Best IDE/Linux Combination?

[Steve Mitchell]

I'm going to do a hardware refresh on one of my old tower cases to see
if I can make a faster development box for home. I was looking into
what Linux distro I would use and found several posts about problems
with Eclipse on Linux:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EclipseIDE
http://blog.adaniels.nl/articles/eclipse-problems-in-ubuntu/

The Eclipse project talks about the lack of adoption of Eclipse on
Linux:
http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/linux-distro/

So, that begs the question "what is the best Java IDE for Linux?" An
not just Linux, is anybody using NetBeans on OpenSolaris? I'm interest
in hearing about whatever is fast and stable.

Speaking of fast, what kind of processors are people using these
days? I would imagine that a good duo core is all I need for
development and light server load. Do triple or quad core processors
provide any benefit in a developer's work station, or are they just a
waste of money?

Steve Mitchell
http://www.ByteworksInc.com

[Matthew Taylor]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:33 AM, Steve Mitchell <stevecm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Speaking of fast, what kind of processors are people using these
days?  I would imagine that a good duo core is all I need for
development and light server load. Do triple or quad core processors
provide any benefit in a developer's work station, or are they just a
waste of money?

I've never really noticed a whopping difference between dual, triple, and quad cores.  But I noticed a huge difference when moving from a 4MB memory system to a 2MB system.  It may be the manner in which I use my OS (osx), but doubling the RAM is nice.

Also, I hear IntelliJ on Ubuntu is good.

---
Matthew Taylor
http://dangertree.net

 

[Rik Scarborough]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:33 AM, Steve Mitchell <stevecm...@gmail.com> wrote:

An
not just Linux, is anybody using NetBeans on OpenSolaris? I'm interest
in hearing about whatever is fast and stable.

I've been using NetBeans on OpenSolaris and find it very stable and fast.  I've used it for a couple of projects using Maven and one of those using Tapestry.  I've also used it for a couple of Grails projects.  The latest version has improved it's support for Maven and Grails/Groovy quite a bit.

~Rik 

[Jon Brisbin]

On Jun 17, 2009, at 9:02 AM, Matthew Taylor wrote:

I've never really noticed a whopping difference between dual, triple, and quad cores.  But I noticed a huge difference when moving from a 4MB memory system to a 2MB system.  It may be the manner in which I use my OS (osx), but doubling the RAM is nice.

I know you meant GB, not MB and I agree that RAM is the cheapest and best hardware upgrade that actually improves performance.

BTW- My first computer after the Apple IIc was a 286 (running DOS) with 1MB RAM. Remember 2MB of RAM (with a 20MB hard drive...but at least it had a hard drive) and 3.5" floppies?

Also, I hear IntelliJ on Ubuntu is good.

I haven't tried Linux version since IntelliJ 7, but I personally like IntelliJ IDEA. As far as *free* IDEs go, though, I think NetBeans is the best on Linux. I've used eclipse for years but I'm moving away from it because NetBeans and IntelliJ far out-strip eclipse in functionality on the things I need (primarily web). I really dislike eclipse's web editor and it utterly lacks the functionality like inspections that make IntelliJ worth using.

Thanks!

Jon Brisbin

http://jbrisbin.com/

[Roger O'Dell]

Well I have an Open Solaris VM that I run on my PC. I have both Netbeans and Eclipse running and they run pretty good. I have not noticed any issues. My VM uses 1 gig of Ram and seems to function very well. My PC runs 4 gigs of ram and I upgraded from 1 gig and noticed a real big difference in load times and performance in both IDE’s. My VM is part of VMWare and can be a real benefit when testing software and network performance. You can download the server version for free. Below is a link to there Server version for free. There other versions cost money, but this one will do everything you will need.

 

 

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

 

Thanks,

 

Roger O’Dell

 

---

[Mark Taylor]

I've been running Netbeans on Ubuntu for well over a year and I've been VERY please with it.  2GB, Core 2 about 1.8 ghz iirc.

[SteveM]

Thanks for all the input guys. That was helpful. I'm going to go with
a triple core and 4GB RAM for my hardware, and give OpenSolaris and
Netbeans a try. I've used Eclipse and IntelliJ extensively, but I've
never done more than just play with Netbeans.

I'm using VMWare Player on my Macbook Pro and Windoze machine, but
haven't tried VMWare Server. I'll check it out.

