Java on SPARC Linux

[likwid]

Are there any updates on this situation? Kind of insane that there isn't java for sparc linux...

[Ferris]

Sigh. No. You are right, it is insane that sun won't support java on their own systems. (Sun supports sparc, sun supports linux, but sun does not support sparc/linux.)

[likwid]

Man that sucks heavy balls. Has this always been the case? Like back when RedHat used to have a sparc distro (6.2 and under) wasn't there java?

[Ferris]

There was one from blackdown, but it has security issues. If you have time and like to code at a fairly low level, I can help with a possible light-weight substitute, but I haven't had the time to make it work (endian issues and pointer misalignment and just what assembly level semaphores it wants). It's a disgrace that sun won't support their language on their architecture on a system they support, but I can't fix that.

Yours in frustration,

[likwid]

I am a junior level sysadmin/engineer... I've forgotten most of my C due to lack of use lol so I couldn't help you with what I assume is assembly level coding. I'd be all for it if I could code well. Hopefully someone out there will take on this task...

[recupero]

i've just spent little time on the problem:
i've downloaded the new GPL'd Java.

And figured it could be compiled with a make

Yea, but isn't it theoretically possible to use Sun/Sparc binary compatibility in order to run a javac for the compilation of the GPL'd version?

Post some links if you have some idea.

Thank you.

[henniez-swisswater]

i tried to compile the x86 source code for my sparc. most of it went well, except sun-jdk. now i have java config etc, but no java:(

[blu3bird]

probably because sun-jdk is binary and you just can't run x86 binaries on a sparc

However if you have a program written in java and you want to run it on linux/sparc you can try your luck with gcj/gij(compile gcc with gcj useflag, http://gcc.gnu.org/java/faq.html).
_________________
Black Holes are created when God divides by zero!

[Galahad]

gcj-jdk depends on eclipse-ecj depends on virtual/jdk. So have fun.

[guidebee]

I recently installed the gentoo linux on Sun ultra 10 (Sparc) ,and met the same problem, there's no avaible Java for Linux/Sparc.

I tried to download
http://ftp.cvut.cz/java-linux/JDK-1.4.1/sparc/01/

and tried to install j2sdk-1.4.1-beta-linux-sparc.bin, it gave some checksum error.

there's a way to manually install the JDK1.4.1. use any editor (like vi) to open the .bin file.

delete all the shell scipts in the .bin file.

"
....
END_OF_STUB
BZh91AY&SY¹...

"

keep all the data below END_OF_STUB ,save it, and change the file name to .bz2

then use tar xvf [jdk].bz2 , it unzips all the JDK1.4.1

it actually works

[Ferris]

Interesting, thanks. We'll look at it. What version of gcc are you using on your system?

Regards,

[guidebee]

gcc version 4.1.1 (Gentoo 4.1.1-r3)

[psychicist]

I'm neither a Gentoo nor a Debian/Ubuntu user but why would we settle for some older, unsupported SPARC JVM when we could just as well get the OpenJDK working on SPARC. The code is there for Linux and for SPARC, we only have to get the combination working.

I've already asked for assistance on the Hotspot-dev mailing list, so with your help we could get this thing working pretty soon. You can find more information at http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-dev/2007-September/thread.html.

[Ferris]

Thanks for the information. I think that there are two difficulties: (1) Assembly language will likely need some conversion; (2) More difficult: I am sure sparc/solaris java assumes 64-but user mode. Sparc/linux is 32-bit user mode. This can cause problems unless the sun developers took care to use conditional compilation options.

That said, good look and ask for assistance if you wish.

[donpine]

Thank You guidbee! Your instructions worked great for me. I'm running 2.6.22 with gcc 4.1.1 on an Ultra 5. Some web applets don't load, but I'm able to run MoneyDance (keep the old box productive).

Thanks for the tip!

[CrazyApe]

I picked up an Ultra 5 a few weeks ago as I like to mess about with Gentoo on alternate architectures, it wasn't long before I found myself looking into the current java situation we have.

