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I'm developing an application that needs JavaFX. This week I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.10 and saw that the default version of OpenJDK is 11 and therefore the OpenJFX version is also 11. The "cosmic" repositories contain also version 8 of OpenJDK, but no OpenJFX 8 can be found.

Java 11 was released only the 25th of September 2018, it is really new. The problem is, I'm now forced to develop my application with it; this gives me two problems:

  1. The other libraries I use are not compatible with JavaFX 11.
  2. Probably not many people plans to upgrade to it in the next months and they will not be happy to be forced to do it when they install my application.

I tried looking for some PPA but did not find any containing OpenJFX 8 for cosmic.

Is there a practical way to install OpenJFX 8, while still working with Ubuntu 18.10?

shz
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    Possible duplicate of How to install libavcodec53 and libavformat53 so that I can use JavaFx in Ubuntu 16.04 – karel Oct 29 '18 at 13:40
  • Not really. That was about JavaFX 8 on 16.04, this is about JavaFX 11 on 18.10. – shz Oct 29 '18 at 14:12
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    Bug on the same topic: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjfx/+bug/1799946 – shz Oct 29 '18 at 15:07
  • This question is not a duplicate of https://askubuntu.com/questions/986229/how-to-install-libavcodec53-and-libavformat53-so-that-i-can-use-javafx-in-ubuntu, since:
    • I am not planning to install libavcodec53 or libavformat53
    • OpenJFX 8 which was available in 16.04 is not available in 18.10.
    • Oracle's JavaFX is not open source, therefore not viable for my open source application.
     – shz Oct 31 '18 at 17:04
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    What are you going to do? Oracle is the only source for Java 8 that is bundled with JavaFX in 18.04 and 18.10, otherwise you're stuck with OpenJFX 11. It's all there in the duplicate question link that I provided that you claimed twice in 2 comments is only about 16.04 including the instructions for installing it. – karel Oct 31 '18 at 17:11

2 Answers2

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I've used a workaround suggested in the bugreport on launchpad @shz linked in the comment:

  • add the Ubuntu Bionic Sources
  • install the openjfx packages forcing the 8.x version from Bionic
  • lock these Versions
  • remove Bionic soures again
9Lukas5
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I went through something similar and info about possible solutions can be found on the following link. The main thing is that I don't think there is a JavaFX 8. At that point (Java 8), JavaFX was built in, part of Java. It's only since Java went modular (Java 9+) that JavaFX had to be installed separately.

java-1-8-jar-runs-in-windows-not-ubuntu-could-not-find-or-load-main-class

But for some reason, OpenJDK 8 doesn't include JavaFX though one would expect it to be built in. (It is built in for Windows.)

Phil Freihofner
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