Standard Ubuntu Gutsy installation does not support Eclipse 3.3 in its package repository, only 3.2 is available. So, if you're a Ubuntu 7.10 users that would like to have Eclipse 3.3 or later running on your box, this article will help you.

Prerequisites

• Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) binaries from here. Download the configuration you need.
• Java 5 (or later) runtimes from Sun to run Eclipse. You can install them using:

$sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jre

• (optional) JDK for Java/Eclipse development:

$sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk

Installation

Unpack Eclipse archive somewhere. I use /usr/local/opt for such things.

$sudo mkdir /usr/local/opt
$sudo mv your.downloaded.eclipse.version.tar.gz /usr/local/opt
$cd /usr/local/opt
$tar -zxf your.downloaded.eclipse.version.tar.gz
$rm your.downloaded.eclipse.version.tar.gz

You can use Midnight Commander for this.

Running

Eclipse should run out-of-the-box, let's check:

$cd eclipse
$./eclipse

If you get errors which look like ' java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin' check next chapter.
If menu doesn't work (you select menu item but nothing happens) ... check next chapter.

Troubleshooting

The "java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin" problem.

This is because Eclipse needs to start using Java runtimes from Sun, not the GNU ones. Additionally this need to be 1.5 or later binaries. There are few ways to fix the glitch... i present the easiest one, and 100% working.

Setting Ubuntu to use right JRE system-wide

Check which java VM's are available:

$update-java-alternatives -l

you should get output similar to this one:

> java-1.5.0-sun 53 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
> java-6-sun 63 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
> java-6-sun 73 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-sun
> java-gcj 1042 /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj

set the right VM:

$sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-1.5.0-sun

Ensure to set right version, that is 1.5.0, 1.5.1 or later (i use java-7 and it works fine)
Finally, update /etc/jvm. Run your favorite text editor as superuser and change the file so it looks similar to this one (1.5.0 is on the top):

# This file defines the default system JVM search order. Each
# JVM should list their JAVA_HOME compatible directory in this file.
# The default system JVM is the first one available from top to
# bottom.

/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
/usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj

Eclipse should run properly from now on.

Originally posted by lukost on his http://lukasz.chrost.com