How to repair Java in Ubuntu after trying to switch to Java 6 using update-java-alternatives

Question

I tried to switch from Java 5 to Java 6 using the "update-java-alternatives" command like explained on this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Java

But afterwards I get the following error when I tried to execute java:

root@webserver:~# java
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

I also tried to reinstall the java binaries using "apt-get" but I didn't succeed reinstalling it. I would like to post the "apt-get" errors, but unfortunately I don't know how to print out the error messages in English and not in German.

My system is a Ubuntu 8.04 ROOT server.

Here is the (Google translated) english text tring to install Java 6 again:

root@server:~# apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
Reading package lists ... Ready
Dependency tree
Reading state information ... Ready
sun-java6-jdk is already the newest version.
sun-java6-jdk set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 86 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Set up a sun-java6-bin (6-03-0ubuntu2) ...
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
dpkg: error processing sun-java6-bin (- configure):
 Subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sun-java6-bin
E: Sub-process / usr / bin / dpkg returned an error code (1)

I hope that this might help you helping me.

There must be a better solution but according to [this answer](http://serverfault.com/questions/95968/cant-start-java-error-could-not-reserve-enough-space-for-object-heap), you need to reboot :/ — Pascal Thivent, Jun 04 '10 at 21:00
er... I could understand if you were using 8.10 LTS still, but 8.04 wasn't a long-term support release... — Powerlord, Jun 04 '10 at 21:03

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 04 '10 at 21:02

1

for my own curiosity, what happens when you type df at the command prompt? and when you type top, how much memory do you have?

answered Jun 04 '10 at 21:02

ryancammer

119
4

This would be better as a comment rather than an answer. – President James K. Polk Jun 04 '10 at 21:22
I got 1.5GB free of space (on a 10GB partition). That should be more than enough and was enough before doing the update. – 2ndkauboy Jun 08 '10 at 22:59
I think it really has to do with the memory. But It seems that RAM is the problem. It's only a virtual ROOT server with 128MB guaranteed. – 2ndkauboy Jul 12 '10 at 18:49

How to repair Java in Ubuntu after trying to switch to Java 6 using update-java-alternatives

1 Answers1