Doesn't use java picked trough debian alternatives.

[Roman A. Taycher]

Binary package hint: tomcat6

I may be wrong and maybe this is done to keep tomcat configuration as cross
distro as possible but from /ect/init.d/tomcat6 it looks to my untrained eyes as
though instead of picking java from debian alternatives system, it just picks the
 first of openjdk,sun java 6,sun java 5,ibm java that is installed.

[Roman A. Taycher (rtaycher)]

From /ect/init.d/tomcat6

# The first existing directory is used for JAVA_HOME (if JAVA_HOME is not
# defined in $DEFAULT)
JDK_DIRS="/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun /usr/lib/j2sdk1.5-sun /usr/lib/j2sdk1.5-ibm"

# Look for the right JVM to use
for jdir in $JDK_DIRS; do
    if [ -r "$jdir/bin/java" -a -z "${JAVA_HOME}" ]; then
        JAVA_HOME="$jdir"
    fi
done
export JAVA_HOME

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

This is by design... The alternatives system is there for users to pick what JVM to use when the user types "java" on the CLI, not really to select which JVM Tomcat6 should use. In particular, you might want something different in both scenarios.

The Tomcat6 JVM is set in /etc/default/tomcat6. If unspecified, it chooses the first available in the list you mentioned.