I'm in the process of moving form Mars to Neon and have a test workstation setup running Fedora 24 for testing. For my production I am running Mars and used Fedora's package to install it but the Fedora Packages deviate from upstream in someway and have caused some issues on F24. All that to say I spent today working with Oomph to install Neon on my test machine. I'm installing the PHP IDE package and have lots of questions.

1. Bundle pools - I changed the install path to /.opt/eclipse/php-neon and created a directory /opt/eclipse/bundles/php. I deleted the /root bundle and added this one. I then installed using Oomph.

Neon ran and showed that my bundle was /opt/eclipse/bundles/php so I added an extension from the marketplace - YEDIT, a yaml editor. It was installed but the files were put in my user's (non-root) .eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_bignumber_linux_gtk/features directory.

I thought this was supposed to install the extension in my /opt bundle directory, not in my own .eclipse directory so what went wrong. This defeats the purpose of bundles if it's doing local installs but then maybe I don't understand how this works.

Edit: I ran Eclipse as root from a terminal an installed another extension. It ended up in my non-root user home directory, too and not in the /opt/eclipse/bundles directory

2. The second question comes from the first. I can put my bundle directories anywhere but what permissions should the directory and it's files have?

And also, when I install extensions such as yedit do I have to do it as root or can any user add extensions? Right now my bundles directory has 777 but that's too wide open and when I installed it as my non-root user the files end up in my own .eclipse directory.

3. I see lots of references to the ability to use Oomph after the install is done for things like creating projects?? How do I do that?

4. Finally, are there any GOOD documents that explain how Oomph works such as what permissions are needed on the bundles directories; how do these extensions get installed to the bundles directory, what directory structure does Oomph use for bundles, how should we manage extensions - do we have to have one user install or can/should all install.

Yes, I've spent the afternoon reading Eclipse docs on bundles, OOmph docs, many other web sites that basically show screenshots of the installer and are useless. Eclipse docs have unfinished sections about bundles and pools. The best site I found was https://www.bsi-software.com/en/scout-blog/article/oomph-changes-the-way-you-handle-multiple-eclipse-installations.html and he did not go into actually how to setup the directories and locations used by Oomph/p2 but that was out of the scope of the article. I even watched the video of the conference in Germany with the demo and I have to add a third reason on why people shy away from Oomph - No one can figure out how to use it. I feel like the guy on the first few slides who is trying to work with the kewl project <G> but instead I'm trying to get Oomph setup and working! I know that Oomph and bundles can be a really big asset to Eclipse but I need to know how to make it work.

Thanks for any input and help.

Thank you for the detailed answer. I continued working with an Oomph installed Eclipse and doing more research. Maybe the light is starting to dawn.

As I understand it the traditional install is eclipse executable and associated files are installed somewhere such as /opt/eclipse. From there everyone who uses the workstation can run it but if they add any plugins they end up in the users .eclipse folder so we have one executable location and plugins for each user which duplicates plugins and takes up disk space.

To solve that issue bundles and pools were introduced and now instead of having extensions installed in every users home the extensions are installed (or are supposed to be installed) to the central plugin directory, say /usr/share/bundles or whatever. This location must be readable by everyone at least and if users are allowed to add extensions then it must also be writable by them and if there is a "admin" user who can add extensions it can be read only for all and writable for him only. Is that still correct?

I don't want to turn bundles off because I really see the benefit of them. What is the recommend or intended way to use Eclipse with pools. I see where I can control the installation and pool directory but not where I can change the agent install although I assume that should reside with the user or is it not user specific?

Should I be installing the executables in a common area like /opt/eclipse or should every user get his own install. What is the recommended practice and why?

It seems to me a central install of the various IDEs saves disk space for the installation parts and using pools saves space for extensions and each user has his .p2 and .eclipse directory so that makes sense but maybe I'm missing something.

So if a person uses both PHP IDE and needs the Javascript IDE also does he install both IDEs or just add plugins for Javascript to the PHP IDE. As I understand it the real difference in IDEs is what's packaged with them so you can take any IDE and add enough extensions to make it another IDE.

So far this pertains to Eclipse without Oomph. So what does Oomph introduce. As I understand it one of the big things Oomph gives us is an installer that lets us pick not only IDEs but also control bundles to be used and pick a project type to install and basically clone a project. After the install then Oomph lets us clone projects to our installed IDE. One neat thing I found was that if I use the Oomph project setup I can set up preferences,etc. and then (I think) I can use that to create new projects. Say I setup my PHP IDE I can get all the settings where I want them and If I understand it correctly I can use that to create new projects with settings already setup - correct?

I believe my issue with where the extensions where installed stemmed from the fact that I removed the Eclipse install from /opt and the two home directories and then reinstalled but didn't set the bundles directory and it's sub-directory permissions to 777. I'll try again with the correct permissions. I did check preferences and made sure it was pointed at the /opt pool.

I understand about documentation. It's tough to write when trying to get a release out and nobody likes documenting (well, almost nobody - I like it<G>). The German presentation would have been helpful but on the YouTube video the slides are unreadable once it hit demo time so I'm only getting the audio and not seeing what's on the screen which is a blur.

Yeah, I looked at the Wiki and the links but most of them were how to run the installer very basic. I'll look at the authoring guide but I skipped it because I was looking for user how to and didn't want to get into writing things for Oomph but through a series of other articles and following the links I ended up there from a link about setting preferences so I see it's not just for creating Oomph addons. The BSI article I referenced was the best on giving an overview of what can be done and I found another by him about the concept of using Oomph for projects. Then again, the bundles and pools and recommended installation practices are really Eclipse and not Oomph responsibility and the Eclipse help is not good on bundles unless you are writing a plugin. They have very little about actually using it as a user or Eclipse admin and some linked help pages are blank.

Thank you again for the information. As I get further into Oomph it appears to be a fantastic solution to a problem plaguing everyone. While Eclipse is a great tool it can get cumbersome to manage projects but Oomph appears to provide a solution. I'll keep working with it.

I have the common bundles working. I just had to set the bundles directory to 755 so the user can read it but not write to it. The administrator (root right now) can read and write and add plugins. the users can use them. Right now the bundles are installed in /opt/eclipse/bundles but I'll move them to a place more suitable to the Linux FileSystem specs.

Basically I've done a master install for the PHP IDE that everyone can use and am using pools to share the extensions with the admin/root being the only one who can add extensions at this point. What is standard/recommended/actual practice for this? To me the master install and pools saves disk space and controls what gets installed so it makes the most sense.

Right now I'm doing mainly PHP work and if I understand it right I can install the JScript Web/Dev items into the PHP IDE when I need to do JScript - is that correct? Supposedly the IDEs just differ in what's bundled in them and everything is an extension so it can be added? Wwhat about those who do JScript. Do I install the JScript/Web IDE separately and create bundles for it and let them use that? What do people in the real world do?

I've been reading the authoring guide - by the way that implies to me I'll be writing plugins or extensions, not a guide for using.

• User installs setups
  
• Author writes setups
  
• Extender develops custom setup tasks
  

Brett Holcomb wrote on Thu, 25 August 2016 18:30

I've been reading the authoring guide - by the way that implies to me I'll be writing plugins or extensions, not a guide for using.

We use the following terms for the involved roles:

• User installs setups
  
• Author writes setups
  
• Extender develops custom setup tasks