I've managed to get very close with iced tea.

Hotspot is compiled with the propper sparc patches for the atomic ops, etc.

I have java, javac, and all the other binaries, I'm just having issues getting some class stuff built.
All the .class files are built, but the section of code that builds the .jar has a problem.

I'm getting:

error: bad class file: sun/rmi/registry/RegistryImpl_Skel.class(sun/rmi/registry:RegistryImpl_Skel.class)
bad signature: java/lang/
Please remove or make sure it appears in the correct subdirectory of the classpath.


I really don't know much about java, what can I do here, even a quick fix to get past this point.


For now I'll just keep messing with it, I may discover something. Anyway, this shows promise.

sparc / # /var/tmp/portage/dev-java/icedtea-6.1.1/work/icedtea6-1.1/openjdk/control/build/linux-sparc/j2re-image/bin/java -version
java version "1.6.0"
IcedTea Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-b09)
OpenJDK Client VM (build 1.6.0-b09, mixed mode)
_________________
Neither logic nor reason can mandate adherence to convention.

[Ferris]

Please see Bug #159780 from comment 41 (https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159780#41 ) on. It looks as if IcedTea can work as a java engine on sparc, thanks to Dylan Wakefield. Please test it if you are interested in java and post results here. I am aiming to get this into the Gentoo mainstream, and would just like to have a bit of feedback first.

Thanks,

[CrazyApe]

I've been having a bit of a play with icedtea6-bin and the vast majority of apps that require java now build, simply by keywording them for sparc/~sparc.

The following is a list of things that have built successfully, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Just because it built doesn't mean it works, although in general that is the case.

Anything with native code may need a tweak to the build, things that come to mind are swt and eclipse.

The swt ebuild needs a bit of a tweak, I'll post an ebuild for it later. I have tested swt somewhat with vuze

Eclipse (not listed bellow) needs another strand of spaghetti wound through it's build system, I'll take a look at it and see what I come up with.

Anyway, the list so far:

app-editors/jedit-4.3_pre16
app-editors/jext-5.0
dev-java/ant-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-antlr-1.7.1-r1
dev-java/ant-apache-bcel-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-apache-bsf-1.7.1-r1
dev-java/ant-apache-log4j-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-apache-oro-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-apache-regexp-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-apache-resolver-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-commons-logging-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-commons-net-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-core-1.7.1-r4
dev-java/ant-eclipse-ecj-3.4
dev-java/ant-javamail-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-jdepend-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-jmf-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-jsch-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-junit-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-nodeps-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-owanttask-1.1-r12
dev-java/ant-swing-1.7.1
dev-java/ant-trax-1.7.1
dev-java/antlr-3.1.3-r2
dev-java/asm-2.0-r1
dev-java/bcmail-1.38-r1
dev-java/bsf-2.4.0-r1
dev-java/cldc-api-1.1
dev-java/commons-daemon-1.0.1-r2
dev-java/commons-dbcp-1.2.2
dev-java/commons-el-1.0-r2
dev-java/commons-pool-1.4
dev-java/dom4j-1.6.1-r3
dev-java/eclipse-ecj-3.4-r4
dev-java/fop-0.94-r1
dev-java/gnu-classpath-0.97.2
dev-java/gnu-regexp-1.1.4-r2
dev-java/hamcrest-core-1.1
dev-java/icu4j-3.8.1-r1
dev-java/iso-relax-20050331-r2
dev-java/itext-2.1.5
dev-java/jarjar-0.9
dev-java/java-config-2.1.8
dev-java/java-config-wrapper-0.16
dev-java/java-getopt-1.0.13
dev-java/javacc-4.2
dev-java/javacup-0.11a_beta20060608
dev-java/jaxen-1.1.1
dev-java/jaxp-1.4-r1
dev-java/jcommon-1.0.16
dev-java/jfreechart-1.0.13
dev-java/jgoodies-looks-2.1.4
dev-java/jsch-0.1.41
dev-java/junit-4.6
dev-java/jython-2.2.1-r1
dev-java/jzlib-1.0.7-r1
dev-java/log4j-1.2.15-r1
dev-java/lucene-1.9.1
dev-java/lucene-analyzers-2.3.2
dev-java/qdox-1.6.3
dev-java/rhino-1.6.5
dev-java/servletapi-2.4-r5
dev-java/stringtemplate-3.2
dev-java/sun-jaf-1.1.1
dev-java/sun-javamail-1.4.2
dev-java/swing-layout-1.0.3
dev-java/swt-3.4-r3
dev-java/tomcat-servlet-api-6.0.18
dev-java/xerces-2.9.1
dev-java/xml-xmlbeans-1.0.4_pre20041217
java-virtuals/jaf-1.1-r1
java-virtuals/javamail-1.0-r1
java-virtuals/servlet-api-2.3
media-video/projectx-0.90.4.00_p26
net-irc/jircii-41
net-p2p/vuze-4.2.0.2
net-p2p/vuze-coreplugins-4.2.0.2
sci-biology/readseq-20080420
virtual/jdk-1.6.0-r2
www-servers/tomcat-6.0.18-r3

