Deep Blue Lambda

I recently received commit access to Gentoo’s Java overlay, and so I took the chance to commit my ebuilds for Clojure and Clojure-contrib. This means that Clojure is now a step closer to becoming a standard part of Gentoo.

The following step-by-step guide should help you get started. Note that the following instructions assume you are using the standard Gentoo package management tools. If you use some other system, such as Paludis, you will need to refer to the documentation for your preferred manager about how to add overlays and keyword packages.

In order to get started, you will have to first make sure that the Java overlay is installed on your system.

Installing the Java overlay on Gentoo

In order to install Clojure, you will need to install layman according to the instructions in the User’s Guide. Be sure to enable the subversion USE flag. Once you have layman installed, you should be to execute layman -L and see a line similar to the following:

* java-overlay              [Subversion] (svn://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/java/java-overlay/

Once layman is installed, add the Java overlay using layman -a java-overlay. After a lengthy checkout, you should see the line:

* Successfully added overlay "java-overlay".

Congratulations, you now have the Java overlay installed. Now you can move onto installing Clojure.

Emerging Clojure

With the Java overlay installed, the Clojure and Clojure-contrib ebuilds are now available through portage.

Note that Clojure is currently keyworded ~amd64 and ~x86. This means that if you are running on the stable branch of Gentoo (the default), or if you are not using an amd64- or x86-based computer, you will need to take a few extra steps. The good news is that if you can run Java on your system, you should be able to run Clojure as well¹.

With the proper keywording done, installing Clojure is as simple as emerge clojure. Note that both 1.0.0 and 1.1.0 versions of Clojure are available, and you can install them concurrently using Gentoo’s slot mechanism. By default, portage will install the latest version (1.1.0 slotted as 1.1), but you can force installing version 1.0 by using slot ‘0’, i.e. emerge clojure:0.

The above instructions also apply for installing Clojure-contrib—simply emerge clojure-contrib or emerge clojure-contrib:0.

Running Clojure

With Clojure emerged, running the REPL is as simple as typing clojure or clojure-1.1, depending on which version you are using.

Including Clojure-contrib manually

Note that, by default, the Clojure commands will not include Clojure-contrib in your class path. You can do this manually on the command line by invoking Clojure using one of the following commands:

For clojure-contrib 1.1.0:

CLASSPATH=$(java-config -p clojure-contrib-1.1) clojure-1.1

For clojure-contrib 1.0.0:

CLASSPATH=$(java-config -p clojure-contrib) clojure

Including Clojure-contrib automatically

The way I prefer to run Clojure is to have the launcher script automatically include Clojure-contrib. This can be done by customizing the launcher’s class path by adding files to the .gentoo/java-config-2/launcher.d directory under your home directory².

For version 1.1.0:

% echo 'gjl_package="clojure-contrib-1.1"' > .gentoo/java-config-2/launcher.d/clojure-1.1

For version 1.0.0:

% echo 'gjl_package="clojure-contrib"' > .gentoo/java-config-2/launcher.d/clojure

Having accomplished the above, Clojure-contrib should now be available from the launcher. For example, you could try:

% clojure-1.1
Clojure 1.1.0
user=> (use 'clojure.contrib.str-utils)
nil
user=>

Final Thoughts

This is merely the first step towards getting better Clojure support in Gentoo. Some of the next few things I am considering doing include:

• Add ebuilds for editor integration with Clojure. There is a VimClojure ebuild in java-experimental that I will soon be moving to java-overlay. Although I don’t use other editors, I think that Emacs integration would be good, too.
• Add some sort of eselect-based method to automate much of the above. I envision a script that will manage it so that typing clj will launch the appropriate version of Clojure and include Clojure-contrib if desired.
• Package more Clojure applications and libraries.

I am working towards become a full-fledged Gentoo Developer. Once I get there, I will have a better opportunity to help get Clojure-related packages into the main tree and help make Gentoo a very Clojure-friendly Linux distribution.

In the meantime, I appreciate any user feedback. You can find me as ‘sattvik’ on Freenode on #gentoo-java and #clojure. Of course, you can also leave comments on this site.

Footnotes

1. If you do get Clojure working on non x86 or amd64 system, please make a note of it in the bugs for Clojure and Clojure-contrib.
2. Alternatively, you can add these files to /etc/java-config-2/launcher.d/ to have the effect system-wide.