It's about the same on either, but the set-up is probably easier. The fastest, easiest way would probably be to just type 'sudo apt-get install openjdk-1.7-jdk eclipse' into the terminal, or download Eclipse and JDK 7 and install it that way.
Even better, if you've already done some programming before, is to try to learn Shell Script (Bash), write some scripts and just run them through the terminal. I've gained some good experience programming that way and it's super fast, but it's pretty different from the standard, and is more err-prone.
Freedom? That's such a broad term, and it doesn't apply to most linux distros, including Ubuntu (by Richard Stallman's definition, anyway. You know him, he's the GNU and GPL guy). If you are talking strictly about the freedom to use your software as you see fit... that doesn't apply to Ubuntu either, since it uses proprietary software (like flash) for which you can't see the source code, therefore you can only use it as the developer intended to be used.
