gentoo-overlay/dev-java/icedtea-web/files

Browser plugin

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The IcedTea browser plugin (NPPlugin) is now made immediately

available to supporting browsers without the need for eselect. Note

that Chromium-based browsers no longer support NPAPI-based plugins

since the code was removed in September 2015. The list of supporting

browsers is shrinking but still includes Firefox as of version 46.



JVM selection

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By default, IcedTea's browser plugin and Web Start uses the JVM

selected via eselect or the GENTOO_VM environment variable. Note that

this doesn't have to be an IcedTea JVM. An Oracle JVM will also

work. The choice can be overridden using the itweb-settings

program. Simply blank out the field to restore the default behaviour.



Coexistence with Oracle's plugin

--------------------------------



The IcedTea browser plugin can no longer be installed alongside

Oracle's plugin. This used to be possible thanks to eselect

java-nsplugin but this was removed in an effort to simplify things. No

one is likely to need both, especially with plugins being all but

outlawed these days. To avoid any blockers, simply enable the nsplugin

USE flag on icedtea-web or the Oracle packages, but not both.



If you're wondering why we don't just leave plugin selection to the

browser, it's because Firefox (and probably others) only allows you to

disable all the Java plugins together, not individually.



Coexistence with Oracle's Web Start

-----------------------------------



/usr/bin/javaws, the executable used to launch JNLP files from a

browser, will always use IcedTea's implementation over Oracle's when

icedtea-web is installed, regardless of which JVM has been

selected. This is primarily for consistency with the browser

plugin. If you want to use Oracle's implementation then simply

uninstall icedtea-web.



32-bit plugin on 64-bit systems

-------------------------------



This is no longer supported as the 64-bit plugin can launch a 32-bit

JVM. Other reasons for running a 32-bit browser on a 64-bit system

have long passed.



32-bit JVM on 64-bit systems

----------------------------



The emul-linux-x86-java package was removed in 2015 with the migration

to full multilib. icedtea-bin now provides this feature via the

multilib USE flag. Once installed, using the 32-bit variant is simply

a case of selecting that VM as described above.