[DebianGIS-dev] Bug#475878: josm: Depends: java-gcj-compat | java2-runtime, but doesn't work.

[Andreas Putzo]

Hi,

On Apr 13  17:25, Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> Package: josm
> Version: 0.0.0.20080330-1
> Severity: serious
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Your package has a Depends on: java-gcj-compat | java2-runtime
> but those dependencies are not enough.  It complains with:
> No valid JVM found to run JOSM.
> Please install one of those mentioned in README.Debian
> or set the JAVACMD environment variable prior running josm.

I'm aware of the fact that this is a bit unfortunate but I don't want to 
remove the dependency on java2-runtime because for example SUN's java
provides this and josm of course works fine with it. It's also a
requirement by the Java policy which is a bit controversial to the fact
that a package "must specify the dependency information about other
packages that are required  for the first to work correctly".
Josm simply does not work with every java implementation which we try to
address in the wrapper script that ignores the alternatives system and
trys to find a working jvm instead. If none is found it gives hints how
to resolve this.

> But it doesn't even try to use /usr/bin/java.

Because it's very likely that /usr/bin/java points to a jvm that does
not work. This would just show an empty GUI interface without any hints
for the user about what possibly went wrong. 
See also #474626 and #472285.

> I have java-gcj-compat installed. java2-runtime is provided by those
> packages:
>   gij-4.2 4.2.1-5
>   gij-4.1 4.1.2-16
>   gij 4:4.3-1
> 
> Of those, gij-4.1 is the only one I don't have installed.
> 
> If it only works with jamvm (which is java1-runtime) and gij-4.1,
> then use those as depends instead of something that you're not even
> using.

I agree that the dependency can be tightened to depend on 
gij-4.1 | jamvm | java2-runtime instead of java-gcj-compat (which is
again just a meta package) until the bug is fixed that prevents josm to
work with the version provided by java-gcj-compat.
But this still cannot prevent installations where a working jvm is
missing. 

Regards,
Andreas