Re: Eclipse and Debian
On 27/11/17 17:35, Markus Koschany wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am 27.11.2017 um 09:03 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> This email is a general request for information about using Eclipse
>> (both packaged or downloaded directly from upstream) on Debian systems.
>>
>> There is a packaging wiki page[1], it links to a missing page
>> https://wiki.debian.org/Eclipse - would somebody consider creating that
>> page and maybe adding answers to some of these questions there?
>
> All information about Eclipse on the Debian wiki are outdated.
>
OK, thanks, I created a link from that page to this thread
>>
>> Some high-level questions:
>>
>> - the current version of the package[2] is 3.8 (Juno), are there any
>> fundamental issues with newer versions or is it just a lack of manpower?
>
> The fundamental issue with Eclipse is the lack of manpower. See also
> Debian bug #681726.
>
>> - for people who want to download later versions (e.g. Oxygen) directly
>> from upstream, could anybody comment on the JVM (OpenJDK or Oracle) and
>> version to use on the current and previous Debian stable release? Maybe
>> a table on the wiki with Debian versions, JVM versions and Eclipse
>> versions would be useful if anybody is inclined to create it.
>
> OpenJDK 8 is the preferred JVM in stable/testing/sid and should work
> with the latest Eclipse release.
>
>> - upstream provides their own mechanism for adding and updating packages
>> within Eclipse. Could anybody comment on some of the implications for
>> Linux users, in particular:
>> - how to ensure several hosts (laptop, office desktop, home desktop)
>> have an identical set of plugins
>> - how to ensure several hosts (laptop, office desktop, home desktop)
>> have identical settings
>> - is a diff of the settings tree sufficient?
>> - how to rollback to a known good state
>> - how to keep several team members (shared filesystem or separate
>> hosts) in sync or help new team members/contributors start quickly with
>> a preferred configuration
>> - could people create local plugin repositories to achieve some of
>> those things?
>>
>> - best practices for Linux developers (either upstream or Debian) using
>> things like the Eclipse CDT and Autotools support
>> - for example, I notice the default clean is "distclean" but some
>> people may prefer a regular "clean", are there other gotchas like this?
>> - another example: the autotools support can do things like running
>> configure but some people may prefer to do most of that from the command
>> line and only let Eclipse run the make command
>
> Several plugins for Eclipse are already packaged for Debian but they are
> in need of an update as well. It is also possible to install upstream
> plugins and in most cases that just works. However we can't really
> support this use case because there are too many factors to consider and
> in general we can't control upstream code without creating a proper
> Debian package.
>
> At the moment I can recommend Netbeans as an alternative for Java
> developers in Debian.
>
OK, thanks for that suggestion. What about people developing in Python
or C++? One particular reason I'm asking about this is to give
recommendations to our Outreachy and GSoC applicants.
>> I realize that due to the nature of Eclipse there are not easy answers
>> to some of these things but it would still be useful to have a quick
>> summary of things for the wiki.
>
> I hope that helps a little
>
Yes, any feedback is good
Regards,
Daniel
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