Canonical adds extra shots to Ubuntu Java
(2025/07/03)
- Reference: 1751539152
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/03/canonical_java_extra_shot/
- Source link:
Canonical has some extra toppings, flavorings, and offers coming for its bigger Java fans – because the suits swallow a lot of the stuff.
A cluster of related announcements from the house of Ubuntu indicate it is taking Java – and supporting Java – seriously.
It's [1]introducing its own builds of OpenJDK and offering extended support for them via Ubuntu Pro. It's offering new [2]chiseled Ubuntu containers for three LTS versions of OpenJRE: 8, 17, and 21 ( [3]Chisel is Canonical's [4]FOSS tool for cutting down packages to their essentials). It's also making it easier to get started developing apps using the Spring framework with a new [5]pre-assembled "devpack" for Spring .
[6]
You don't tend to see it around much anymore, but Java is very much alive, even thriving. It's not that it's not there, it's just that you may not recognize it. [7]It got middle-aged , lost its hair, put on a suit, and went to work in a big office block.
[8]
Java – getting older, ditching the red nose and cyberpunk accessories
It's also not coincidental that, thanks to this very enterprise use, there's gold in them thar [9]JAR s. Java is probably the main reason [10]Oracle bought Sun 15 years ago, and some half a dozen years later, after everyone relaxed, Big Red figured out how to [11]monetize it .
Once Oracle began charging for the JDK, that drove people to open source equivalents built from [12]OpenJDK . One company trying to help with that was [13]Spring developer Pivotal , which offered prebuilt OpenJDK binaries at a website called AdoptOpenJDK. That's evolved into an Eclipse-based working group with the [14]whimsical name of Adoptium . (Eclipse started out inside IBM, which is [15]also an Adoptium backer . See what we meant about it going corporate?)
[16]
[17]
So, for instance, Eclipse offers a pre-built Java SE runtime [18]called Temurin , maintained by Adoptium. Because there are multiple Java runtimes out there now, there's a quality evaluation toolkit, too, called [19]AQAvit . We're only bringing up Adoptium and its tools because Canonical references them. Its [20]enterprise Java datasheet [PDF] compares its "chiseled" containers with what it repeatedly calls the "Apache" Temurin ones – favorably, naturally. Apparently, they're half the size. It also says that they're tested with "Eclipse Aquavit"
The gist is that you can easily [22]install OpenJDK on Ubuntu . It's tested, and you can obtain compliancy certification for it. Canonical has documentation on [23]installing a development environment , and it also covers [24]Java build tools such as Maven and Gradle . You can get long-term commercial support through Ubuntu Pro, which has been free for up to five machines [25]for a few years now , and which [26]since last year increased the long-term support lifetime from 10 years to 12.
[27]Fedora 43 won't drop 32-bit app support – or adopt Xlibre
[28]Linus Torvalds hints Bcachefs may get dropped from the Linux kernel
[29]Exif marks the spot as fresh version of PNG image standard arrives
[30]OpenDylan sheds some parentheses in 2025.1 update
There are wider aspects than this, as a [31]May blog post on Discourse discussed. As well as the new [32]Devpack for Spring , Ubuntu also supports building native binaries with GraalVM, a special CRaC JDK that enables taking snapshots of the entire Java environment. Outside of Java, it also offers Rust and Zig. Aside from Java, though, [33]its main focus is .NET . As we covered in 2022, [34]it built .NET 6 in as standard and, just a few months later, [35].NET 7 as well . .NET 10 is coming soon.
In terms of why this emphasis, it's probably relevant to note the changing landscape outside of Ubuntu. As The Register [36]reported in January , Oracle's move to charge a lot more for Java licenses is not winning it any friends, with users [37]urged to check their usage before the bills arrive. The change has [38]stung UK higher education , despite [39]some discounts . Separately, promoting its appeal for developers is a big part of the [40]Fedora marketing , complete with a special [41]developer portal . ®
Bootnote
Java SE, incidentally, refers to the Standard Edition, in other words the ordinary standalone version for local applications. The fancy corporate edition, once called Java Enterprise Edition, is now called [42]Jakarta EE for reasons that no doubt made sense at some point. [43]Java ME targeted mobile phones in the era before smartphones, but now it's more aimed at the Internet of Things. As far as smartphones go, Android dominates and it uses Java too, but that is a [44]whole other story .
