Bug#574271: eclipse: doesn't start

[Niels Thykier]

Christian Marillat wrote:
> Package: eclipse
> Version: 3.4.1-1
> Severity: grave
> 
> Hi,
> 
> eclipse doesn't start :
> 
> ==============================================================================
> searching for compatible vm...
>   testing /usr/lib/jvm/default-java...not found
>   testing /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj...not found
>   testing /usr/lib/kaffe/pthreads...not found
> Could not create /usr/local/lib/eclipse/.eclipseextension. Please run as root:
>     touch /usr/local/lib/eclipse/.eclipseextension
>     chmod 2775 /usr/local/lib/eclipse/.eclipseextension
>     chown root:staff /usr/local/lib/eclipse/.eclipseextension
> ==============================================================================
> 
> Even after doing the changes above :
> 
> ==============================================================================
> $ eclipse                                                 
> searching for compatible vm...
>   testing /usr/lib/jvm/default-java...not found
>   testing /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj...not found
>   testing /usr/lib/kaffe/pthreads...not found
> ==============================================================================
> 
> Christian
> 
> -- System Information:
> Debian Release: squeeze/sid
>   APT prefers unstable
>   APT policy: (900, 'unstable')
> Architecture: i386 (i686)
> 
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.33 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
> Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
> Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
> 
> Versions of packages eclipse depends on:
> ii  eclipse-jdt                   3.4.1-1    Java Development Tools plug-ins fo
> ii  eclipse-pde                   3.4.1-1    Plug-in Development Environment to
> ii  eclipse-source                3.4.1-1    Eclipse source code plug-ins
> ii  libc6                         2.10.2-6   Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
> ii  zenity                        2.28.0-2   Display graphical dialog boxes fro
> 
> Versions of packages eclipse recommends:
> pn  eclipse-gcj                   <none>     (no description available)
> 
> eclipse suggests no packages.
> 
> -- no debconf information
> 

Hi

Thanks for the bug report. Beginning with the next upload, eclipse will
use /usr/bin/java by default (and thus respecting your local alternative).

Until the upload you can work around this one of the following ways:
 * install default-jre (or default-jdk)
   - This will install openjdk6 if you do not already have it and
     create the default-java symlink that eclipse is expecting.
 * start eclipse with the "-vm" flag.
   - eclipse -vm /usr/bin/java
   - eclipse -vm /usr/lib/jvm/${jvm}/bin/java
   - There is more than one way of doing this, see the manpage for
     alternative ways. Though I cannot remember if this will cause
     eclipse to ignore its ini file.
 * Add your JVM to /etc/eclipse/java_home
   - Note that this configuration file will be obsolete and ignored
     after the next upload.

Assuming you have openjdk installed, I would recommend the "first"
option as the default-{jre,jdk} are just meta packages.
  While you could install the gcj java, I would not recommend it. gcj is
inferior to openjdk and eclipse is known to fail with gcj[1].

In regards to "/usr/local/lib/eclipse/.eclipseextension". I believe it
was an attempt by the previous maintainers or the previous versions of
eclipse to load (local/extra) extensions/features/plugins.
  The file itself is unrelated to whether eclipse is able to start and
this file nor its sibling in /usr/lib/eclipse will not - to the best of
my knowledge - be used in eclipse 3.5.2 (or later).

Obviously, eclipse will not ask you to create the file after the next
upload as well.

~Niels

[1] I believe it was added back when gcj was the best free alternative
present.

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