Changes

Getting and installing Eclipse used to be is still a lot more difficult than it is todayshould be (owing in part to the fact that it continues to grow in size, scope and complexity). In late 2008, it is '''still''' not as simple as <code>sudo apt-get install eclipse</code>. You can If you do thatusing Ubuntu Hardy Heron, but the installed version will be 3.2, which dates from 2006 and '''will fail to meet requirements for recent modules like PDT'''. What's worse, the eclipse system can NOT upgrade itself. See '''https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EclipseIDE''' for more accurate help in installing Eclipse. The short instructions are to install a Java Virtual Machine (which you can use synaptic or apt-get for) and to '''download''' Eclipse and install it manually. Add to that a lot of additional module installations.

In spite of any relative ease compared to the way it was "back in the day" (when just installing Java on Linux took about a decade and three lawyers), it's a large project, with Java as a dependency and many applications that you can install on top of the framework. So, an exact description of how to get setup is important. In addition to the foregoing details, http://groups.drupal.org/node/6261 describes how to get yourself setup with a completely free development environment. It starts with Ubuntu (the Debian-based desktop distribution) and ends with configuring Eclipse for working with Drupal coding standards. (Now nicknamed appropriately 'Drubuntu'.)