Cheers,
Dylan
_________________
Neither logic nor reason can mandate adherence to convention.

[alexbuell]

Good news, I have used 1.4.1 to bootstrap to icedtea-6.1.9.1, I'm testing the JVM at the moment. There will be a binpkg up for testing soon.
_________________
Cheers,
Alex.

Linux - the best text adventure game ever.

[lariano]

As there is currently no jdk via portage availabel for sparc I have tried to build it manually on my SB-1500 (UltraSparc IIIi). After several attempts finally I've got it running and could ask

$ java -version
java version "1.6.0_22"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.10.3) (linux-gnu build 1.6.0_22-b22)
OpenJDK Client VM (build 19.0-b09, mixed mode)

I had to emerge dev-java/ecj-gcj and sys-devel/gcc-4.5.3-r1 for bootstrapping and to fulfill all requirements of the `configure' script of icedtea6-1.10.3 (several java apis can be downloaded in binary form). Then I encounterd two problems:

I had a ClassNotFoundException at the beginning of the build process and found a solution with help of

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/general/icedtea6.html

The xml-apis-jar from the xerces archive must be provided additionally due to some bug. The patch provided on the linuxfromscratch-site (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/blfs/svn/icedtea6-1.9.7-xerces2_10-1.patch) can not be applied automatically because it is written for icedTea-1.9.7. But the few changes can be done manually.

The second problem was a compiler error because the newer gcc-versions produce new warnings for some old-style-code in the jdk-sources which are converted into compiler errors if -Werror is set as option. The sources of the jdk are not ready for these warnings. The solution is therefore to get rid of the -Werror option. I have found a patch for this issue in an older version of icedTea (http://osdir.com/ml/attachments/txtMUBogtElg3.txt) which is however not included in icedtea6-1.10.3. As with the issue before I applied the ideas of this patch manually to the file targets which are found under a slightly different location however. Then finally everything worked.

The new jdk makes a quite good impression. My favorite java application are running stable, e.g. intelliJ-IDEA. I have copied a jboss-5.1.0 from an opensolaris installation of another hard drive of the same machine to the gentoo-installation and found to my complete surprise that the startup time of this empty jboss takes ~2:05min on opensolaris (2009.06, sun-jdk-1.6.0_13) whereas only ~1:35min on gentoo (2.6.39-gentoo-r3) .

[lariano]

My gentoo installation was compiled with gcc-4.4.5 but in order to compile the icedtea6-jdk I had to emerge gcc-4.5.3. Later I tried to upgrade the whole system with the new compiler but had no success (got an ugly compiler error late in `emerge -ev world'). Therfore I switched back to stable gcc-4.4.5 and rebuilt the icedtea6-jdk two times based on the output of the previous build cycle using