prebuild Oracle VM appliance

[Erik Trimble]

On 6/15/2011 8:59 AM, Dr Andrew John Hughes wrote:
> On 16:15 Wed 15 Jun     , Andrew Haley wrote:
>> On 06/15/2011 04:11 PM, Dr Andrew John Hughes wrote:
>>> On 09:59 Wed 15 Jun     , Andrew Haley wrote:
>>>> On 14/06/11 22:22, Sebastian Sickelmann wrote:
>>>>> i had done a contribution to openjdk7 and remembered it was very
>>>>> hard to setup all the build thinks. Now a want to make some new
>>>>> contributions and i struggle again with the build setup. How about a
>>>>> prebuild Oracle VM appliance for openjdk development (at least for
>>>>> the linux-setup). I will get it working without such a appliance but
>>>>> i think it can be a solution to lower the "entry-hurdle" in openjdk
>>>>> contribution.
>>>> Perhaps so.  I used to find OpenJDK hard to build, but now only the
>>>> pesky bundles that you have to download present any problems.  I'll be
>>>> interested to find out what other problems a prebuilt VM needs to
>>>> solve.
>>> Which 'pesky bundles' are you referring to?  I'm not aware of any being
>>> required for OpenJDK at present.
>> Sure, but they were.  I don't know what Sebastian is trying to solve,
>> since OpenJDK builds cleanly out of the box on the systems I use.
>>
> Same here.  They haven't been any bundles for a couple of years.
> The build could be a lot simpler though, and I believe Kelly is working
> on that.
>
>> Andrew

There shouldn't be any binary bundles required anymore. However, I do 
know there can be a little bit of hassle reading the BUILD requirements 
docs and sorting through which additional packages are needed.  Frankly, 
certain distros (*cough* Ubuntu *cough* Gentoo *cough*) are also wont to 
change things willy-nilly, so sometimes getting the right *versions* of 
everything to work can be a challenge for someone who isn't a systems 
person. Which, very few people on this list are (developer != sysadm, 
and vice versa).

I'm looking at being able to provide the VM images mostly for reference 
- people would then be able build on the *exact* platforms used 
internally by Oracle; and, of course, having everyone build on multiple 
platforms makes fixes more robust.  I.e. it would be nice if OpenJDK 
developers could fire up a couple of VMs, each with different OSes on 
them, and test their code changes on all of them.

And, yes, build changes are coming. Most likely to jdk8 first, then 
probably to jdk7. Kelly's shepherding them through, but they're actually 
mostly the work of someone else (since Kelly has only, what 100 things 
on his plate now?)


[ObDisclaimer:  I do not officially speak for Oracle, and none of the 
statements in this email should be taken as official Oracle commitments 
or policies]
-- 

Erik Trimble
Java Platform Group Infrastructure
Mailstop:  usca22-317
Phone:  x17195
Santa Clara, CA
Timezone: US/Pacific (UTC-0800)