Comment 7 for bug 539256

Thanks for replying.

I admit I do not have a clear idea on how technically the problem could be solved, nor am I willing to do it myself (for now)! I was just mentioning that such thing is possible in the eclipse package as done by their authors. Currently it seems to me that the ubuntu / debian packaging of eclipse could still be improved: I think these distributions are able to manage other systems of softwares at least as complex as eclipse. (That said, I am very happy about the work done to enable an easy eclipse install into ubuntu!) E.g. perl packages, latex packages, C or java libraries, etc. You do not have to install a whole bunch of perl packages if you want http://packages.debian.org/lenny/libxml-libxml-common-perl. Consider as well http://packages.debian.org/lenny/latex-beamer. These are only two examples of packages consisting in very few files and similar, it seems to me, to eclipse packages. Although I know there *is* a basic uncompressible set of required packages you have to install if you want to use perl, or LaTeX, I think it is inadequate to force the user to install PDE to be able to use the automatic features install in eclipse.

Note that a big difference between having several LaTeX packages installed and having to install PDE is that the former only is a bunch of files on your hard disk (space is cheap), whereas the latter clutters your GUI by adding entries in the preference window and in many menus.

Also the libraries used by eclipse should be shared in the whole system as are C libraries (I already have junit, why a specific install into eclipse folder?) ; it should be possible to install plug-ins as root user and possibly even mandatory, using aptitude, etc. Please note I do know that these are not easy tasks and I am not saying that anybody should implement it right now, I know I can do it myself if I really want it, etc. - I am simply suggesting some possible paths of (long-term? I hope not too much!) improvement that would lead the way to a smooth eclipse experience on linux as is currently possible with LaTeX and plenty of other complex systems.

Solving this packaging problem in a clean manner by fully integrating eclipse plug-ins system into the 'aptitude' system is probably a big challenge, but would certainly add good value to the linux developers!

Once again, anyway, thanks for the work done up to here.