There should be a eclipse.ini file in user's home directory

[UbuntuCleric]

Binary package hint: eclipse

Hi:

I noticed that eclipse uses the configuration file /usr/lib/eclipse/eclipse.ini, which contains amongst other settings, the maximum amount of heap space for the JVM. It seems to me that such a setting will increasingly be modified by end-users, and thus should be configurable from a file such as ~/.eclipse/eclipse.ini (i.e., in the user's home directory). This would make it behave the same way as most linux programs out there. Is there some reason that this isn't done?

Reading the bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/43162, comment #5 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/43162/comments/5) states that they've very recently (a few days ago) moved the eclipse.ini to be in /etc. Again, this doesn't seem to fit the common model of having configuration be overrideable by a file in the user's home directory.

Cheers

[UbuntuCleric (ubuntucleric)]

Hmm, can I assume that something with "Wishlist" importance is unlikely to be implemented? :P

Would this change require a change to the actual eclipse program (I would assume this isn't likely)? Or is it a packaging issue, and someone just has to modify the shell script to implement this? If it is the latter, I might take a crack at it since I'm the one who filed the bug.

[Niels Thykier (niels-thykier)]

Hi

I agree with you that eclipse ought to have "per-user" configurations and even if eclipse does not support it out of the box, it can be done with just (shell) scripting[1]. Nevertheless, we recently received a similar question on the Debian-java list [2], where a maintainer wanted to add an argument to eclipse. He/She also suggested the "per-user" configuration - but this would require that the user manually edited their own configuration, when they installed this package.

Therefore I think we need something like an /etc/eclipse/eclipse.ini.d/ folder as well and a script that can sanely merge a couple of eclipse.ini files. Possible with an eclipserc that determines if the user wants /etc/eclipse/eclipse.ini.d/ parsed.

The importance wishlist (at least in Debian) means that it is considered a feature request (or a suggestion); personally I think this will be fixed (if left on its own) the next time I am stuck with another problem and out of frustration need to fix something to feel progress.

~Niels

[1] I would probably not use a shell script here due to how shells handles variables (especially when passed to another application)

[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2009/11/msg00050.html

[Rockwalrus (rockwalrus)]

The big problem with per-user eclipse.ini is that it would break eclipse.ini-changing p2 touchpoints.

[Rebecca Palmer (rebecca-palmer)]

Eclipse does have per-user configuration, at $HOME/.eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_$version_$id/configuration/ ; however, I don't know if that particular setting can be changed there.