Eclipse asks user to create directories as root

[Francisco Borges]

Binary package hint: eclipse

Install eclipse (on feisty), start it fresh, (with or without an .eclipse directory).
(I actually created a new user to be sure there was no setting of my own influencing this).

You'll get:

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

[Aaron D. Campbell (aaroncampbell)]

I'd like to state that I too get this. However, whether I create this file or not, I still can't actually run eclipse (See <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/132338">Eclipse won't start</a>)

[Samuel Schluep (schluep)]

This is also true for gutsy after a clean install of the "eclipse" package (with "sudo apt-get install eclipse"). The message occurs (after starting eclipse in the console) with the default VM /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj and with /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun (after modifying /etc/eclipse/java_home).

[Diego Torres Milano (diego-pxes)]

A serious problem is that the error is not shown unless you run eclipse in a terminal window due to a bug in the eclipse starting script.
A solution to this problem at least, can be found in the following patch.

[Joachim R. (jro)]

I think this should be solved by adding the wanted touch/chmod/chown commands to the .deb so as they will be executed when installing eclipse.

[Joachim R. (jro)]

bug seen on Gusty i386 and Gutsy amd64 with eclipse 3.2.2