Get our [45]Tech Resources
[1] https://canonical.com/blog/introducing-canonical-builds-of-openjdk
[2] https://canonical.com/blog/chiseled-ubuntu-containers-openjre
[3] https://documentation.ubuntu.com/chisel/en/latest/
[4] https://github.com/canonical/chisel
[5] https://canonical.com/blog/devpack-spring-support-ubuntu
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aGapFWalzlvzusCQbemM5wAAAoE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/23/30_years_ago_java_arrived/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2015/05/21/java.jpg
[9] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/jar/jarGuide.html
[10] https://www.theregister.com//2009/04/21/oracle_sun_open_source/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2016/12/16/oracle_targets_java_users_non_compliance/
[12] https://openjdk.org/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/29/pivotal_adds_openjdk_support_to_spring_to_address_concerns_around_oracle_java/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/23/new_adoptium_working_group_will/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/15/ibm_java_binaries/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aGapFWalzlvzusCQbemM5wAAAoE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aGapFWalzlvzusCQbemM5wAAAoE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/adoptium.temurin
[19] https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/adoptium.aqavit
[20] https://pages.ubuntu.com/rs/066-EOV-335/images/Canonical%20Java%20Datasheet_Oct%202024.pdf
[21] https://www.liquor.com/articles/10-facts-about-aquavit/
[22] https://ubuntu.com/toolchains/java
[23] https://documentation.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-for-developers/howto/java-setup/#install-java
[24] https://documentation.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-for-developers/tutorials/java-use/#use-java
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/06/ubuntu_pro_free/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/canonical_snap_store_scams/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/fedora_43_i686_32bit/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/bcachefs_may_get_dropped/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/26/new_version_of_png/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/26/opendylan_20251_released/
[31] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/leveling-up-ubuntu-for-developers-java-and-beyond/61544
[32] https://github.com/canonical/devpack-for-spring/blob/main/devpack-for-spring/README.md
[33] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/leveling-up-ubuntu-for-developers-net-edition/63162
[34] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/17/dotnet_6_ubuntu/
[35] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/10/microsoft_dotnet_release_7/
[36] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/only_one_in_ten_oracle/
[37] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/09/users_advised_to_review_oracle_java_use/
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/13/jisc_java_oracle/
[39] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/20/uk_colleges_45m_saving_deal/
[40] https://www.fedoraproject.org/workstation/
[41] https://developer.fedoraproject.org/
[42] https://jakarta.ee/
[43] https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javameoverview.html
[44] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/05/google_prevails_over_oracle_in/
[45] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
A cluster of related announcements from the house of Ubuntu indicate it is taking Java – and supporting Java – seriously.
It's [1]introducing its own builds of OpenJDK and offering extended support for them via Ubuntu Pro. It's offering new [2]chiseled Ubuntu containers for three LTS versions of OpenJRE: 8, 17, and 21 ( [3]Chisel is Canonical's [4]FOSS tool for cutting down packages to their essentials). It's also making it easier to get started developing apps using the Spring framework with a new [5]pre-assembled "devpack" for Spring .
[6]
You don't tend to see it around much anymore, but Java is very much alive, even thriving. It's not that it's not there, it's just that you may not recognize it. [7]It got middle-aged , lost its hair, put on a suit, and went to work in a big office block.
[8]
Java – getting older, ditching the red nose and cyberpunk accessories
It's also not coincidental that, thanks to this very enterprise use, there's gold in them thar [9]JAR s. Java is probably the main reason [10]Oracle bought Sun 15 years ago, and some half a dozen years later, after everyone relaxed, Big Red figured out how to [11]monetize it .
Once Oracle began charging for the JDK, that drove people to open source equivalents built from [12]OpenJDK . One company trying to help with that was [13]Spring developer Pivotal , which offered prebuilt OpenJDK binaries at a website called AdoptOpenJDK. That's evolved into an Eclipse-based working group with the [14]whimsical name of Adoptium . (Eclipse started out inside IBM, which is [15]also an Adoptium backer . See what we meant about it going corporate?)
[16]
[17]
So, for instance, Eclipse offers a pre-built Java SE runtime [18]called Temurin , maintained by Adoptium. Because there are multiple Java runtimes out there now, there's a quality evaluation toolkit, too, called [19]AQAvit . We're only bringing up Adoptium and its tools because Canonical references them. Its [20]enterprise Java datasheet [PDF] compares its "chiseled" containers with what it repeatedly calls the "Apache" Temurin ones – favorably, naturally. Apparently, they're half the size. It also says that they're tested with "Eclipse Aquavit"
sic
, but honestly, after trying to nail this stuff down, we could use a [21]stiff drink , too.The gist is that you can easily [22]install OpenJDK on Ubuntu . It's tested, and you can obtain compliancy certification for it. Canonical has documentation on [23]installing a development environment , and it also covers [24]Java build tools such as Maven and Gradle . You can get long-term commercial support through Ubuntu Pro, which has been free for up to five machines [25]for a few years now , and which [26]since last year increased the long-term support lifetime from 10 years to 12.
[27]Fedora 43 won't drop 32-bit app support – or adopt Xlibre
[28]Linus Torvalds hints Bcachefs may get dropped from the Linux kernel
[29]Exif marks the spot as fresh version of PNG image standard arrives
[30]OpenDylan sheds some parentheses in 2025.1 update
There are wider aspects than this, as a [31]May blog post on Discourse discussed. As well as the new [32]Devpack for Spring , Ubuntu also supports building native binaries with GraalVM, a special CRaC JDK that enables taking snapshots of the entire Java environment. Outside of Java, it also offers Rust and Zig. Aside from Java, though, [33]its main focus is .NET . As we covered in 2022, [34]it built .NET 6 in as standard and, just a few months later, [35].NET 7 as well . .NET 10 is coming soon.
