Clutter free eclipse installations

The core principle of eclipse is plugin based architecture. This worked so well, that the eclipse eco-system is thriving with a plethora of addons. Earlier versions of eclipse (2.1 and earlier) were simple zip files, you could copy the whole directory structure and run it on any other machine. With the advent of 3.0, it is no longer the case.

Eclipse versions determine the target platform based on the configuration. Incompatible configurations can cause crashes. In such extreme cases, the only resort is to search for all conflicting workspace configurations, reinstall eclipse with required plugins and reload the workspace projects.

The latest versions come with P2 installer. P2 installations simplifies the burden of downloading large zip files. This ibm article describes how to share plugins across different installations.

However, advanced users prefer seggregating plugins under a single location. Like all EMF plugins under one directory and python plugins in a different directory. Then create links to such. The benefit of this approach, you can remove and add features and plugins by a simple add/removal of link file. This also implies less memory utilization, you will be able to tweak you VM args to make use of optimal memory, without burdening the system. Implying better overall performance.

Michael wrote an excellent article in this regards. Happy tweaking!