I just installed pcbsd, a distro of freebsd on my laptop. I went to download the jdk, and the sun site had no binaries for bsd. I did a search, and I found FreeBSD Java Project, but they're only up to 1.3.1. What the hell? Is that all there is?

First, I've never used BSD so forgive me if I get something wrong. However, some searching revealed the following Java BSD install link - here. At a glance, I'd say the 1.3.1 version is the port made specifically for BSD. As it says on the bottom of the page, and on the main site, it's the binaries that are the problem. You can install whatever JDK/JRE you feel like - the Linux binaries from Sun will work apparently - you just can't redistribute them.

Quote:Original post by stormrunner
First, I've never used BSD so forgive me if I get something wrong. However, some searching revealed the following Java BSD install link - here. At a glance, I'd say the 1.3.1 version is the port made specifically for BSD. As it says on the bottom of the page, and on the main site, it's the binaries that are the problem. You can install whatever JDK/JRE you feel like - the Linux binaries from Sun will work apparently - you just can't redistribute them.

no, the linux binaries do not work, I've already tried. And I already thought about building from source, apparently that doesn't work which is why they have to make a specific port for BSD.

It doesn't matter, I'm getting rid of BSD anyway. There are too many cases where this is an issue, getting stuck with old software because of the latency of porting.