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Re: [temurin-dev] debian alternatives system priority numbers
Hi Luca,

Sorry for the late reply.  We don't have a super crisp answer here but in short:

As you know, the Debian alternatives system uses a priority number to determine which installed alternative is the default when multiple alternatives are available for a command (like java, javac, etc.). While there’s no official universal scheme for setting these priorities—package maintainers can choose them somewhat arbitrarily, and we're no different.

Temurin (Eclipse Adoptium) packages try to follow a consistent internal logic for their priorities:

  • Temurin 21 JDK → 2111

  • Temurin 17 JDK → 1711

  • Temurin 11 JDK → 1111

  • Temurin 8 JRE → 1082

  • Temurin 8 JDK → 1081


Each priority value represents: <version|type code> where:

  • version = Java version (21, 17, 11, 8)

  • type code = Encoded suffix, distinguishing JDK vs JRE when we shipped both for Java 8).


Here we hit the oddity: Java 8 gets 10 as a prefix. Why? Lost to the history of time I'm afraid.

Cheers,
Martijn


On Sat, 19 Jul 2025 at 01:55, Luca Balsanelli via temurin-dev <temurin-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

  I can't figure out if there is an exact scheme for the priority number of the Debian alternatives system. For example,

  • Temurin 21 JDK has priority 2111
  • Temurin 17 JDK has priority 1711
  • Temurin 8 JRE has priority 1082
  • Temurin 8 JDK has priority 1081
I'm talking about the amd64 version (I don't know if the priority number changes with architecture)

Thanks,
Luca
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