Install Eclipse and PyDev on Ubuntu

How to install Eclipse on Ubuntu? How to install PyDev on Ubuntu? It seems many people are asking these questions. With the increase in usage of open source software such as Ubuntu, people have become accustomed to writing applications in Ubuntu.

One computer language in particular that developers like to use is Python. Python is an object-oriented programming language. It is easy to learn and fast to code. It runs on many different computers and operating systems.

Writing a Python program can be done using any editor, even a simple text editor like Notepad. If you are running your operating system on Ubuntu and you want a full-fledged IDE, you may want to invest the time to install and set up Eclipse.

What is Eclipse?

Eclipse is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for building, deploying, and managing software. It is a source code editor and provides trace and debugging facilities.

The Eclipse Project was originally created by IBM in November 2001 and supported by a consortium of software vendors. Today, the Eclipse community consists of individuals and organizations from a cross-section of the software industry.

Install Eclipse

1. Install Eclipse and Sun’s Java by running the following:

sudo apt-get install eclipse sun-java6-jdk

2. Make Sun’s Java the default by running the following:

sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

3. Edit the JVM configuration file:

sudo -b gedit / etc/jvm

4. Add the following to the top of the file:

/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun

5. If you have 1GB or more of memory, you may want to increase the heap size for better performance. The argument Xms refers to the minimum heap size and Xmx refers to the maximum heap size. Edit the Eclipse script file:

sudo -b gedit /usr/bin/eclipse

6. Change VMARGS=”” to the following:

VMARGS="-Xms512m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m"

Install PyDev

The PyDev Ubuntu setup requires some configuration in Eclipse. Installing PyDev on Ubuntu is similar to the installation on Windows or Macintosh.

1. Run Eclipse and then go to Help | Software Updates | Find and Install…

2. In the Feature Updates window, select Search for new features to install and click Next.

3. In the Install window, select New Remote Site.

4. In the New Update Site window, specify the following:

Name: PyDev

URL: http://update-production-pydev.s3.amazonaws.com/pydev/updates/site.xml
The old URL was http://pydev.org/updates

5. In the Search Results window, select both PyDev Extensions and click Next.

6. In the Feature License window, agree to the license agreement and click Next.

7. Configure the Python interpreter by going to Window | Preferences | Pydev | Interpreter – Python.

8. In the Python interpreters section, click New.

9. Locate your Python interpreter (e.g., /usr/bin/python).

10. When prompted, select your System PYTHONPATH. You can just leave the default checkboxes selected and click OK.

For further details about PyDev and additional information, visit the PyDev site.