[fedora-java] Eclipse and Tomcat

[Daniel B. Thurman]

>From: fedora-devel-java-list-bounces at redhat.com
>[mailto:fedora-devel-java-list-bounces at redhat.com]On Behalf Of Kenneth
>Porter
>Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 7:14 PM
>To: Fedora Java Development List (E-mail)
>Subject: RE: [fedora-java] Eclipse and Tomcat
>
>
>--On Wednesday, December 21, 2005 1:57 PM -0800 "Daniel B. Thurman" 
><dant at cdkkt.com> wrote:
>
>> I believe whomever created this tomcat version for Fedora has got
>> some explaining to do.  This is a horrible piece of junk, horrible
>> waste of my time, and files moved all over the place that is it a
>> major cause of confusion which departs from apache's standard
>> configuration and installation.  Heck, I cannot even simply define
>> JAVA_HOME and find the binaries!!!  Sheesh!!
>
>Agreed, but this is unlikely to be Fedora-specific. More likely the 
>repackaging is done to make the system comply with LSB/FHS, which Sun 
>ignores. Even Microsoft has packaging guidelines and recommended 
>directories that application developers routinely ignore. 
>(It's easy to do 
>so when everyone runs as administrator.)
>

First I want to apologize for my uncivilized comments - I was
just plain frustrated.  So I'd like to move on past this.

Yes, you are probably right - that it is vendors that routinely
ignore packaging guidelines and recommended directories and so on
and I am sure M$ is attacked for the same reasons.  Seems that the
problem may be JPackage or Fedora's problem - but for those on the
outside - there is a problem and it is a mess and who's really to
be blamed? Perhaps nobody is to be blamed but the end-result is there
is a problem and it frustrates the heck out of anyone who wants to
succeed but cannot get anywhere.

I am not sure where to begin as far as what I have on my system
but I will try to explain it best as I can:

1) I am using JPackage - this is where I am getting the tomcat
and other java-related packaging.  I read many sites and apparently
this is where most (but not all) have recommended getting updates
from - which I was trying to stay with the "standard". So my Tomcat
5 version comes from JPackage, I believe.

Also, I have downloaded Sun's java kit v1.5 and followed the recommendations
somewhere that explains how to get Sun's version properly packaged for
installation into Fedora.  It was a complicated process and it uses JPacakge's
files, mentioned in that link.  If anyone wants that link please let me
know and I will try to find it.

2) Downloaded and manually installed Apache Tomcat v5.5.12 in
/usr/local directory, for the purpose to see if I can get a
running version going.  The Tomcat 5 version (from JPackage) that
I have does not work out of the box - I threw everything I could
at it - and got only so far to see that *something* runs but no
pages were being served.  I noted that there is a problem in the
handling of the tomcat-users.xml file and an exception was thrown
but apparently this did not cause tomcat to stop running.

I went a little further to see if I can get Fedora's port of
Eclipse to work with a 'Dynamic Web' project and coupled with
Tomcat, the one I got working from the Apache and not the one
with JPackage. The index.jsp page that I have is one that I
developed on a Window platform with Eclipse and NetBeans and
on a heterogenous environment and it works.  So I simply opened
up my project obtained over CVS an onto Fedora and the next thing
to do was to refactor it, and to at least define the application
server (Tomcat v5.5), and try to get it running.

Unfortunately, I cannot get the the application server (tomcat v5.5)
to work.  I originally tried this with Jpackage's tomcat v5 and the
problem was that it would not even accept the 'Tomcat installation Directory'
when provided, but it would accept the directory when I supplied the
apache's version i.e. /usr/local/tomcat-5.5.12

Even when I am using apache's version I *still* cannot get Eclipse
to use tomcat, to run/start it, nor to get my project's pages loaded
on Tomcat.

When I looked into the Eclipse plug-ins - this was where I let it all out
in my frustration: that the tomcat-5 plugins were symbolically linked into
/var/lib/tomcat5 BYPASSING the one I installed in /usr/local directory
so therein lies a problem - how do I get to choose my installation over
that of another vendor in case the vendor does not get it right?  So -
that is why I belted it out - what a piece of -- well... that is
history now...

>> It seems that there are just too many problems with this
>> version - and this was stated in several sites talking about it.
>
>Rather than "curse the dark", it's in everyone's best interest 
>that those 
>who identify concrete faults go to bugzilla and "light a 
>candle". Did any 
>of those sites provide bug numbers?

>From the messages I read, no bug numbers were provided.  Just
some people saying that they gave up trying and suggested that
I download the sources and build the things I needed.  Other
people referred to JPackage but they warned of a packaging problem
that involved in a missing jta.jar and this caused me a lot of
grief in getting started.  There was complaints that JPackage was
slow in keeping up.  But I went ahead and and got this working and
JPackage is part of my Yum list for updates.

If there is any thing else I can do or provide to resolve this
issue with Eclipse/Tomcat please let me know!

I am currently looking at my "hate mail" on my uncivilized comment
and also follow up requests for information or to perform steps to
try and getting this issue resolved.

Thanks for your patience --

Dan

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