Problem description
Standard Ubuntu Gutsy installation does not support Eclipse 3.3 in its package repository, only 3.2 is available.
For whom is this article? (target audience)
Ubuntu 7.10 users that would like to have Eclipse 3.3 or later running on their boxes.
Prerequisites
Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) binaries from here. Download the configuration you need.
Java 5 (or later) runtimes from Sun to run Eclipse. You can install them using:
$sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jre
(optional) JDK for Java/Eclipse development:
$sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk
Installation.
Unpack Eclipse archive somewhere. I use /usr/local/opt for such things.
$sudo mkdir /usr/local/opt
$sudo mv your.downloaded.eclipse.version.tar.gz /usr/local/opt
$cd /usr/local/opt
$tar -zxf your.downloaded.eclipse.version.tar.gz
$rm your.downloaded.eclipse.version.tar.gz
You can use Midnight Commander for this...
Running
Eclipse should run out-of-the-box, let's check:
$cd eclipse
$./eclipse
If you get errors which look like ' java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin' check next chapter.
If menu doesn't work (you select menu item but nothing happens) ... check next chapter.
Troubleshooting
"java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin" problem.
This is because Eclipse needs to start using Java runtimes from Sun, not the GNU ones. Additionally this need to be 1.5 or later binaries. There are few ways to fix the glitch... i present the easiest one, and 100% working.
Setting Ubuntu to use right JRE system-wide
Check which java VM's are available:
$update-java-alternatives -l
you should get output similar to this one:
> java-1.5.0-sun 53 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
> java-6-sun 63 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
> java-6-sun 73 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-sun
> java-gcj 1042 /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj
set the right VM:
$sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-1.5.0-sun
Ensure to set right version, that is 1.5.0, 1.5.1 or later (i use java-7 and it works fine)
Finally, update /etc/jvm. Run your favorite text editor as superuser and change the file so it looks similar to this one (1.5.0 is on the top):
# This file defines the default system JVM search order. Each
# JVM should list their JAVA_HOME compatible directory in this file.
# The default system JVM is the first one available from top to
# bottom.
/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
/usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj
Eclipse should run properly from now on...
