# What to do about Java on FreeBSD 6



## FzZzT (Feb 11, 2011)

Hello,

I've been requested to install Java on a legacy FreeBSD 6.2 system and I'm wondering which one I should go with. I've only ever used Sun's JDK on Windows, so I'm not that familiar with Java on FreeBSD. I remember installing it a long time ago...having to download a file from Sun and kludge it into ports or something. Anyway I have a couple questions:

1. Is there any difference between the [three major] JDKs library wise? Do they all implement the same APIs that Sun has, or do they each have bits and pieces of classes available?

2. Which is the most stable? I don't care about installation procedure, I'm only going to install it a few times maybe. I care that it doesn't crash as this will eventually be production (if it makes it past QA).

3. What is the status of these and updates? At first glance it looks like they're all super old, versus the latest Sun JDK, meaning lacking security/stability fixes. Is that true? Could it just be versioning schemes?

Thanks!


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## FzZzT (Feb 11, 2011)

Oops, I should have proofread better. The server would need the JRE/JVM, of course, not the JDK, technically...though I don't suppose it would hurt.

The project in question is a "basic" multi-threaded network service. It receives connections, reads text from the line, and writes text back to the client. It's currently "implemented" in PHP and we are looking into migrating it to a more CLI-friendly language.


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## jrm@ (Feb 11, 2011)

I don't have anything useful to add about running java on FreeBSD 6.2, but I can point you to the statement below from http://www.freebsd.org/java/:

"The current release of the JDK and JRE available via the FreeBSD Foundation is 1.6.0-7. These binaries have been tested and certified to run with 6.3-RELEASE and 7.0-RELEASE (FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/amd64) but may also work with other 6.X/7.X releases (FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/amd64).

So, you might have more peace of mind if you could upgrade the system to 6.3.


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