Java on RHEL 6.0 is in dire need of assistance. I understand the issues of patent encumbrance, but for the average desktop user, it’s just not that important. If something better is available, we use it.
The bundled OpenJDK on RHEL 6 is painful to use. Among other things, I have a copy of jShisen I downloaded some years ago, and drag it from one system and OS to the next. On Linux, I don’t want to install all the supporting junk with KDE 4 just to get Kshisen. Under Windows, nothing compares for the price. But with OpenJDK, it was unusable, hogging system resources for almost no return.
For quite some time the instructions for replacing it with Sun’s Java have been easy to find. For the peculiarities of RHEL/Fedora and friends, there is a more recent procedure available in several places around the Web which includes all the official methods for changing system defaults.
You’ll need to create an account with Sun (now owned by Oracle), but I’ve had mine for years. I’ve never found the Open Source version adequate for my uses.
The current version from Sun is jdk-6u20-linux-i586. You can opt for the lighter Java Runtime Environment (JRE), but since I expect to have to compile so very many things in the absence of official Red Hat support contracts, I chose the Java Development Kit (JDK). When following one of the guides linked above, simply remember to substitute the name of whatever you choose to download for the somewhat outdated references to older versions of the package.
In my case, the result went from painfully useless to lightening fast. The game works exceedingly well, and I keep find ways in which RHEL 6 is so much faster, lighter, and more stable than the current favorite. However, I have to admit the latter is a lot easier to introduce to non-techie Windows refugees.
