Following recent backports of Windows/AArch64 and macOS/AArch64 support of Java into OpenJDK 11, I proposed a similar integration of Alpine Linux/x64 (JEP 386).
There are several reasons for that proposal:
- Alpine Linux is very effective for utilization in container environments due to its tiny size.
- A few OpenJDK vendors already provide patches that enable Alpine/MUSL support for 11u and 8u. There were no issues with those, so the proposed feature is already tested and working.
- The user demand for Alpine/MUSL support is strong.
- The BellSoft engineers are responsible for maintaining the Alpine port in OpenJDK 16, which makes them a natural choice to implement and support the backport.
After the approval by the members of OpenJDK community, we finalized the process that involved working on the following JBS issues backports to 11u:
- JDK-8217340 Compilation failed: tools/launcher/Test7029048.java
- JDK-8247592 refactor test/jdk/tools/launcher/Test7029048.java
- JDK-8245938 Remove unused print_stack(void) method from XToolkit.c
- JDK-8252248 __SIGRTMAX is not declared in musl libc
- JDK-8252250 isnanf is obsolete
- JDK-8247589 Implementation of Alpine Linux/x64 Port
- JDK-8247591 Document Alpine Linux build steps in OpenJDK build guide
- JDK-8279958 Provide configure hints for Alpine/apk package managers
We are pleased to inform you that the backport is ready and will be implemented into the main branch of OpenJDK 11. Feel free to test it and see how your containerized apps benefit from utilizing Alpine Linux. The change is expected to land in the 11.0.16 release in July 2022.
