That was not an obvious one. Under KUbuntu I typically use the KPackageKit application to install and update applications.  It did not work well. I tried to install the sun-java-jdk package many times and every time it would list the dependencies and do the install but the “java -version” would tell me that I was still using the OpenJDK.

After reading a few different posts in forums I tested the idea to use the synaptic package manager. The installation worked much better.

To finalize the install I ran a few commands at the cli:

sudo update-java-alternatives -l

This listed the fact that I now have the OpenJDK and Sun Java installed on my workstation.

sudo update-alternatives –config java

This allowed me to specify to use the Sun Java as my default JVM.

java -version

This now reports the Sun Java JRE as my JVM.

I can now use Maven to compile some test projects.

I guess there are still a few issues with the OpenJDK to be fully compatible (might just be some configuration that I am not aware of).

Posted on December 30