Debian packaging question
 

Hi there,

I am running Ubuntu 11.10 and have some question regarding the packaging system. I installed the OS on USB flash boot, since I need to limit the persistence file size on a shared flash drive, so I have to remove some un-needed applications, and I see that the Java runtime is not the latest and will does not work with some website so I installed the latest version ie. V7, but I see I've V6 installed already which comes with Libreoffice, so I uninstalled it to save some space, I wonder why Java will not update itself, instead keep both versions ? during the install/uninstall process I monitor the space left on drive (persistence), I see that even though I uninstalled the 'old' Java the system still keep eating up space, I done the autoremove/autoclean/purge but can't get back much space, reboot has no effect at all, what am I missing here ?

The basic package sun-java6-jre : 14 MB only.
http://91.189.94.219/hardy/sun-java6-jre

The big one is sun-java6-bin : 82...87 MB.
http://91.189.94.219/hardy/sun-java6-bin


Older versions of java are not removed, when you install another version.
1) They have different package names.
2) It is quite common to have two (or more?) versions installed :
Some applications / people may prefer a specific version.

There is an "easy switcher" from one version to another :
'sudo update-alternatives --config java'

You can then set the default version to any of the installed versions
like : gcc-java (gij), openjdk, sun-java5, sun-java6, sun-java7

..

I see, I thought new version cover everything so I can safely remove the old one to save space, I need the runtime only, and as far as I know in the ms world there are 2 Java VM, Sun's one and ms' own one, that's why we have to keep both installed some time.