How to use OpenJDK

Owned by Ricky Villa
Last updated: Oct 29, 2020 by Kimberly Cruz (Unlicensed)
3 min read

How to use OpenJDK

We support OpenJDK as an alternative to Java for FIN.

Download OpenJDK

We recommend to download it from Adopt OpenJDK. Download version OpenJDK 11 with HotSpot as the JVM. The version of Java being used for this binary is built directly from the OpenJDK source code repositories. Adopt OpenJDK is a community of Java User Group members, Java developers and vendors (including GoDaddy, IBM, jClarity, Microsoft, Pivotal and Red Hat). This version doesn't update automatically. It requires a user to manually run an update to ensure the latest version is installed.

*Note: There are many more OpenJDK binary distributions customers can try out. For example, Azul, AdoptOpenJDK, Amazon, BellSoft, IBM, SAP, Red Hat and many more.

Install OpenJDK

Once the user has downloaded the OpenJDK installer. They would select it to run the installer. 

During the OpenJDK installation, you should be prompted with below screen. Select "Set JAVA_HOME" variable and then select to install as "Will be installed on local hard drive" option. Then continue with installation.

After installation, your JAVA_HOME variable should look something like this.

How to manually update JAVA_HOME environment variable in Windows (if not done during installation)

If you didn't update the JAVA_HOME variable during OpenJDK installation, you can manually update it by following these steps:

  1. Please make sure you're logged onto Windows with administrator privileges to make these changes.

  2. Select Windows Start and type in "Control Panel"

  3. In the pop up Control Panel select System

  4. Then in the System window, select Advanced system settings

  5. In the pop up System Properties window, click 'Environment Variables'.

  6. In System variables, either create or edit a new environment variable called 'JAVA_HOME'. Make sure this points to installed version of OpenJDK (as shown in the screen shot below).

  7. If FIN is running then please restart it. If it's running as a service, you'll need to restart it using Windows' service manager.

  8. Open FIN and navigate to the 'Diagnostics' page in 'home'. You should see the FIN is using OpenJDK in the Java section.

  9. After everything is running as expected, please uninstall Oracle's version of Java from the system. Then restart the system and ensure everything is working as expected

How to check Java/OpenJDK version installed

First, the user will open the command prompt window. Once open, type in "java -version". This will be able to tell you the version that's installed.

How to check what version of Java FIN is using

To check what version of Java FIN is using in FIN 5.0, there a couple places.  

First, is in the Host → Debug → Diagnostics and scroll down to find the Java section.

The other is inside the project. The user would open the Debug App and select Java to see that info.