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 somthing specific that it offers with regard to tools that is not available under Linux?

Answer 1

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 the command line itself, you should have no problems with FreeBSD.

Alan

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

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 4

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 5

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.

Answer 6

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 7

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 8

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 9

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 10

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 11

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 12

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.