I have separate Eclipse packages installed and don’t want them to use the default .eclipse setting folder in Home.

Suppose following layout

#unpacked Eclipse archive
/opt/eclipseCdt

#chosen configuration folder
~/config/eclipseCdt

#chosen workspace folder
~/workspaceCdt

Then a call/script/menuitem of the following type (single line) will use those:

/opt/eclipseCdt/eclipse 
-vmargs -Dosgi.instance.area.default=~/workspaceCdt -Dosgi.configuration.area=~/config/eclipseCdt

Benefits:

  • use of any folders
  • clean updates by deleting old eclipse-folder and unpacking new version
  • no more fiddling and remembering to put entries in eclipse.ini