For developers, having the suitable IDE is extremely necessary for the maximum output. In fact, a good IDE can dramatically reduce the strain on a programmer with various helping tools at disposal.

If you’re a developer, you may have already heard the name of Eclipse, right? Eclipse is an open-source, community-driven project that aims for delivering a universal development platform. The IDE is also widely popular for its cross-platform support.

Eclipse is widely used for Java programming. The IDE itself is mostly written in Java. However, over time, it now has the capability of supporting other popular programming languages like Java, C/C++, Python, and Perl.

Today, we’ll be enjoying Eclipse IDE on the majestic Arch Linux. Truth be told, I’ll be using Manjaro Linux – a refined, Arch-based Linux distro that offers a pretty good looking environment with numerous tweaks to make Arch more easily accessible to new to advanced Linux users.

Installing Eclipse IDE

Eclipse is available in 2 forms – from the default repository and snap package.

Installing Eclipse from software repo

Get the installation package of Eclipse –

# Eclipse Java

sudo pacman -S eclipse-java

# Eclipse JEE

sudo pacman -S eclipse-jee

# Eclipse CPP

sudo pacman -S eclipse-cpp

# Eclipse JavaScript

sudo pacman -S eclipse-javascript

# Eclipse PHP

sudo pacman -S eclipse-php

Note that if you install one version of Eclipse, then installing any other version will cause conflicts within the system. For enabling support for other languages, you have to use the respective plugin.

Installing Eclipse from snap

For installing any snap package, the system must have the snap client. In the case of Arch and other Arch-based distros, snap client isn’t available on the default software repository. We have to grab its source from AUR, compile and install first.

Make sure that your system has “git” installed –

sudo pacman -S git

Now, grab the source of snap client –

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/snapd.git

Start the building and installation process –

cd snapd
makepkg -si

Enable the “systemd” unitthat manages the communication socket –

sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket

Run the following command for enabling the “classic” snap package support –

sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap

Now, install Eclipse snap –

sudo snap install eclipse --classic

Using Eclipse

Once the installation is complete, start Eclipse –

Select the workspace directory –

For creating a new project, go to File >> New >> Java Project –

Fill in the information –

Define Java settings for your project –

You can also make a module name –

Enjoy!