Eclipse Kepler on 12.04

Question

I am using Ubuntu 12.04LTS (32-bit). I am currently installing Eclipse Kepler using this post. I've finished the process but I can't get the eclipse display on the menu search. Currently, the eclipse icon is displayed along with its image, but the icon itself can't be clicked/entered. I have installed Oracle JDK 7 provided by this tutorial.

This I miss something that caused the icon/application to not run and/or cannot be clicked?

Solution

Delete any previous launcher for Eclipse you may have made, this will create a completely new one.

Run these commands:

# Installs gnome-desktop-item-edit, a useful GUI to configure .desktop files
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends gnome-panel

# Symlinks eclipse to /usr/local/bin, allowing you to launch it from a command line
# If eclipse is not in /opt, change this to point to your eclipse executable
sudo ln -s /opt/eclipse*/eclipse /usr/local/bin/eclipse

# Creates a new .desktop file in '/usr/share/applications'
sudo gnome-desktop-item-edit --create-new "/usr/share/applications/eclipse-ide.desktop"

Then, put these into the fields, leave others default (You can actually put whatever you want in these, except "Command"):

• Name: "Eclipse IDE"
• Command: Click the Browse button and find the eclipse executable file
• Icon: Click the springboard icon (towards the top left), then browse to the file icon.xpm, in the same folder as the eclipse executable
  • Note: The default Eclipse icon is very bad with Unity, you can't tell if it's launched or not. I personally use this icon here. Just choose this downloaded icon instead of the default icon.xpm
• Comment: Anything you want, I put (from Wikipedia)

  Eclipse is a multi-language IDE comprising a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment.

Click "OK", then search the Dash for your new icon.

See this screenshot for reference only:

Comments

[David B]

I may have missed/mistyped a line in tutorial(s). All is working now. Thanks for the help.

[David B]

Is that correct username/.share/eclipse.desktop'? So I am going to create a directory .share`?

[kiri]

@Dr.Java This is wrong, it should be in /home/your_user/.local/share/applications, see my answer for a way to install it for all users of the computer

[crafter]

@minerz029 You are correct. I updated my post.