[platform-update-dev] Eclipse doesn't "just go" on Linux

[Jared Burns <jared-eclipse@xxxxxxxxx>]

The following is from a discussion on the SWT mailing list. Please comment.

- Jared

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From: Mike_Wilson@xxxxxxx

Well... Basically, we would need to understand the impact on the
install-update support, deal with it and then we would have to create the
script, rename the launcher, and change various build scripts and related
flotsom.

McQ.

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From: Jared Burns <jared-eclipse@xxxxxxxxx>

What needs to happen to fix the problem? That is, how does the Linux
packaging get changed to include the necessary shell script?

- Jared

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From: Jared Burns <jared-eclipse@xxxxxxxxx>

Hola.

Eclipse doesn't work out of the box on Linux.

Steps to success:
1. Unzip Eclipse
2. Type /path/to/eclipse to launch
3. Receive the error:
"./path/to/eclipse: error while loading shared libraries: libXm.so.2: cannot 
open shared object file: No such file or directory"

The Eclipse launcher should append the Eclipse install directory to the 
LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The only reason this isn't necessary on Windows is that 
Windows happens to do this for you.

There are two obvious ways to achieve victory here. Either add the code to 
programmatically append the install dir to LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the Eclipse 
executable or we could rename the executable (to, say, "runEclipse") and 
create an executable shell script which would basically read: 
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`dirname $0`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
exec runEclipse

This last version is how the Sun and IBM VMs get around the LB_LIBRARY_PATH 
issue. Take a look at the file named "java" in the JDK/bin directory on a 
Linux box for an example.

- Jared