Getting a lightweight installation of java eclipse.

Question

Having dealt with yet another stupid eclipse problem, I want to try to get the lightest, most minimal eclipse installation as possible.

To be clear, I use eclipse for two things: - Editing Java - Debugging Java

Everything else I do through emacs/zsh (editing jsp/xml/js, file management, svn check-in, etc). I have not found any aspect of working in eclipse to do these tasks to be efficient or even reliable, so I do not want plug-ins that relate to it.

From the eclipse.org site, this is the lightest install of eclipse that they have, and I don't want any of those things (bugzilla, mylyn, cvs, xml_ui), and have actually had problems with each of them even though I do not use them.

So what is the minimal build I can get that will: 1) Ignore svn metadata 2) Includes the full-featured editor (intellisense and type-finding) 3) Includes the full-featured debugger (standard eclipse/jdk)

Does not have any extra plug-ins, platforms, or "integrations" with other platforms, specifically, I don't want to deal with plug-ins relating to:

Maven, JSP Validation, Javascript editing or validation, CVS or SVN, Mylyn, Spring or Hibernate "natures", app servers like a bundled tomcat/glassfish/etc, J2EE tools, or anything of the like.

I do primarily spring/hibernate/web-mvc apps, and have never dealt with an eclipse plug-in that handles any of it gracefully, I can work effectively with my own toolset, but eclipse extensions do nothing but get in the way.

I have worked with plain eclipse up to Ganymede, MyEclipse (up to 7.5), and the latest version of Spring-SourceTools, and find that they are all saddled with buggy useless plug-ins (though the combination is always different).

Switching to netbeans/intellij is not an option, and my teammates work with svn-controlled .class/.project files, so it pretty much has to be eclipse.

Does anyone have any good advice on how I can save a few grey hairs?

Answer 1

Get as minimal an installation as you can, and then remove whatever's left that you don't want.

Longer answer:

Ok so I played around a bit. Here's how I experiment:

1. Extract a clean eclipse*.zip to two different directories; call it eclipse and eclipse-bak. We'll only modify eclipse.
2. Before starting it the first time, remove some of the features from the features folder. I got rid of org.eclipse.cvs, org.eclipse.epp.*, ...mylyn*, ...wst*.
3. Start up eclipse to a workspace. Create in that workspace a Java project, debugging configuration, etc. Stuff that you would want to do and that will complain if we remove the wrong thing. Open up the Error Log view.
4. Close eclipse. Remove something (or a group of things) from the plugins folder.
5. Open eclipse. Check the error log to see if something you care about couldn't load. If it did, add those things back from eclipse-bak/plugins. If not, close eclipse and return to step 4 for a new set of plugins.

Using this I got my configuration to still be able to edit and debug Java files, but including only these plugins:

com.ibm.icu*
org.apache.*
org.eclipse.compare*
org.eclipse.core*
org.eclipse.debug*
org.eclipse.draw2d*
org.eclipse.ecf*
org.eclipse.epp.package.java*
org.eclipse.equinox*
org.eclipse.help*
org.eclipse.jdt*
org.eclipse.jface*
org.eclipse.ltk*
org.eclipse.osgi*
org.eclipse.platform*
org.eclipse.rcp*
org.eclipse.search*
org.eclipse.team.core
org.eclipse.team.ui
org.eclipse.text
org.eclipse.ui*
org.eclipse.update*
org.hamcrest*
org.sat4j*

Most of that is core stuff, but you might be able to trim it down further. Notably gone are Mylyn, the usage collector, EMF, CVS, WST, even JUnit (though I think you should keep JUnit).

Answer 2

If you only want to use Eclipse for editing / Debugging Java I would suggest using a plain Text editor. It seems an overkill to install Eclipse and not use most of its features.

A very popular choice is VIM. Also check out this SO link for tips in using VIM as a Java editor. You can also debug Java code with a command line debugger as mentioned in this SO link.

Answer 3

The "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" version isn't the smallest one! Look for "Eclipse Classic" - it doesn't contain most of the things you mentioned. It's larger in download size only, because it comes with source code.

See this comparison: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/compare-packages

Answer 4

You can use a thirdparty distribution builder like Yoxos and download just what you want.

Answer 5

Go to the Platform Project's download area. (3.5.2 is Galileo, 3.6RC4 is the current Helios candidate). You want the "Platform Runtime Binary" (49.5 MB) and the "JDT Runtime Binary" (24MB).

Extract and run the platform, go to Help -> Install New Software. Click "Add..." -> "Archive" -> choose the JDT zip you downloaded. Uncheck "Group Items by category", then select the "Eclipse Java Development Tools". Click next to install and restart eclipse when prompted.