Stupid Eclipse Tricks

I’ve done this so many times…

Today I downloaded the Ganymede M5 release of Eclipse for RCP/Plug-in Developers and did what I always do:

1. Create a link of the eclipse executable, using the handy icon.xpm graphic, and drag the combination onto my desktop for easy launching; and
2. Open the eclipse.ini file and make the following changes:

...
-Xmx1024m
-XX:MaxPermSize=128

Do you see it? I do this about every other time I install Eclipse (which, with all the development leading to up Ganymede is quite often). I forgot the darned “M” on the “MaxPermSize” directive. It should read:

...
-Xmx1024m
-XX:MaxPermSize=128M

128 megabytes of MaxPermSize is much better than 128 bytes. In the words of the Best Buy robot, “Megabyte me” (that’s what he means by it, right?)

The symptoms are frustrating… You start Eclipse and it appears to be doing something just before it complete disappears.

If you’re curious about why the heck I’d do this, check out Tuning Eclipse for Performance.