Could you upgrade Eclipse and Netbeans

[larienna]

I wanted to try programming with Java FX 8, so I tried to setup my computer for it to realize that the Eclipse and Netbeans version on Debian 8 are way too old to support the required plug-ins

Eclipse is still at version 3.8, which was released in 2012.
While Netbeans is version 7.4 which was released in 2013.

I understand that debian tries to get older but more stable versions of software. But I cannot believe that all versions of eclipses since 2012 are unstable.

I tried installing eclipse neon manually, but I screwed up the install process because only root could run the program.

I'll be trying to install netbeans manually and see if I can make it work.

[dasein]

At the risk of asking the most obvious of questions, have you looked in backports?

Also, you clearly don't understand Debian's release model. Have a look here: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases

[PavloM]

Hello

Sorry not get initially, that you on 2013 year version ... though you could try with STS and Eclipse


I not work with JavaFX 8 for some time, though still work with Java and just yesterday set up with Spring Tool Suite. This is Eclipse with some preinstalled Spring stuff - but there should not be any problem to run with JavaFX.

This is fairly easy - download, unzip and you can run it with double click /sts-bundle/sts-3.8.4.RELEASE/STS

This makes me think that you can run Eclipse in same manner .

Though to use JAVA FX8 you have to use JAVA 8. Check this with

Code: Select all

java -version

in terminal. Ugrade to 8 is not straight forward on Debian. Though I was able to upgrade to Open JDK 8 with backports.

The second question here, is Java FX still not in Java core specification. so Java FX packages could be missed on your system, especially if you not use Oracle JDK but Open JDK. I cannot say for sure is it possible to use JavaFX with Open JDK at all.

[Bulkley]

Occasionally a package goes stale, remains unattended for several years. When that happens it is highly likely that the developer has abandoned it or no one has ported newer versions to Debian. In such cases look for alternatives.

[larienna]

"At the risk of asking the most obvious of questions, have you looked in backports?"

Unless I don't get it right, The back ports allow you to access the software in the next stable version of debian from an old version. But when the next stable of debian does not hold a more updated version of Eclipse and Netbeans, it's pointless to use backports.

"I cannot say for sure is it possible to use JavaFX with Open JDK at all."

For running Java FX it's not an issue. You just need open JDK and an additional package called "openjfx".

"Occasionally a package goes stale, remains unattended for several years. When that happens it is highly likely that the developer has abandoned it or no one has ported newer versions to Debian."

I could understand that some obscur software could suddenly stop getting updated. Or like for "Code Blocks" there is some conflict issues with libraries or other stuff that prevents it from getting upgraded. But I don't consider Eclipse and Netbeans to be obscur software, unless you consider Java itself to be obscur.

[pylkko]

Java is horrible.

The package tracker indicates that in testing Netbeans is 8.1 (i.e almost the latest, which is 8.2?) but that there is no version in stable now. I don't know why this is, maybe they didn't try to get it into the repo or maybe there were too many problems that it could not be accepted. The version of Eclipse, on the other hand is the 3.8 (unofficial release) version that was released by developers on their own when 4.2 was released as it suffered so many performance/bug problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)

This is not just a Debian issue, other distros like Ubuntu also use 3.8

If you search online about it you find people complaining about it taking twice as long to switch between tabs, daily crashes and whatnot. Because 3.8 at that time was "just as good" many probably just fell back to it untill 4.x matures enough. I don't know if it will ever make it back to Debian in a recent form. So, you just have to install from the upstream packages (if you absolutely need it).

[dasein]

"At the risk of asking the most obvious of questions, have you looked in backports?"

Unless I don't get it right, The back ports allow you to access the software in the next stable version of debian from an old version. But when the next stable of debian does not hold a more updated version of Eclipse and Netbeans, it's pointless to use backports.

(a) You have it wrong and
(b) You spent more time arguing than you would have checking backports

I call troll.

[larienna]

Wow! I never though somebody would ever call me a troll.

If there are good reasons not to update, I am ok with that. It's just I thought if there was issues with a software, it would have been fixed within 5 years.

I did tried Netbeans 8.2 on my old netbook and it was extremely slow. I did not tried eclipse yet, but according to the comments, it should probably not be better.

I thought I should dig into JavaFX instead of Swing since swing would become obsolete, but for now I need more recent tools to get JFX support. I'll first wait for the next debian 9 release to reinstall my main computer and then install Eclipse manually if necessary. I just need Netbeans 8+, so if debian 9 has netbeans 8.1, that would be perfect.