Originally posted by Ricky Clarkson:
I would recommend avoiding any distribution of Linux that distributes it with the 'java' executable without making it clear that 'java' is not Java.
Unfortunately, that's just about all of them thse days.
The easiest way to fix this problem is to download the Sun JDK. I recommend placing it under /usr/java, which is where the RPM install does it. By putting my JDK's in /usr/java/ it's easy to pick whichever Java release you want for a given application instead of forcing all apps to run the same version.
So let's say you did that for one of the recent releases. Set JAVA_HOME for Eclipse's benefit, then set the PATH so that the two agree:
ECLIPSE_HOME isn't a required definition, but it makes things a little more abstract.
BTW
DON'T run eclipse as root!!!
I think you can run a shared eclipse by placing it in /usr/local/eclipse, though I always just put eclipse in my home directory. The non-sharable stuff I think is all in your workspace directory, but I could be wrong.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.