1.4. Starting Eclipse¶

You can start Eclipse from the Run menu as

Starting Eclipse in windows

Note

Depending on installation of Eclipse, the path may vary.

First you will get the splash screen.

Eclipse splash screen

Then you would be asked to choose an eclipse workspace.

Selecting a workspace in Eclipse

Then you will get the Eclipse Welcome Screen. The welcome screen is only shown for the first time. After that you will always see The default view of Eclipse

Eclipse welcome screen

As shown in the image, go to the workbench. You will see the normal Eclipse screen.

The default view of Eclipse

1.4.1. Different ways of starting Eclipse¶

These are some of the different ways you can start the Eclipse IDE.

You can start it:

From the GUI. Double click on Eclipse executable
Command line or the Run menu. Execute eclipse command. (If the eclipse command is in path.)

On Windows, you maybe able to use either of the command depending on where you installed Eclipse or what your path settings are.
```
C:\eclipse\eclipse.exe

eclipse.exe

eclipse
```
Similarly, for Linux
```
/opt/eclipse/eclipse

/home/user/opt/eclipse/eclipse

eclipse
```
For simplicity, we would use eclipse as the common command between Linux and Windows. And assume eclipse executable is in path.

Pass optional command line arguments:

# eclipse -vmargs -Xmx<memory size>
eclipse -vmargs -Xmx700m

For convenience, we can also create separate desktop shortcuts with Eclipse specific startup settings.

1.4.2. Changing the startup behaviour¶

1.4.2.1. Java Settings¶

Eclipse is based on Java. You can change settings that effect Java.

The Java Virtual Machine used:
eclipse -vm c:\java6\jre\bin\javaw
Amount of startup memory allocated:
eclipse -vmargs -Xms100m
Amount of maximum memory allocated to Eclipse:
eclipse -vmargs -Xmx700m
Other JVM parameters:
eclipse -vmargs -XX:MaxPermSize=400m -Xms100m -Xmx700m

1.4.2.2. Eclipse specific startup settings¶

The workspace used by Eclipse:
eclipse -data x:/secure/eclipse.workspace
Clean up the meta data:
eclipse -data x:/secure/eclipse.workspace -clean
Etc.

More about starting Eclipse can be found at this Eclipsepedia page