Build OpenJDK 8 on Debian 7

Building OpenJDK 8 is becoming an easy job especially on Linux. Below are steps I did to build OpenJDK 8 on a freshly installed Debian 7.4.

$ uname -a
Linux debian 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.54-2 x86_64 GNU/Linux

1. Install mercurial and trees plugin.  OpenJDK repository and its developer guide is http://openjdk.java.net/guide/repositories.html.

sudo apt-get install hg


Download trees plugin from http://hg.openjdk.java.net/code-tools/trees/raw-file/tip/trees.py and enable it by adding one line in ~/.hgrc

[extensions]
trees = /trees.py

2. Clone OpenJDK 8 repositories

   hg tclone http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8/jdk8
   
   

3. Install bootstrap JDK

   sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

   It also installs several extra packages such as libx11-dev, libxt-dev which are necessary when building OpenJDK later.
4. Install essential packages

   sudo apt-get install build-essential zip libcups2-dev libfreetype6-dev libasound2-dev

   These dependency packages are well prompted by configure script. Detailed document is at hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8/jdk8/raw-file/tip/README-builds.html.
5. Set bootstrap JDK path

   export PATH=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin:$PATH
   
   

6. Configure

   bash ./configure

   You will probably see output as follows

   A new configuration has been successfully created in
   /home/frank/Desktop/openjdk/jdk8/build/linux-x86_64-normal-server-release
   using default settings.
   
   Configuration summary:
   * Debug level:    release
   * JDK variant:    normal
   * JVM variants:   server
   * OpenJDK target: OS: linux, CPU architecture: x86, address length: 64
   
   Tools summary:
   * Boot JDK:       java version "1.7.0_55" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 2.4.7) (7u55-2.4.7-1~deb7u1) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.51-b03, mixed mode)  (at /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64)
   * C Compiler:     gcc-4.7 (Debian 4.7.2-5) version 4.7.2 (at /usr/bin/gcc-4.7)
   * C++ Compiler:   g++-4.7 (Debian 4.7.2-5) version 4.7.2 (at /usr/bin/g++-4.7)
   
   Build performance summary:
   * Cores to use:   1
   * Memory limit:   1002 MB
   * ccache status:  not installed (consider installing)
   
   Build performance tip: ccache gives a tremendous speedup for C++ recompilations.
   You do not have ccache installed. Try installing it.
   You might be able to fix this by running 'sudo apt-get install ccache'.
   
   

7. Build

   make all
   

   
   Leave for a cup of coffee.

   ----- Build times -------
   Start 2014-06-15 23:12:29
   End   2014-06-16 01:04:16
   00:01:26 corba
   00:01:11 demos
   00:06:19 docs
   00:21:16 hotspot
   00:02:31 images
   00:00:45 jaxp
   00:01:09 jaxws
   01:14:48 jdk
   00:01:43 langtools
   00:00:37 nashorn
   01:51:47 TOTAL
   -------------------------
   Finished building OpenJDK for target 'all'

Hurray, it's done!