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

TrueOS

TrueOS, the evolution of PC-BSD, is built on top of FreeBSD.

With just a click or two in the App Cafe (package manager built into TrueOS), I installed OpenJDK 8 Update 102 (the latest) and NetBeans 8.1 (the latest).

Took about three minutes for the automated download and install by App Cafe. Then launched NetBeans and had a Hello World app up and running in another minute.

Answer 2

Well, there's no Java 1.6 in the /usr/ports of the version I recently installed (latest version AFAIK). The port of Netbeans is only up to 5.5 bundled. At a minimum you'd have to go look around for more current versions. Doesn't look promising as a fully kept up to date development platform.

Answer 3

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?

Answer 4

FreeBSD is an awesome platform for development. If you look at the kernel source, for example, it's so clean and understandable in comparison with the mess at Linux. It's stable, and the community is very professional. I'm using FreeBSD since release 4.

But for Java development I would choose Linux, Windows or Solaris. The lastest Java binaries perform better on my Ubuntu than on XP (Netbeans performs better as IDE also).

Answer 5

Putting the actual issues with Java and such aside, the real question is what are you developing for.

If you are writing rich desktop applications, then you naturally want to develop on the platform that is most popular with your users -- and I'm pretty sure that can't be FreeBSD.

If you are developing web applications, then you want your development server to be as close as possible to your production hosting environment. If you are going to deploy on FreeBSD, then it might make sense to also run it locally, at least in a virtual machine. (Browser testing, of course, is a different issue.)

Do keep in mind that, while all development tools you can run on BSD are also available on Linux, the opposite is certainly not true, especially since Linux has gained more commercial traction.

All this being said, the best way is to see for yourself: try replicating your development environment, whatever that might be, on FreeBSD. If you succeed (and you're coming from Linux, heh), once you get coding you won't even care what OS you're on.

Answer 6

You can either run the native Java 1.6 port or the Linux JDK from Sun in Linux emulation mode, both are available in the ports tree. I used to run the Linux JDK (with Emacs JDEE) way back without any problems, your mileage may vary however.

As for IDEs, both Netbeans and Eclipse are available in the ports tree.

I recommend at least trying it out, if for no other reason than to see what the fuss is about. All it'll cost you is time.