EDIT: Probably unnecessary to build as the install from binary works now as well, see later in thread.

I always liked Netbeans and have tried to build it on A Pi4 previously but failed with an out-of-memory error. I know Netbeans is available as a snap but snaps are something I avoid.

This will not build the full Netbeans, I failed to get past the Rust dependencies and I only wanted it for PHP and C (and inheritability HTML and CSS). I believe this will provide support for:-

C, C++, CSS, GO, HTML, JSON, JaveScript, PHP, TOML, Terraform, Text, XML and YAML files, maybe more, maybe less.

I've not tested on a fresh RPiOS install but I think the dependencies are accurate, it was quite a battle to get this far.
To run is ~/netbeans27/bin/netbeans

I have no idea how to add extensions eg language extensions.

On a Pi5 8GB SSD from xterm the build time was 10 minutes for basic (core Netbeans), 4 mins for PHP and 2 minutes for CPP. I think the bower install time takes quite a while, I forget as I did that a few weeks back for Netbeans 26.

If anyone is familiar with ant I would like to know if it is possible to combine the three clusters in one build?

Last edited by pidd on Mon Sep 08, 2025 3:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Why dont you use binary distribution (https://netbeans.apache.org/front/main/download/nb27) and just unzip it ?
You maybe have to adjust netbeans_jdkhome in netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf and that's all.

turiot wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 07, 2025 4:30 pm

Why dont you use binary distribution (https://netbeans.apache.org/front/main/download/nb27) and just unzip it ?
You maybe have to adjust netbeans_jdkhome in netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf and that's all.

I'm not sure that works on Raspberry Pi, there is literally zero documentation or notes up front and it probably needs a shed load of dependencies anyway? I tried one of their "binary" packages a few years ago and it wasn't right (I've forgotten what was wrong).

It doesn't specify what is included in that "binary", PHP and C which I require aren't in core Netbeans.

It works on Raspberry Pi 5, which is conform to Java philosophy : the bytecode is not machine dependant, only the JVM is.

Steps to install :
download jdk for linux-aarch64 from jdk.java.net
unzip it where you want
download netbeans binary from apache site
unzip it where you want
edit netbeans_jdkhome in netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf
run netbeans/bin/netbeans

The additional tooling for PHP, Cpp (plugins) may by activated from inside the IDE.
I dont master the cpp toolchain, gcc and make need to be installed from raspberry packages.

turiot wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 10:21 am

It works on Raspberry Pi 5, which is conform to Java philosophy : the bytecode is not machine dependant, only the JVM is.

Steps to install :
download jdk for linux-aarch64 from jdk.java.net
unzip it where you want
download netbeans binary from apache site
unzip it where you want
edit netbeans_jdkhome in netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf
run netbeans/bin/netbeans

The additional tooling for PHP, Cpp (plugins) may by activated from inside the IDE.
I dont master the cpp toolchain, gcc and make need to be installed from raspberry packages.

Thanks, that will save me the effort of building in future, bower pulled an awful amount of stuff in iirc. I would assume build-essential should take care of the required C/C++ requirements.

EDIT: Just installed from binary, works fine, in fact some display things are working better than the built version. Thanks again

You are welcome.
But dont waste your time with Netbeans support for C/C++ coding, it is very minimalist because Netbeans (that I enjoyed so much) is nearly dead since Oracle acquisition.
You should prefer Eclipse, a perfect Java IDE (i use it everyday at work) with C and PHP variants.
Eclipse can be downloaded either as a specialised binary for Java or C or PHP, or plugins can bring adequat complement (eg download Java flavour then install CDT plugin).
I installed (unzip) Eclipse CDT on my Pi and run a C hello world in minutes, I am not a C dev but toolchains seem already configured.
There is also a plugin/flavour called Sloeber specialized in microcontrollers (Arduino and Pico).

turiot wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 5:28 pm

You are welcome.
But dont waste your time with Netbeans support for C/C++ coding, it is very minimalist because Netbeans (that I enjoyed so much) is nearly dead since Oracle acquisition.
You should prefer Eclipse, a perfect Java IDE (i use it everyday at work) with C and PHP variants.
Eclipse can be downloaded either as a specialised binary for Java or C or PHP, or plugins can bring adequat complement (eg download Java flavour then install CDT plugin).
I installed (unzip) Eclipse CDT on my Pi and run a C hello world in minutes, I am not a C dev but toolchains seem already configured.
There is also a plugin/flavour called Sloeber specialized in microcontrollers (Arduino and Pico).

Totally agree with all your points I used interchange between eclipse and netbeans, however after a break in using both of them I find netbeans the more natural one for me though as you say it somehow it isn't as good as the older Sun version.

I am a very basic level programmer, spent a lot of time on 8-bit assembly and my programming ability and style haven't changed much from those days All these IDE's are way over-the-top for my needs but if it helps catches typos and lets me run and move files to servers then that's fine. Geany is probably more suited in many ways but I just feel less comfortable with Geany. Used to use debugging in Netbeans but not bothered for a long time.

As a professional dev, an IDE is important to cope with large code applications, indexing, completion and refactoring.
It permits a tight integration with build tools, library management, debugging and profiling.
And code sharing with git for instance is simplified.
Moreover, code analysis is helpful for quality and learning.