What is the correct target for the JAVA_HOME envri

Question

In Windows, JAVA_HOME must point to the JDK installation folder (so that JAVA_HOME/bin contains all executables and JAVA_HOME/libs contains all default jar libraries).

If I download Sun's JDK bundle and installs it in Linux, it is the same procedure.

However, I need to use Kubuntu's default OpenJDK package. The problem is that all executables are placed in /usr/bin. But the jars are placed in /usr/share/java. Since they are not under the same JAVA_HOME folder I'm having trouble with Grails and maybe there will be trouble with other applications that expect the standard Java structure.

1. If I use:

   JAVA_HOME=/usr
   

   All applications and scripts that want to use any Java executable can use the standard procedure call $JAVA_HOME/bin/executable. However, since the jars are in a different place, they are not always found (example: in grails I'm getting ClassDefNotFound for native2ascii).

2. On the other hand, if I use:

   JAVA_HOME=/usr/share/java
   

   None of the Java executables (java, javac, etc.) can be found.

So, what is the correct way of handling the JAVA_HOME variable in a Debian-based Linux?

Thanks for your help, Luis

Answer 1

If you have issues with JAR files not being found I would also ensure your CLASSPATH is set to include the location of those files. I do find however that the CLASSPATH often needs to be set differently for different programs and often ends up being something to set uniquely for individual programs.