JST Enterprise Core Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
"org.eclipse.wst.ws_core.feature (1.0.0)", or compatible.
  JST Enterprise UI Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
"org.eclipse.wst.rdb_core.feature (1.0.0)", or equivalent.

So - Eclipse refuses to allow me to enable these plugins.  I went
one step further:  I added a eclipse user group, changed the group
ownership to eclipse, and added group read-write-execute and the
problem still remains.  I am not able to continue any further on
enabling J2EE.  I cannot even uninstall it either.

3) The same/similar problem appears for these plugins:
   a) RMI plugins for Eclipse 1.6.5.4

Please let me know if there is anything I can do at this point.

Kind regards,
Dan

[SOLVED] Re: How to setup full-fledged Java development environment under FC5?

[Dan Thurman]

On Mon, 2006-04-03 at 11:41 -0700, Dan Thurman wrote:

Sorry to top-post and to reply to my own reporting...

I have resolved all the issues pointed out below.  Turns
out that I had to enable all of the aforementioned items
in regards to completing the WST installation my starting
eclipse in the root user account and enabling the (1), (2),
and (3) items below, all the non-root users have access to
these plugins.  Also, I note that if there are any updates
for Eclipse, if root user hadn't already updated all items,
all users who attempt to update would get the update items
installed into their own home .eclipse folders.  Can be a
pain in regards to code bloat... but I also figured out that
blowing the user's .eclipse directories is not a problem assuming
that no other user-installs were made outside of that of what
root is updating.  Other than that - so far it appears everything
works well.

As for the ChangeLog updates and for deleting older versions,
I am still not able to do it even as a root user.  Perhaps this
is a minor issue but perhaps you can manually delete the items
in question but this may tend to be error prone.

Dan
> Folks,
>
> I have pretty much downloaded just about everything I have
> needed to get back to the development level I wanted when
> I was using Eclipse under the windoes environment but I have
> encountered some strange situations so here it is...
>
> [
> Note: I followed recommendations per Paul Howarth's JPackage
>       installation guidelines so as not to blow apart the
>       gcj (native) java port.
> ]
> Success:
> Installed SubEclipse successfully and it appears for all users.
> Installed GEF and EMF successfully and it appears for all users.
> Installed PhpEclipse successfully and it appears for all users.
> Unknown:
> Downloaded and installed JEM, but I was not able to determine
> if the package was installed successfully as it does not appear
> in the configuration list for "Manage Configurations".  I do note
> however JEM (Java EMF Model) does appear listed in the 'About
> Eclipse' feature listings.  I assume all is well but cannot
> confirm this.  GEF, EMF, and JEM is required for WST.
> Problems:
>
> As any user (root and non-root), I am unable to uninstall
> any older plugins (or packages).  I was trying to remove
> pyDev 0.9.3 because a newer version of pyDev 0.9.8.7
> supersedes it and the 'uninstall' menu item refuses to
> appear for selection.  I got this new update via the
> Help->Software Updates->Find and Install...  Please
> note that the update for 'Change Logs' was a very weird
> one and it causes problems if you try to update this one.
> Someone should probably remove this unless it is really
> needed?
>
> Downloaded and installed WTP 1.0.1 as root user (login)
> and it was installed into /usr/share/eclipse.  When I
> brought up eclipse, I noticed that the JSEE (WTP) was
> not within the IDE, so I proceed to the Help->Software
> Updates->Manage Configurations, and enabled the 'Show
> disabled features', WTP appeared but was not enabled.
> Ok... then I enabled it, and closed Eclipse and brought
> it back up and added the J2EE perspective and all seems
> to be there.  Haven't tried to see if J2EE works at this
> point.
>
> Now here is the weird part.  I logged out as 'root' user
> from Gnome, logged in as myself, and started up Eclipse.
> This is a first-time eclipse start-up.  Ok, proceeding,
> I wanted to add the J2EE perspective but it wasn't there.
> Hmm...  ok, then I again selected Help->Software Updates->
> Manage Configurations and this time I note the following is
> not enabled:
> J2EE for standard tools (JST) SDK 1.0.1.v200602130105
> SDK for Web Standard Tools (WST) 1.0.1.v200602130105
>
> I tried to enable these plugins but now for (1), a message pops up:
>
> "The requested operation could not be performed because it will
> invalidate the configuration. See details for more information."
>
> Details:
>
> Requested operation cannot be performed because it would invalidate the
> current configuration. See details for more information.
>   J2EE Standard Tools (JST) SDK (1.0.1.v200602130105) The site is not
> updateable: file:/usr/share/eclipse/.
>   J2EE Standard Tools (JST) (1.0.1.v200602130105) requires feature
> "org.eclipse.wst".
>   JST Common Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
> "org.eclipse.wst.common_core.feature (1.0.0)", or equivalent.
>   JST Server Core Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
> "org.eclipse.wst.server_core.feature (1.0.0)", or equivalent.
>   JST Web Core Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
> "org.eclipse.wst.web_core.feature (1.0.0)", or compatible.
>   JST Enterprise Core Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
> "org.eclipse.wst.ws_core.feature (1.0.0)", or compatible.
>   JST Enterprise UI Feature (1.0.1.v200602151554) requires feature
> "org.eclipse.wst.rdb_core.feature (1.0.0)", or equivalent.
>
> So - Eclipse refuses to allow me to enable these plugins.  I went
> one step further:  I added a eclipse user group, changed the group
> ownership to eclipse, and added group read-write-execute and the
> problem still remains.  I am not able to continue any further on
> enabling J2EE.  I cannot even uninstall it either.
> The same/similar problem appears for these plugins:
> a) RMI plugins for Eclipse 1.6.5.4
>
> Please let me know if there is anything I can do at this point.
>
> Kind regards,
> Dan
>
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