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I've tried to use Eclipse on linux in the past several times but often found it would crash, randomly disappear etc..

More recently I've started using it on windows - specifically the Helios PDT version as I'm a php developer.

Generally it's fine, but when I use RSE for editing 'directly' on FTP sites I find I get null pointer errors and all sorts when I try to save files and it'll often fail. I know FTP is pretty lame but it's all I have access to in a lot of cases where clients are running their own servers.

So really this is two questions: 1. Is there an obvious way to run eclipse in a stable manner? Perhaps some settings I should provide to the JVM? etc.. I made sure I didn't download any beta or pre-release versions. 2. I get the impression Eclipse is terribly buggy. Is there anything like it? I'm an emacs user so whatever the alternative - it'll need emacs key binding capabilities.

MrSmith42
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John Hunt
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  • possible duplicate of [What is the best IDE for PHP ?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/116292/what-is-the-best-ide-for-php) – zengr Nov 10 '10 at 22:46
  • Is there an emacs mode for treating an FTP server as a file system? Wait, it's emacs. Let me rephrase. Do you know the name of the emacs mode for treating an FTP server as a file system? – Cameron Skinner Nov 10 '10 at 22:46
  • It's not really a duplicate. This is about Eclipse stability. That other question os about PHP IDEs. Some overlap, but not exact duplicates – The Archetypal Paul Nov 10 '10 at 22:47

8 Answers8

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Eclipse at its own is stable. It's only memory hogging. The instability is usually caused by 3rd party plugins. So, give it enough memory and don't install plugins of which you aren't sure if it's stable.

BalusC
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  • +1. Totally agree. Take a look at this question too http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1192672/how-to-diagnose-eclipse-crashes – bancer Nov 10 '10 at 23:25
  • Thanks, I altered my eclipse.ini to give it a lot more memory and it seems alright now :) – John Hunt Nov 15 '10 at 03:17
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I've learned to prefer netbeans. it's a little on the heavy side but has good support and is very noticable stabler that eclipse for me.

FatherStorm
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  • There's however not so plenty choice of plugins for Netbeans. That'll maybe be why it's apparently a bit more stable :) – BalusC Nov 10 '10 at 22:58
  • Yeah, I've been checking out netbeans for a few days now, and the way it works with remote systems is just *way* too slow for me to use seriously. It also actually seems slower than Eclipse. – John Hunt Nov 15 '10 at 03:17
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which version of eclipse you are using on ubuntu? try not to use the one in ubuntu's repository because it's old and buggy

AlanNg
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Hmmm, okay this is a personal opinion and I know there are people who will disagree. Which is fine :-)

But I don't think Eclipse is your problem. Here's why, I've been using Eclipse for year to do java based work and I've found it to be very good and stable. When I have found issues, it's always been with a version of Eclipse where someone (usually a large computer corp) has used it as a base to create their own IDE. In other words they have piled in a mess of custom plugins.

That's one of the strenghts of Eclipse, that anyone can add functionality by creating plugins for it. Thats the reason why you can do so much with it. It's also it's weakness because if those plugins are poorly written, it gives a bad impression of Eclipse.

So I would tend to think that the problems you are having are not Eclipse so much, but the Helios plugins.

drekka
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Talking to you from Ubuntu 10.10 x64 / using Helios... no problem so far.

Also, is quite unclear the title "all the bugs" and reading problems with eclipse shutting down (which is one problem not even confirmed as a bug).

Try adjusting eclipse.ini parameters in order to allow the use of decent memory (yes, if you manage many plugins and perspectives, it eventually grow!). And be aware of the JDK with the Oracle vendor, if kills any Eclipse...

EDIT: Now I remember a sudden-death problem some time ago which made me grumpy. It was triggered by the action of hovering on something to see properties and so... it was related to the xulrunner library. You must use the 1.9.2; guessed the updating process didn't include removing the former (1.9.1) and let them coexist... but this lead to problems and yes, shutting down unexpectedly. Removed the older and problems went away. In the end, it wasn't Eclipse's fault (none of the problems I told you here are Eclipse's fault, indeed)

PS. If you bring a specific problem, I may help you as well as many others. Be careful not to blame on something instead of facing a real problem. Finally, Netbeans is pretty good too. has a neat support for PHP and all the stuff (also consumes memory).

Good luck with that.

Alfabravo
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The netbeans is another good choice , their autocomplete not crashes in time of Zend Framework development , when you really need to know what's inside without googling it , just writing the code .. I'm also linux user , netbeans works good for me.

Conex
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I use PDT for about two years. It has never crashed on Windows. There were some crashes on Ubuntu but that was because of bad RAM and unsufficient memory allocation. Here is my configuration file (eclipse.ini) on Windows:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.201.R35x_v20090715.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.200.v20090519
-product
org.eclipse.epp.package.php.product
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
512M
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
512m
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-Xms40m
-Xmx512m
bancer
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I also had many crashes usually during window maximization. try to disable animation - it worked for me.
Window -> Preferences... General -> Appearance -> uncheck Enable animations.

oshai
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