Hi all. I have Fedora 16_x64 and I have both java-1.6.0-openjdk and java-1.7.0-openjdk packages installed. Both claim to do the same job. When I try to remove the java-1.6.0-openjdk package it wants to remove all this:

Removing:
java-1.6.0-openjdk
Removing for dependencies:
bouncycastle-1.46-1.fc16 bouncycastle-mail-1.46-1.fc16
bouncycastle-tsp-1.46-1.fc16
icedtea-web-1.2.1.fc16
pdftk-1.44-5.fc16

I looked at the purpose of bouncycastle packages and icedtea-web and pdftk and I don't see where I might need those. Is it going to break anything important to remove these and keep java-1.7.0-openjdk? This does nothing to javascript/spidermonkey, right? Thanks ahead of time

Java can have many versions installed on your system, the way it works is by creating symlinks so that you have one path that you can always access java on. I cant remember the exact syntax but the way it works is it creates /usr/java/latest/ and then your versions get installed so /usr/java/java-1.6.0-openjdk gets installed first, it creates the symlinks to /usr/java/latest/. You then install /usr/java/ java-1.7.0-openjdk and it overwrites the previous symlinks and updates them to point at the new version.


There is no harm to having multiple versions installed side by side.

Nobody here can guarantee you that removing the old 1.6 version will not cause problems.

My rule is.. If it's not broke don't fix it. If you need to reclaim disk space then thats a valid reason but anything other than that I would just leave it.

NOTE: Folder paths provided in example are more than likely incorrect, this was done to illustrate how java handles multiple versions.

1 members found this post helpful.

@ Kustom42: Thank you for your informative reply, that answers several questions. I will leave both packages intact.