Easy way of installing Eclipse plugins on Ubuntu

Question

I'm running Eclipse (versions 3.6 and 3.5) on Ubuntu and I'm having trouble installing Eclipse plugins.

There is an easy way to install eclipse plugins in Eclipse, but this doesn't work for me on Ubuntu! This way only works properly under Windows and Mac OSX.

Just like in the tutorial, I create a folder inside my eclipse SDK folder that is named Links.
In this folder, I create a file eclipse-cpp-helios-linux-gtk.lnk or eclipse-cpp-helios-linux-gtk.link that contains this line:

path=/home/taher/opt/eclipse/Third-party-eclipse-links/eclipse-cpp-helios-linux-gtk

and save it, but when I start Eclipse doesn't recognize the plugin!

How can I resolve this problem?

Solution

With Eclipse Galileo (3.5) or Helios (3.6), I would rather recommend an external directory called 'mydropins' (for instance), which you can reference from your eclipse.ini, with the option:

-Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory=C:/Prog/Java/eclipse_addons

This is called a shared dropins folder.
See in this SO answer an example of plugin deployment in this shared dropins folder.

---

(Your link refers to the previous provisioning mechanism, pre-p2.
P2 is the new provisioning system introduced late in Eclipse3.4, refined (debugged?) in eclipse 3.5 and 3.6.
See the supported dropins formats to check how you can organize your own personal dropins folder (that you can reuse between several eclipse installations)

---

You said you are using:

-Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory=/home/taher/opt/eclipse/Third-party-eclipse-links

That means, under /home/taher/opt/eclipse/Third-party-eclipse-links, you:

• won't have any .link file
• will copy:

    eclipse-cpp-helios-linux-gtk
      eclipse
        features
        plugins

Note: the structure within eclipse-cpp-helios-linux-gtk should be the one describe above, for p2 to pick it up.