Eclipse is leading open source development environments for Java, with support for JEE and JME development and entire ecosystem of plugins that makes it suitable for any software development task.
At the moment of writing, Ubuntu repositories contain Eclipse 3.2.2 while latest release is version 3.4.1. If one wants to stay current with Eclipse version, it has to be installed manually.
Note: manually installed Eclipse will not be managed by apt, Debian package managing tool, so user has to take care of updates.
When installing from distributable archives, Eclipse has only dependency – Java JDK. In this example I will use Sun JDK. To verify which Java has been installed, type in terminal:
java -version
To install it Sun’s JDK ver 6, issue the following command:
apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
Eclipse Installation
Eclipse, both 32 and 64 bit can be downloaded from
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
In this example, we’ll install Eclipse Ganymede 3.4.1. Please verify current version when installing it and adjust URLs and commands accordingly.
When download finishes, we’ll uncompress the archive. Here I suppose that archive is saved in user’s home directory. If file name changed since moment of writing, modify command line accordingly.
tar -xzvf eclipse-jee-ganymede-SR1-linux-gtk.tar.gz
This will create directory /home/[USER_NAME]/eclipse
switch to the eclipse directory:
cd ~/eclipse
and start eclipse:
./eclipse
If you would like to start Eclipse in background, type
nohup ./eclipse &
Conclusion
That’s it – Eclipse is ready to use. You could add Eclipse to the programs menu, so that in future you don’t need to start Eclipse from command line.
Newsintegrator Blog 
Thanks for the instructions, pretty straight forward. I am using Kubuntu and to add Eclipse to the programs menu, I did the following:
Right click on the K icon menu at the left bottom, selected Menu Editor and then added a new item to the Development Group.
nice subject
Tutos Linux
Where is the program’s icon located to put in the menu?
This procedure doesn’t setup icon in the menu. It needs to be added manually – try for example this article.
Did that….
everything works.
What I cannot find is where in the eclipse folder is the icon I can use in the menu.
ME
i hve eclipse 3.1 . before i install this eclipse do i need to uninstall the old one?
No you don’t need to uninstall the old one – just install new Eclipse in separate directory. If you use same directory for workspace, project information will be updated if needed. Pay attention to install any custom plugins you might have in Eclipse 3.1 if you want to use them in new install.
in ubuntu you have to go to System -> Preferences -> Main Menu and it will open the main menu configuration window. You go down to programming on the left side, and check the program you want to be displayed in your menu in the right side.
Thanks for the walkthrough! I’m an Eclipse veteran but new to Linux and tar.
You’re very welcome.
I followed the above instructions, but when launching eclipse, I get the splash screen with a progress bar, then it goes away, and I get a dialogue box titled ‘eclipse’ that is empty and just sits there.
In working Eclipse installation, after splash screen comes dialog that offers us to choose workspace folder. What is JDK version that you have installed? If it is not Sun’s JDK, install it using: sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk or sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk and then try to run Eclipse again.
An Eclipse icon at least for version 3.4.4 can be found under [install_dir]/features/org.eclipse.platform[version]/eclipse_update_120.jpg
don@mekong:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
[sudo] password for don:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
sun-java6-jdk is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
don@mekong:~/Desktop$
i have a problem my eclipse don’t start after download finished
Could you provide a little bit more details?
i resove with this information
http://wiki.eclipse.org/IRC_FAQ
I have installed eclipse on Ubuntu. but when i run it , it gives the following error
Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK)
must be available in order to run Eclipse. No Java virtual machine
was found after searching the following locations:
/home/varun/eclipse/jre/bin/java
java in your current PATH
I have my JRE installed in /usr/java/jre1.6.0_13 .
Please help
I have the same problem
Hi,
Whenever i try to save my application, it is giving Null pointer exeception.
Details abt the environment:
Ubuntu : Jaunty
Eclipse ganymede: 3.4.2
Can u help me in this regards
Hi,
I had once same problem with MyEclipse IDE on Windows. I do not remember what fixed it, but try creating new workspace.
Hope this helps,
boris
I get the same as Don.
“I followed the above instructions, but when launching eclipse, I get the splash screen with a progress bar, then it goes away, and I get a dialogue box titled ‘eclipse’ that is empty and just sits there.”
Hi there.
Great installation help…thanks, fixed my problem.
Anyone reading this guys stuff should bookmark it.
One way to find out if you have Java installed and accessible is by running the ‘which java’ command. See below:
linux@holistic25:~/eclipse> which java
which: no java in (/home/linux/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/bin:/usr/games:/opt/gnome/bin:/opt/kde3/bin:/usr/lib/mit/bin:/usr/lib/mit/sbin:/home/linux/jdk1.5.0_20)
Here’s something that I did to get it to work on my end: On Linux, you need to set the JAVA_HOME and then append the JAVA_HOME/bin to your PATH. For example, the .bashrc in my case looks like this:
export JAVA_HOME=/home/linux/jdk1.5.0_20
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin
Now the result of ‘which java’ is as follows:
linux@holistic25:~/eclipse> which java
/home/linux/jdk1.5.0_20/bin/java
Subsequently, I do not get the eclipse errors any more and can launch it successfully (mainly because I can now find the java installed on my machine).
Hope this helps others running into similar none.
I get the same as Don and Walter and I have Java 6 from Sun already installed…. :
“I followed the above instructions, but when launching eclipse, I get the splash screen with a progress bar, then it goes away, and I get a dialogue box titled ‘eclipse’ that is empty and just sits there.”
Thanks for easy step to insatll Eclipse on Linux. I followed the above instruction and it worked fine. Except when I start the ./eclipse I got this below error:
Warning: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m not understood. Ignoring.
Warning: -Xms40m not understood. Ignoring.
Then I used this below command to start eclipse:
./eclipse -vm /usr/java/jre1.6.0_20/bin
It worked perfectly.
It has been described in details here
http://ayushsuman.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-install-eclipse-on-linux-eclipse.html
Thanks.
Binod Suman
Thanks alot. really helpful
Hi, thanks for the guids.
But how can I put the eclipse in the program menu? I mean Applications>…> eclipse
ya it is easy to understand.
wow very simple explanation