On Jun 17, 12:15 pm, Mark Taylor <mtt...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been running Netbeans on Ubuntu for well over a year and I've been VERY
> please with it.  2GB, Core 2 about 1.8 ghz iirc.
>

> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Roger O'Dell <roger.odell...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >  Well I have an Open Solaris VM that I run on my PC. I have both Netbeans
> > and Eclipse running and they run pretty good. I have not noticed any issues.
> > My VM uses 1 gig of Ram and seems to function very well. My PC runs 4 gigs
> > of ram and I upgraded from 1 gig and noticed a real big difference in load
> > times and performance in both IDE’s. My VM is part of VMWare and can be a
> > real benefit when testing software and network performance. You can download
> > the server version for free. Below is a link to there Server version for
> > free. There other versions cost money, but this one will do everything you
> > will need.
>
> >http://www.vmware.com/products/server/
>
> > Thanks,
>
> > Roger O’Dell
>

> >  ------------------------------
>
> > *From:* KCJ...@googlegroups.com [mailto:KCJ...@googlegroups.com] *On
> > Behalf Of *Jon Brisbin
> > *Sent:* Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:42 AM
> > *To:* KCJ...@googlegroups.com
> > *Subject:* [kcjava] Re: Best IDE/Linux Combination?

[Gary Murphy]

I am running OpenSUSE on my laptop (development machine) and on a BYO
dual core tower (mail/database/LDAP,etc). The laptop is running VMware
Workstation ($169) and the tower is running VMware Server (free). The
reason that I went with Workstation on the laptop is that it supports
more workstation-related devices and services, most notably dual monitor
support for guests, higher screen resolutions, etc. The desire for
dual monitors is worth the price.

I am assuming you are going with Linux as the host OS. If not, I would
strongly recommend it. Windows 32-bit only supports 3G of RAM and
VMware w/ guests works better with more memory of course. As for where
to spend the bucks, I would focus on - in order - I/O, memory then
CPUs. The dual cores are fine for my current needs. The server machine
runs about 80% of both CPUs most of the time while running 4 guest VMs @
1G RAM. There is 4G of RAM on the hardware, which maxes the
motherboard. It would be nice to be able to drop in 2G more. The
dual-core laptop is fine with 4G of RAM. I run two 2G RAM VMs most of
the time - one Windows (JavaFX, Flex/AIR development and some
Windows-based office products) and the other OpenSuSE, (Java development).

As for the best IDE, I have been an Eclipse user since the first release
and VisualAge before that. Up to and including Europa, I have been
happy with it. Ganymede seems to have a LOT of problems, especially
with the absolutely horrible m2eclipse plugin. If you are using Maven,
I would recommend using NetBeans. I got frustrated enough with Eclipse
that I made the switch. NetBeans is not as full-featured (or at least I
haven't found those features) as Eclipse. Generally speaking, I am
much happier with NetBeans and don't plan to switch back.

[SteveM]

I had no idea so many people were moving to NetBeans. My upgraded
machine seems really fast running OpenSolaris 2009.06, though I
haven't done any programming on it yet. I added the Maven plug-in to
NetBeans, but it is not recognizing my projects as Maven projects
yet. I'll get that figured out tonight.

I have to say that I am very pleased with PC Warehouse, near River
City Market at 200 Admiral. I took them three old towers yesterday at
10:00 AM, and by 2:00 PM I got back the best case of the three loaded
with a new motherboard, AMD Phenom X3 processor, 4GB of ram, a new 500
GB SATA drive, plus a 180 GB drive salvage from one of the other
machines. They recycle everything else.

It is a real hole-in-the-wall place, with old PCs stacked up
everywhere and bins and bins full of salvaged parts. I'm sure I could
gotten a few bucks off of EBay if I took the time to sell them on-
line, but I really liked knowing I could just drop off these boat
anchors and they would be properly disposed of. I wiped the drives
before I took them in, but if you don't have time that is a service
they offer too. I highly recommend PC Warehouse.

[michael]

> haven't done any programming on it yet. I added the Maven plug-in to
> NetBeans, but it is not recognizing my projects as Maven projects yet.

...You don't need a maven plugin for netbeans; maven support is built
in by default (since 6.5 at least; I'm running 6.7rc3 =>
http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.7/rc/ ). Don't "create new
project", just "open" the project where the pom is.

Also, a tricky thing about netbeans is that a lot of the plugins of
interest are actually in the 'beta' or 'last stable' update center:
Tools > Plugins > Settings, "Add", and use the following URL (e.g,
name it "Beta Update Center"):
http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/6.7/uc/beta/beta/catalog.xml.gz
. Or, see
http://www.netbeans.info/uc/show_uc_content.php?ucurl=http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/nbms-and-javadoc/lastStableBuild/artifact/nbbuild/nbms/updates.xml
=> You can browse & download what you want, or add the catalog
directly to the update center (but don't update all your plugins to a
newer version than the platform will support! just pick what you want/
need...).

...A couple of plugins to try: "Automatic Projects" => for Ant or C++
projects, just build the project & it'll figure out a lot of the
project configuration. You can just "open" ant projects with it, too
(no more "create project"!). And, "Quick File Chooser", for tab-
completion in file-open gui's. "Sourceless Java" for decompiling.
"JVi" (not in update center, just google it) for Vim-in-Netbeans.
You've heard me preach about this before, though.

