How to install Eclipse with Git, Bash, PHP, Python support

Eclipse is an integrated development environment or an IDE. In other words these pieces of software are playgrounds for programmers, having all sorts of useful features such as autocomplete, searching entire projects, syntax highlighting and so on. I have been introduced to this during my Python courses.

There was a mass frustration in the first hours of Python, because everybody had to have a problem with the Eclipse and plugin installation. In this post i’m going explain how i installed Eclipse with all the plugins that i need. I usually do Python, Bash and PHP scripting. I need plugins that can provide the necesary features for each of these programming languages. I also use Github to share and version control my code.

Prerequisites

  • Debian 7 (this is the one i’m using currently)
  • Java – Eclipse needs java in order to run. I used OpenJDK-7

apt-get install openjdk-7*

How to install Eclipse

You can either install it via the command line (apt-get install eclipse) or get it from the official website. I went for the second option because i can be sure i’m getting the latest version and i’m getting what i want.

  • Download Eclipse – as you can probably see, there are multiple flavours of Eclipse and multiple purpose-oriented versions. I have installed Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers, Version: Kepler Service Release 1. If you can’t figure out which one is it, just download it from where i did

eclipse-about

  • Extract it – there is not installation package, just a tarball (archive) with Eclipse. It can be extracted anywhere. I prefer to leave it in the home directory.

tar xvfz eclipse-cpp-kepler-SR1-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz -C ~/

How to configure Git support

  • Install Git for Linux

apt-get install git

  • Make sure you have Git installed in Eclipse. To check, go to Help -> Install new software. Here you can see “What is already installed”, being highlighted in the bottom-right corner. After clicking it, search through the tabs (i’d go to Plugin first) and see if there is anything git related. The version that i’m using came with Git already installed.

eclipse-installed-software

  • Make a git config file – go to your home folder via the command line and issue the following commands

git config –global user.name “Your Name Here

git config –global user.email “[email protected]

The email address should be the same as in your github account.

How to install Bash support

I’m using a plugin called “ShellEd” for Bash code recognition and a terminal plugin (ELT) that would add a terminal interface to eclipse.

  • Download ShellEd
  • Install the plugin from Eclipse by loading the zip file – Go to Help->Install New Software->Add->Archieve and now select the downloaded zip file
  • You will be asked to agree with some legal stuff and then to restart eclipse.
  • Download ELT
  • Follow the same procedure as with ShellEd

To check if everything is working, create a .sh file and write some bash code. You should recognize some syntax highlighting. As for the terminal, you should be able to see a “Open terminal here” option when you right click a file/folder in your projects.

eclipse-bash-terminal-support

How to install PHP support

Go to Help->Install New Software and select the official releases for your version. In my case it was – http://download.eclipse.org/releases/kepler . Use the filtering tool below to search for “PHP” . You should find a package called “PHP Development Tools (PDT) SDK Feature, like in the screenshot below:

eclipse-php-pdt-plugin

If you can’t find the package in the official version link, try creating a new plugin entry source by going to Help->Install New Software->Add

Name: PDT

URL: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/updates/release

Check the PDT box and click “Next” to start the installation.

You can check to see if PHP was installed correctly by going to Windows->Open Perspective->Other. You should see PHP in the list.

eclipse-open-perspective

How to install Python support

Create a new plugin entry source by going to Help->Install New Software->Add

Name: PyDev

URL: http://pydev.org/updates

Check the PyDev box and click “Next” to start the installation

Errors you might encounter

  • Can’t install PyDev

You are probably using another version/flavour of Eclipse. Still didn’t found out the reason for this. I kept getting the following window, when trying to install.

pydev-install-error

My fix was just using the Kepler version.

  • No Python after succesfull installation

You are probably using the wrong Java version. If you have multiple versions of OpenJDK installed you can change which one to use by issuing the following command:

update-alternatives –config java

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