How to upgrade Eclipse from 3.5 (Galileo) to 3.6 (Helios) the proper way?

Question

I notice this question has been asked a few times but I don't really like the solution with two Eclipses in parallel. I just want my Galileo upgraded to Helios with preservation of all settings, plugins and workspaces, without the mumbo-jumbo like copying plugins manually and stuff. I've got the Android plugin, the C/C++ plugin, the PyDev plugin and what not more.

Is there a quick and sure way to upgrade Eclipse like this? I've found some instructions on the Eclipse wiki, but it doesn't seem to work with my system (Ubuntu 10.04; I add the Helios site and then Check for Updates, but it doesn't take Helios as an update for Eclipse). Has someone found a solution for this?

UPDATE: The way described in the wiki seems to work on my Windows-installed Eclipse, Check For Updates lists "Eclipse SDK v.3.6.0" as an available update.

Porta

It never even occurred to me to upgrade between yearly Eclipse releases. My concern was that some plugin versions might change the metadata they store in the workspace, thus rendering the previously used workspace unusable, or even worse, introduce subtle bugs. Interesting to see that this seems to work much better in practice... – Akkadian

Also you'll have to wait for the Android plugin to support Helios, right now it doesn't. – Irishman

install new software from download.eclipse.org/releases/helios – Koster

Just to update - the new 3.7 (Indigo) release seems to work fine in Oneiric. – Preconceive

Answer 1

You cannot. You have to download, uncompress and run it without the ubuntu repository. In this scenario you can upgrade without problems ;-)

If you want to use Helios through the ubuntu repository you have to wait beyond Maverick (10.10) as you can see here: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse

Wavellite

+1 for the info @FerranB! -50 for the choice to leave 3.6.2 out of Maverick. – Afrikaner

Answer 2

Hopefully this will save somebody some trouble... I installed Helios from the zip but found that Eclipse couldn't install new plugins because of screwy dependancies. I found that I had to remove the old Eclipse folders from ~/.eclipse. Hope this helps somebody! (My system: Ubuntu 10.04, 64bit)

Colligate

Answer 3

After installing the ppa version of 3.6 supplied by the Eclipse Team I was unable to run eclipse, got splash screen then it closed. I then downloaded the latest version of eclipse 3.6. I then extracted eclipse into the ppa installed directory. Make sure you over-write all packages. Once this was down I tried eclipse again and it was successful.

Merridie

Answer 4

Just a word of warning that I tried upgrading to 3.6.0 via the "Eclipse Team" ppa on Launchpad.net and had absolutely no luck. Details upon request.

Poteen