For ages, I have had Java 7 and Java 8 packages in my repository. I compile these versions of Java from the OpenJDK sources and using the icedtea framework.

People have been asking about more recent versions of Java, in particular Java 11 and Java 17 are required more and more by software projects. So far, I have been hesitant, since icedtea still only supports Java 7 and 8. Writing a new build script from scratch is a lot of work and Java gives little reward.

Eventually, I have decided to build Java 11 packages regardless, main reason being that LibreOffice seems to need it to enable functionality in Base. Therefore expect the next update of my LibreOffice packages to have been compiled against OpenJDK11.

Note that I will not be creating separate JRE (Java Runtime Environment) packages. The JDK (Java Development Kit) is what you’ll get from me. It contains everything you need to compile and run Java programs. Don’t forget to logout and login again after installing openjdk11, since it installs a profile script which is sourced during login.

Packages are on slackware.com or on my NL or US mirror.

I took some inspiration from the SBo script maintained by Lenard Spencer, to save time, but in the end my script ended up quite different. I credited Lenard in my own script though.

$ java -version
openjdk version "11.0.16" 2022-07-19
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.16+8)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.16+8, mixed mode)
$ javac -version
javac 11.0.16

Now let’s see if I can stay op top of security updates… Andrew Hughes has been doing a stellar job of informing me about the icedtea releases that prompted me to update my openjdk/openjre packages.