And, Netbeans is really quite good at maven projects -- moreso now
w/ NB6.7 (still RC3). All my projects are moving to maven, which
really automates things (tired of manually setting up jars &
classpaths). Using 'nexus' as an internal maven repo (which is
running on a CentOS VM!). I also have to add that I've been using
VMware on all those platforms for quite some time -- CentOS, Fedora,
Ubuntu, Windows ...and the Mac ... must say, Fusion is certainly worth
buying if you have an intel mac. (NB: I really would like to try Qemu,
though.)

I've been happily using ubuntu (w/ a Windows VM therein when
necessary) & netbeans exclusively the past 2-3 years (some netbeans on
windows and/or macosx on rare occasion). Ubuntu is so simple & solid
that I would have a hard time recommending anything else (previously
used fedora & centos, natively (no VM)). Devices & such (monitors,
wireless, even internal broadband card) all pretty much just 'worked'.
Such a relief.

But VMware (server) is really working out quite well for me. VMware
Server runs fine on Windows... although I do have problems with the
stability of the host OS (windows) & disk fragmentation. You'll notice
that VM's run just as well on an external hard drive, though (e.g.,
get 1TB USB drive, just for VM's). I built a OpenSolaris VM in about
15 minutes just a couple weeks ago (wanted to play with dtrace). Just
download the iso, boot from it, install it into the VM's disk, and
that's it. (Creating an Ubuntu VM is just as easy.)

I've taken VM's for customer training & demo's. I have Windows &
CentOS VM's... The Linux VM's can be a little bit cumbersome when it
comes to networking; the Windows VM's may blue-screen and/or claim to
not be 'genuine' on different hardware. And I don't have a problem
leaving the Linux VM's behind (obviously there are issues doing that
with windows). I do keep snapshots of VM's on occasion, but frankly
it's just as easy to "cp -r" the thing onto my external storage (or
the NAS for the keepers). What a simple backup strategy.

Cheers,
-michael

[hanasaki]

+1 (more than one if you will let me)

I run netbeans on Ubuntu and Windows (FYI: even the nightly builds of
netbeans have been stable enough to run for many years). Its package
manager for plugins is IMO FAR better than that of eclipse. Maven
integration is first class and I have switch all my own projects over to
it. No pollution of directories with .... files like eclipse. Memory
seems to be lower and its faster IMO. Netbeans is closer to Java than
eclipse and less temperamental with minor version numbers.

Generally all I do is unzip the non-installer version and run netbeans
from the bin dir on any OS.

Mark Taylor wrote:
> I've been running Netbeans on Ubuntu for well over a year and I've
> been VERY please with it. 2GB, Core 2 about 1.8 ghz iirc.
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Roger O'Dell <roger.o...@gmail.com
> <mailto:roger.o...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Well I have an Open Solaris VM that I run on my PC. I have both
> Netbeans and Eclipse running and they run pretty good. I have not
> noticed any issues. My VM uses 1 gig of Ram and seems to function
> very well. My PC runs 4 gigs of ram and I upgraded from 1 gig and
> noticed a real big difference in load times and performance in both
> IDE’s. My VM is part of VMWare and can be a real benefit when
> testing software and network performance. You can download the
> server version for free. Below is a link to there Server version for
> free. There other versions cost money, but this one will do
> everything you will need.
>
>
> http://www.vmware.com/products/server/
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Roger O’Dell
>
>
>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> *From:* KCJ...@googlegroups.com <mailto:KCJ...@googlegroups.com>

> [mailto:KCJ...@googlegroups.com <mailto:KCJ...@googlegroups.com>]

> *On Behalf Of *Jon Brisbin

> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:42 AM
> *To:* KCJ...@googlegroups.com <mailto:KCJ...@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject:* [kcjava] Re: Best IDE/Linux Combination?

[SteveM]

Is anybody running the bare metal hypervisor (http://www.vmware.com/
products/esxi/)? I found one post of "VMWare Server" vs "VMWare ESXi"
that seemed to favor VMWare Server on Linux vs. the bare metal ESXi
implementation.

Gary - Do you ever run your laptop off of VMWare Server remotely? Do
you run VMWare Workstation on your laptop strictly to eliminate
network latency, or are there other reasons?

[Roger O'Dell]

I haven’t used the ESXi as of yet. I currently use the workstation version
on my Vista PC. I have an associate that runs it on an XP laptop and has
zero issues with latency or anything else.


