[software] JDKs on Debian?

[Bob F]

> A little.  I've actually wondered often why these Debian package URLs
> don't tell you clearly whether or not the package is in main, contrib,
> non-free, etc.
>
> I checked the license and this seems to be based on the IcedTea stuff,
> which is (in part) a merger of Classpath and the GPL'd Sun library
> stuff.
>
> I'm 90% sure it's correct dependency route to go down.

OK.  I think I will not have much problem get OA working with this  
Debian IcedTea build.  I never imagined that the problem would be in  
determining whether a given package is actually free or non-free.

> Anyway, what I
> strongly suggest is that you get a chroot, qemu,  or a other spare
> instance and install debian unstable and try to get OA to build  
> against
> it.

I'm sorry, I don't understand these words.  I guess I will get a new  
physical or virtual machine, install Debian on it, and then see if I  
can get this all running.  I've never installed Debian before, but I  
suppose if I look for "Debian unstable" then I will figure out how?

> There is probably a mailing list for Free Java on Debian, I bet.

Does anyone know where?

> Probably one for Fedora too...

I want to work with one reference platform at this point.  AFAIK, the  
Free Java will be the same system on both.  So I just need one system  
that I know is 100% free.  Is Fedora 100% like Debian, or does it  
have non-free dependencies?

Thanks,
-- Bob