Eclipse on Jikes RVM with CVS head (almost)

[Julian Dolby]

Greetings,

   I have just checked in some code to Jikes RVM, and have just been using
Eclipse on Jikes RVM built with the GNU Classpath libraries, both Jikes RVM
and GNU Classpath being the CVS head versions.  This is that mythical
beast, the fully open-source stack of software for Java development.  It
works with the exception of the help system, which needs my most recent
patches to GNU Classpath to be committed.  For those who dare, here are
directions to set up Jikes RVM and GNU Classpath so that you can try this
feat for yourself.

1) Install jikes-1.18 on your machine, if you do not already have it.
      -- get it from
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/jikes/
      -- download and install the ...i386.rpm file

2) Check out the GNU Classpath head into some directory (hereinafter called
<classpathdir>)
      -- CVS root for GNU Classpath is
:psevser:address@hidden:/cvsroot/classpath
      -- given that root, in <classpathdir> do `cvs checkout classpath'

3) Build and configure GNU Classpath
      -- do the aclocal; autoheader; automake; autoconf thing in
<classpathdir>/classpath (see HACKING for details)
      -- make a directory `<classpathdir>/i686' (i.e. <classpathdir> now
contains `classpath' and `i686')
      -- in i686, do a `../classpath/configure --enable-jni
--with-jikes=/usr/bin/jikes
      -- in i686, do `make;

      (You can, of course, use your own classpath tree if you have one.
But you must make an `i686'
       directory parallel to the top of your tree, and do configure there
as I specified above)

4) Download Jikes RVM into some directory (hereinafter <rvmroot>)
      -- :pserver:address@hidden:/usr/cvs/jikesrvm
      -- given that root, in <rvmroot> do `cvs checkout rvm'

5) Edit <rvmroot>/rvm/config/i686-pc-linux.eb to reflect your system
      -- Everything should be fine, except CLASSPATH_SRC, which should
become <classpathdir>

6) Set the following environment variables (bash style below, mutatis
mutandum)
      export RVM_ROOT=<rvmroot>
      export RVM_HOST_CONFIG=<rvmroot>/rvm/config/i686-pc-linux.eb
      export RVM_TARGET_CONFIG=<rvmroot>/rvm/config/i686-pc-linux.eb
      export RVM_BUILD=<some directory that can be trashed or created>
      export PATH=<rvmroot>/rvm/bin:$PATH

7) Build Jikes RVM
      -- jconfigure -D RVM_WITH_GNU_CLASSPATH=1 BaseBaseSemiSpace
      -- cd $RVM_BUILD
      -- ./jbuild

8) Download eclipse, and unzip it in <eclipsedir>
      -- www.eclipse.org
      -- I recommend the latest 2.1 integration build that worked, you can
also try release 2.0.2

9) Try it
      -- cd <eclipsedir>/eclipse
      -- ./eclipse -vm $RVM_ROOT/rvm/bin/rvm -vmargs -X:h=<number in
megabytes (try >= 200 first, and try shrinking later)>


  Many variations are possible.  Be warned that BaseBaseSemiSpace instructs
jconfigure to prepare a version of JikesRVM that is slow to run but quick
to build.  After verifying that that works, you may want to try
FastAdaptiveSemiSpace instead (just change the last argument to jconfigure;
you will probably want to change RVM_BUILD so that the FastAdaptive image
does not destroy the BaseBase one).  That will prepare a Jikes RVM version
that takes much longer to build (~25 minutes on a fast machine) but will
run Eclipse much faster.  Also be warned that you currently need rather a
lot of memory to anything much with Eclipse on Jikes RVM or for buiding the
FastAdaptiveSemiSpace image; for either, I recommend at least 512MB.

 Of course, all these projects have their own install documentation, which
you can consult if you have trouble.
      www-124.ibm.com/developerWorks/opensource/jikesrvm
      www.classpath.org

 Have fun, and please let me know of any problems with these directions,

      -- Julian