Cannot install plugins on fresh install

[Russel Winder]

I have just installed all the Eclipse packages onto a newly installed Breezy Badger. Eclipse starts up fine but when I try to install the plugins I need using the installation manager, I end up with:

Unable to create file "...". [ ... (No such file or directory)]
... (No such file or directory)

where ... is the name of the licence file for the plugin in /usr/local/lib/eclipse/plugins

I wonder if this is because all the /usr/local/lib/eclipse hierarchy is owned by root:root?

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

I suspect if you do a system wide install as root then you need to be root to install plugins. Alas I can see no page that warns you that this is going to be the case.

A system akin to mozilla is needed to allow individual users to install plugins only for themselves if a system wide install is not possible... The question is does eclipse do this already via some other means?

[Russel Winder (russel)]

It is certainly true that if you install Eclipse from the tarball (I have an installation in /opt/eclipse) then all plugins go into the Eclipse installation direct. As do all keys and passwords. It seems then that the whole of Eclipse has an installation per user philosophy -- very M$ Windwoes.

Perhaps then there is nothing to be done about separating the system wide installation and the per user plugins and such making creating packages a somewhat fruitless activity?

The actual checkout workspace is fine though so perhaps hitting Eclipse with some serious error reports might get the philosophy changed?

[Erich Pawlik (erichpawlik)]

On my machine, eclipse also has some difficulties when perosnal installation and installation as root are getting mixed up. I don't feel that this is bad. To my opinion the Eclipse workbench is an application for an individual developer. Therefore, system wide installs don't really make sense. This is not so much about Microsoft thinking, but about a clear line between individual developer tools and team/corporate project tooling (such as version control which integrates quite well into eclipse).

[neutrico (neutrico)]

In fact it's not a but - its about Eclipse internal architecture and file permissions. User who wants to install extension has to go to Eclipse Help-> Software Updates -> Manage configuration and add extension location placed in his userspace.

Then he can install plugins in there.

So, this is not a bug for me but Ubuntu could provide some extension to Eclipse that could install userspace extensions somewhere in ~/.eclipse by default.

[Ignacio Martin Rodriguez (newwen)]

I believe this patch here can solve this bug

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90630

You must configure eclipse to load extensions from your local folder,though.

[arno_b (arno.b)]

A duplicate:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/102240

[Josir (josir-jsk)]

Just a hint: I got this error when I try to install eclipse on a fat32 partition.

On the same installation, when I reinstall Eclipse on ext3 partition, it worked like a charm.

[Joachim R. (jro)]

The worse thing is that base plugins from a fresh new install are not working. Eclipse plugin manager is repporting a lots of plugin as not working because some dependencies are missing !
Sorry but the priority must be at least "medium" !

[Jaap Haitsma (jaap)]

I've just installed eclipse 3.5.1 on Karmic beta. When I go to Help -> Install New Software it complains

"Cannot complete request. The installation has not been configured properly for Software Updates"

I get the same message when I click on "Help -> Check for Updates"

[Valérian (r-contact-valerian-be)]

Same problem as Jaap on Karmic Beta :(

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

@Valérian: Please upgrade to eclipse 3.5.1-0ubuntu7. Please open a new bug report if you still have problems with this version.