Unable to install eclipse on 12.10

Question

After installing tomcat 6 on machine , my existing eclipse stops working and on ubuntu software center it showing the option to install eclipse. When I tried to install eclipse I am getting the following error

The following packages have unmet dependencies:

eclipse-platform: Depends: eclipse-platform-data (>= 3.8.0~rc4-1ubuntu1) but 3.8.0~rc4-1ubuntu1 is to be installed Depends: eclipse-rcp (= 3.8.0~rc4-1ubuntu1) but 3.8.0~rc4-1ubuntu1 is to be installed Depends: liblucene2-java (< 2.9.5) but 2.9.4+ds1-4 is to be installed Depends: sat4j (< 2.4.0) but 2.3.1-1ubuntu1 is to be installed

Any ideas to fix this ,

I got stuck in the middle of my work.

Answer 1

Simple: Don't install Eclipse using a package manager. Just download the tar.gz archive from eclipse.org and unpack it anywhere. 3.8.2 is here.

Some background: Eclipse comes with its own package manager (p2). P2 doesn't like when someone else messes with its world. Linux package manager try to modify the p2 config files in such a way that p2 doesn't notice but eventually, this fails.

Word of advice: You can now install plugins using the help menu. Every time you install a new plugin, make a backup of the Eclipse folder and your workspace. P2 has some very ugly bugs and when it gets into a "I don't wanna work anymore" state, it's next to impossible to heal it.

Keep those backups in a safe place. You will eventually need them. And yes, I imply that you will need the 5th last backup eventually.

Note: To work, Eclipse just needs the files inside of its installation folder and in the workspace/.metadata folder. If they get damaged, it won't work anymore. That also means that installing packages using your package manager can't break Eclipse anymore.