Roger O'Dell

-----Original Message-----
From: KCJ...@googlegroups.com [mailto:KCJ...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of

[Gary Murphy]

[Gary Murphy]

I took a quick look at ESXi when my hard drive failed, but I couldn't find a way to migrate my VMs and since I was in a "down time" scenario, I just went with VMWare Server again.  I guess it's less opaque to me when there is a full OS anyway.

I guess I don't really understand the question.  The VMs running on the server only have remote consoles (even if accessed via 127.0.0.1), so I access them from my laptop usually, but sometimes from localhost.  The VMWare Workstation product only has local consoles.   If you want to access them remotely, it's ssh, VNC or Remote Desktop access - just like physical hardware.  I use VMWare Workstation for a lot of reasons, but not for latency.  Main reasons are:

• The ability to run multiple OSs at once.  For example Flex client/Java server development, the client runs on Windows and the server on Linux.
• A custom installation of an OS for a special needs customer, such as the 64-bit Windows for the publishing customer.
• Full OS backup and portability.  If I get a faster laptop, all I do is move the VMs.  There's no OS re-install and customization.
  
• Disaster recovery.  If I have a hardware failure, I get the last good VM copy and apply the subsequent backups and it works on whatever replacement hardware I got.
• Setup of an environment for another developer.   Set it up and send the developer the files that comprise the VM.  They just boot and go.

There are other reasons, like snapshot/rollback, taking a video of everything you do on the VM, etc. that I use occasionally.

[SteveM]

The network latency I referred to would be for running ESXi, as
opposed to on a VMWare host machine. The guests run on the ESXi box,
but all remote access really is "remote" since there is no browser on
the ESXi box, only a "bios-like" interface. When Hao Wu was back from
China he talked about his outsourcing company near Hong Kong. They
have 200 developers working for a well-known U.S. company. No client
software is installed in China. All the developers connect to virtual
desktops maintained by the client in the US. That must be running on
something like ESXi. I sent him an email to ask.

Here is a link to a 3-hour webinar on VMWare ESXi that I watched last
night: http://www.vmware.com/a/webcasts/details/201. The first 90
minutes are an overview of virtualization that are useful no matter
what VMWare product(s) that you run. The second 90 minutes show a
ESXi install, configuration, and creating a couple of guests.

The ESXi kernel and drivers are only tested on server class hardware
(xeon and opteron), but I found several posts like this one,
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1088200, about running EXSi on
desktop hardware (amd Phenom). Had I chosen that route, it looks like
all I would have to do is add a SATA controller since the ESXi
firmware does not recognize integrated controllers.

In then end, ESXi to more than I need, and I don't want to dedicate a
box to run it. I'm going to follow your lead and stick with the VMWare
Server I installed on Ubuntu. I built my Solaris image in
compatibility mode, so I'll see if it will run on VMWare Fusion on my
MacBook Pro too. I don't believe I can remote into VMWare Server from
OS X. I'm not sure if I will install VMWare Workstation on my Vista
machine since that is not my primary machine and I don't anticipate
needing to run multiple guests there. I am anxious to see what is like
using the Solaris image from the Vista machine vs from the VMWare
Server host box. I'm upgrading to a gigabit switch to make it a fair
fight.

VMWare saved my bacon too a few weeks ago. I just happened to be
working on a project for a client that required Windows XP. We were
coming up on a deadline when the motherboard in my MacBook Pro failed.
I had an old copy of the XP image on my Vista machine, so I just fired
up VMWare Player, checked out the code from Subversion, and kept on
trucking. The customer wasn't effected by my laptop being gone for a
week.

On Jun 23, 8:14 am, Gary Murphy <g...@hilbertinc.com> wrote:
> I took a quick look at ESXi when my hard drive failed, but I couldn't
> find a way to migrate my VMs and since I was in a "down time" scenario,
> I just went with VMWare Server again.  I guess it's less opaque to me
> when there is a full OS anyway.
>
> I guess I don't really understand the question.  The VMs running on the

> server only have *remote* consoles (even if accessed via 127.0.0.1), so

> I access them from my laptop usually, but sometimes from localhost.  The

> VMWare Workstation product only has *local* consoles.   If you want to

> access them remotely, it's ssh, VNC or Remote Desktop access - just like
> physical hardware.  I use VMWare Workstation for a lot of reasons, but
> not for latency.  Main reasons are:
>

>     * The ability to run multiple OSs at once.  For example Flex

>       client/Java server development, the client runs on Windows and the
>       server on Linux.

>     * A custom installation of an OS for a special needs customer, such

>       as the 64-bit Windows for the publishing customer.

>     * Full OS backup and portability.  If I get a faster laptop, all I

>       do is move the VMs.  There's no OS re-install and customization.

>     * Disaster recovery.  If I have a hardware failure, I get the last

>       good VM copy and apply the subsequent backups and it works on
>       whatever replacement hardware I got.

>     * Setup of an environment for another developer.   Set it up and