Installing Obsolete Java JDK versions on Fedora Linux

As a Java developer, one is frequently forced to use obsolete, or even deprecated, Java versions. So I came to the necessity to install Java 6 on Fedota 19. The problem: In the Fedora 19 repositories, there's only Java 7 and 8. Convince yourself:

$ sudo yum list | grep openjdk
java-1.6.0-openjdk.x86_64              1:1.6.0.0-59.1.10.3.fc16         installed
java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel.x86_64        1:1.6.0.0-59.1.10.3.fc16         installed
java-1.6.0-openjdk-javadoc.x86_64      1:1.6.0.0-59.1.10.3.fc16         installed
java-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64              1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19          @updates
java-1.7.0-openjdk-demo.x86_64         1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19          @updates
java-1.7.0-openjdk-devel.x86_64        1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19          @updates
java-1.7.0-openjdk-javadoc.noarch      1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19          @updates
java-1.7.0-openjdk-src.x86_64          1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19          @updates
java-1.7.0-openjdk-accessibility.x86_64
java-1.8.0-openjdk.i686                1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 
java-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64              1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 
java-1.8.0-openjdk-demo.x86_64         1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 
java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel.i686          1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 
java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel.x86_64        1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 
java-1.8.0-openjdk-javadoc.noarch      1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 
java-1.8.0-openjdk-src.x86_64          1:1.8.0.0-0.9.b89.fc19           updates 

The same goes for Fedora 18 and 17, btw. (I'll skip the output here. Note, that processing these commands will take some time, as yum will download the complete repository metadata for the respective version.

$ sudo yum --releasever=17 list | grep openjdk
$ sudo yum --releasever=18 list | grep openjdk

However, Java 6 is available for Fedora 16!

$ export http_proxy=MY_PROXY_URL, for example http://my.proxy.server:8080
$ wget wget http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/16/Fedora/x86_64/os/Packages/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-59.1.10.3.fc16.x86_64.rpm
$ wget http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/16/Fedora/x86_64/os/Packages/java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel-1.6.0.0-59.1.10.3.fc16.x86_64.rpm
$ wget http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/16/Fedora/x86_64/os/Packages/java-1.6.0-openjdk-javadoc-1.6.0.0-59.1.10.3.fc16.x86_64.rpm

Now, my first (and preferred) attempt to install these would be

$ sudo yum localinstall --obsoletes java-1.6.0-openjdk*

which fails, due to the following error message:

  error: Failed dependencies:
  java-1.6.0-openjdk is obsoleted by (installed) java-1.7.0-openjdk-1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19.x86_64
  java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel is obsoleted by (installed) java-1.7.0-openjdk-1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19.x86_64
  java-1.6.0-openjdk-javadoc is obsoleted by (installed) java-1.7.0-openjdk-1:1.7.0.60-2.4.2.0.fc19.x86_64

(Please contact me, if you have an idea on how to get rid of these!) Fortunately, there's another possibility, which does the job quite neatly:

$ sudo rpm --nodeps -i java-1.6.0-openjdk*

If you're an Eclipse user, the JDK can now be found in /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0.x86_64/