In terms of why this emphasis, it's probably relevant to note the changing landscape outside of Ubuntu. As The Register [36]reported in January , Oracle's move to charge a lot more for Java licenses is not winning it any friends, with users [37]urged to check their usage before the bills arrive. The change has [38]stung UK higher education , despite [39]some discounts . Separately, promoting its appeal for developers is a big part of the [40]Fedora marketing , complete with a special [41]developer portal . ®
Bootnote
Java SE, incidentally, refers to the Standard Edition, in other words the ordinary standalone version for local applications. The fancy corporate edition, once called Java Enterprise Edition, is now called [42]Jakarta EE for reasons that no doubt made sense at some point. [43]Java ME targeted mobile phones in the era before smartphones, but now it's more aimed at the Internet of Things. As far as smartphones go, Android dominates and it uses Java too, but that is a [44]whole other story .
Get our [45]Tech Resources
[1] https://canonical.com/blog/introducing-canonical-builds-of-openjdk
[2] https://canonical.com/blog/chiseled-ubuntu-containers-openjre
[3] https://documentation.ubuntu.com/chisel/en/latest/
[4] https://github.com/canonical/chisel
[5] https://canonical.com/blog/devpack-spring-support-ubuntu
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aGapFWalzlvzusCQbemM5wAAAoE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/23/30_years_ago_java_arrived/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2015/05/21/java.jpg
[9] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/jar/jarGuide.html
[10] https://www.theregister.com//2009/04/21/oracle_sun_open_source/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2016/12/16/oracle_targets_java_users_non_compliance/
[12] https://openjdk.org/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/29/pivotal_adds_openjdk_support_to_spring_to_address_concerns_around_oracle_java/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/23/new_adoptium_working_group_will/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/15/ibm_java_binaries/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aGapFWalzlvzusCQbemM5wAAAoE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aGapFWalzlvzusCQbemM5wAAAoE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/adoptium.temurin
[19] https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/adoptium.aqavit
[20] https://pages.ubuntu.com/rs/066-EOV-335/images/Canonical%20Java%20Datasheet_Oct%202024.pdf
[21] https://www.liquor.com/articles/10-facts-about-aquavit/
[22] https://ubuntu.com/toolchains/java
[23] https://documentation.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-for-developers/howto/java-setup/#install-java
[24] https://documentation.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-for-developers/tutorials/java-use/#use-java
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/06/ubuntu_pro_free/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/canonical_snap_store_scams/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/fedora_43_i686_32bit/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/bcachefs_may_get_dropped/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/26/new_version_of_png/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/26/opendylan_20251_released/
[31] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/leveling-up-ubuntu-for-developers-java-and-beyond/61544
[32] https://github.com/canonical/devpack-for-spring/blob/main/devpack-for-spring/README.md
[33] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/leveling-up-ubuntu-for-developers-net-edition/63162
[34] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/17/dotnet_6_ubuntu/
[35] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/10/microsoft_dotnet_release_7/
[36] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/only_one_in_ten_oracle/
[37] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/09/users_advised_to_review_oracle_java_use/
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/13/jisc_java_oracle/
[39] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/20/uk_colleges_45m_saving_deal/
[40] https://www.fedoraproject.org/workstation/
[41] https://developer.fedoraproject.org/
[42] https://jakarta.ee/
[43] https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javameoverview.html
[44] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/05/google_prevails_over_oracle_in/
[45] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: You don't tend to see it around much anymore
Caspian Prince
It is generally everywhere, thought not in very many exciting places. Particularly disgruntled that it hasn't gained enough traction for front-end, or videogames.
Re: You don't tend to see it around much anymore
LionelB
Hmm... the only application I use (on a daily basis) with a Java front-end is Matlab, and it's an unedifying experience. Matlab uses Java for its desktop and graphics functionality. In both cases, the GUI is unstable and extremely unpretty. Pretty much the only crashes I've ever had with Matlab turn out to be Java-related. It's a car-crash, to the extent that I generally run Matlab in console mode with the JVM turned off, and use a separate program (Gnuplot) for graphics.
Perhaps this is just poor coding, but it's surprising, since apart from the Java elements Matlab is generally rock-solid (despite, some might say, being mostly written in C and C++).
Of course YMMV.
Re: You don't tend to see it around much anymore
Really? I'm probably blinkered by working with Java every day for one of the world's bigger financial companies, but has the Reg 's audience really devolved into a bunch of script-kiddies playing with whatever the cool new language du jour is? Or Python? ;-)
Otherwise, thanks for another interesting article!