Is Sun Java really necessary for using Android SDK on Ubuntu 10.10? I prefer OpenJDK

Question

I would prefer to just use openjdk-6-jdk (version 6b20-1.9.1-1ubuntu3). But I'm just starting the Android SDK installation, so if Sun (Oracle) Java is really needed, I suppose now is the time to install it. Any advice?

Answer 1

I'm using JDK for working on Android and it's fine :)

java -version
java version "1.6.0_20"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.9.1) (6b20-1.9.1-1ubuntu3)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.0-b16, mixed mode)

And eclipse plugin too :)

Answer 2

I tried it and it is working. I built and ran my project without any errors. (If I encounter errors in the future, I'll know to try the Sun JDK.)

Thanks for the feedback.

BTW, I'm running Ubuntu 10.10, and Eclipse Helios Service Release 1 Build id: 20100917-0705 My project targets Android 2.2. It works so far.

Answer 3

But I'm just starting the Android SDK installation, so if sun java is really needed, I suppose now is the time to install it. Any advice?

The Dalvik cross-compiler expects Sun bytecode and will fail with OpenJDK-generated class files, by all reports. Also, I'm not sure if there are any issues with other tools, such as the Eclipse ADT plug-in. You are welcome to try it, though.

OpenJDK and the official Oracle compilers work using modern versions of the Android developer tools. Other Java compilers (e.g., GNU Classpath for Java) may or may not work.

Answer 4

For an "official" answer (by Andrew Hughes, who is "Free Java Software Engineer" at Red Hat, Inc):

We've never had any bug reports relating to this that I'm aware of.