How good is FreeBSD as a development platform?

Question

I know that lots of web hosting providers are offering FreeBSD, but how good is FreeBSD as a development platform?

Specifically, is Java 1.6 available in it? Is there s

Answer 1

FreeBSD is an awesome hosting platform for live environments, however Java has been a thorn in its side for quite some time. However it appears this is no longer the case although installation is not trivial.

You have to get the JDK source from Sun, then apply the FreeBSD patch set from http://www.eyesbeyond.com/freebsddom/java/jdk16.html, and then compile.

More information: http://www.freebsd.org/java/

Once you have the JDK, running Eclipse and other Java applications should be a lot easier, but I don't know about SWT for FreeBSD... anyone?