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

If your main concern is Java I suggest staying away from FreeBSD. Getting a Java development setup up and running is much easier on Linux/OpenSolaris.

*BSD is the preferred development platform for man System-, Hardware- and Kernel-Level coders, because this parts a usually better documented than on Linux and you have a "official" target while on linux distributions vary in patches etc.

Answer 2

You can get binary distributions of Java from the FreeBSD Foundation, they signed an agreement with Sun for that. Art from Java, FreeBSD is awonderful development platform with every language and environement you may need/want. Disclaimer: I've been a FreeBSD developer for more than 13 years.

Answer 3

I use FreeBSD solely for development. It is quite secure and incredibly stable. The stability is huge factor for me, and FreeBSd makes up where Linux and windows leave you wanting.

Answer 4

A popular OS (Linux, Windows or even Mac OS X) is better. Popular OS gets better support on optimization of compilers, libraries, etc. For example, FreeBSD is tier 2 platform for GHC (that means GHC may release new versions even if it cannot run on FreeBSD). And some programing languages are only available on Windows or Linux.

Answer 5

I've been using FreeBSD as a server platform and a desktop/laptop since v2.1. As a secure, stable OS it is excellent. However, as a graphical UI it doesn't fare as well. I've often had to hand-carve an X config, and had little or no luck installing Flash (whether that's a feature or a bug is debatable) for Firefox.

You will find you can't just download a binary for things such as Firefox and the like, but the Ports library more than makes up for this. Doing a full install from CD/DVD gets you a solid server platform, but installing Gnome from source can take a lot of time as it has to download and compile sources for everything. Yes, you can often find precompiled PKG files, but 'make install clean' in the appropriate /usr/ports directory is too easy.

Generally you will find that features get added to Linux kernels faster than they appear in FreeBSD (dtrace and zfs notwithstanding). I don't think Video for Linux is yet supported, which makes things like MythTV difficult at best. Similarly, ISDN support if you're using Asterisk.

Ultimately, it's a matter of personal taste. I continue to use FreeBSD in production, but have tended towards Ubuntu for a desktop, lately.

I can't speak to the Java stuff, but Ruby on Rails deploys flawlessly and seamlessly.

Answer 6

I've always found FreeBSD a wonderful secure hosting environment, but perhaps not the easiest development platform. You will have to dig a bit to get Java 1.6 up and running, though I think it will be doable. I hope you are familiar with emacs or vi. The ports system will afford you access to many pieces of software, but they will have to be compiled from source code. If you are familiar with standard Unix command line tools and the command line itself, you should have no problems with FreeBSD.

Alan