2008-07-23

Netbeans, Eclipse, Ubuntu

So I've decided it was time for the annual "Switch to ubuntu" time of the year. I usually once a year try to run Linux as a desktop. Then switch back to windows since I actually want to use the multimedia-HW in my computer. I've been doing this for years and years. The last couple of years I've been running Ubuntu. It is a nice distro and most things work, even on 64-bit AMD. Well, apart from the install program, mythtv, the sound, gnome when using dual head, the webcam, the pinnacle remote and attaching the camera.
This is all expected to be troublesome, Linux does not have drivers for stuff, I know that. Most things have a work-around but not all. But I find it rather sad that the real time patches that has been floating around for years still is not in the kernel or that Ubuntu officially uses the realtime kernel in the desktop version. Be that as it may, for java development I do not need a realtime kernel.
What really surprised me was that Eclipse does not run. It crashes the JVM (JDK1.6u10). Apparently this is a known defect in Java on AMD64. Java on 64 bit, by the way, still does not have a browser plugin. I seriously hope that OpenJDK will make this happen.
But no worries, this was a great opportunity to use NetBeans. It has been a long time ago since I actually used it. Usually I only poke at it before going back to Eclipse since they are usually ahead in features I use.
So Netbeans in anger, on an AMD64 linux, what could possibly go wrong :-) Well, not much actually but one thing that really bugs me is that it does not discover compilation errors. Sometimes not at all until I quit NB and start it again, then it happily marks the errors in the task list, in the editor and in the project tree. Sometimes I have to open the offending file and the editor usually marks it, but not the task list and the project tree. Yes, I know about the refresh function and no, it has absolutely no effect. I have come to rely on my IDE to find compilation errors when I save files in the same way that I couldn't really live without syntax colouring and the very handy "mark occurances" I first found in eclipse.
So I can't really say that Hardy Heron, Java or Netbeans zoom but they are actually quite nice anyway.
One thing that definately does not zoom is that my friend still has not started blogging about software design.