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Does Eclipse support Linux desktop application development?

I've been assigned to develop a software on Linux, opensuse 11.4. Now the issue is that I'm a Java developer and I want to make that software on Java. Can I use Eclipse IDE for this software? It will be a desktop application on Linux. If Eclipse supports this type of development, what plug-ins do I need to get it started?
Plus I need to use some library routines as well. Can I do all this using Java and Eclipse IDE and some additional plug-ins?
Any help would be highly appreciated.

You may not realize it, but there are two distinct parts to this question. The response depends somewhat on whether you've already decided what GUI toolkit to use. The two obvious choices for a Java app are AWT/Swing (Java's "standard" GUI frameworks) or Eclipse's SWT/RCP. You see, Eclipse is more than just an IDE, it's a platform on which you can build applications. Here is the official description, and here is a very good intro and tutorial. Of course has plenty of tooling built-in to help you develop an RCP app.
If you're looking to stick with AWT/Swing, then Eclipse also has tooling to help with that. Specifically, WindowBuilder (WB) is included in the Eclipse IDE for Java Developers package that you can download. WB helps a lot in designing and implementing your GUI.

Java is (almost) write once, run anywhere (WORA). Thus any Java program you write should be able to run on any architecture and operating system that supports Java. In other words, you don't need to do anything extra to make your program run properly on Linux.
Eclipse can package your application in nice JAR files and the like which can be distributed to any OS.

Just download Eclipse IDE for Java Developers. You won't need any plug-ins.

For someone coming from Visual Studio/C# background and wants to learn Java - Which should I get: Netbeans or Eclipse?

I'm looking for the following:
A nice debugger that allows me to easily view variable values if I use breakpoints.
Works very nicely in Windows 7.
Has something similar to the Toolbox pane in Visual Studio.
Built in intellisense, and code completion with the TAB key.
Long term support. I mean something that will last and stay in active development for years. I don't want a pet project IDE that will stop developing in a year. I'm just learning so it'll be very dificult at first to switch IDE's.
I'm new so I don't really know which IDE provides what I need between the two. Any help?

Well, I switched from Eclipse to Visual Studio, and I use both just about every day.
I found it hard to get used to the little differences at first, but now I am proficient in both IDEs.
I can't speak to whether or not Netbeans would be easier to learn, but Eclipse shouldn't be hard at all.
Both IDEs will provide all of the features that you have listed, and you should be able to customize both of them to get them to work almost exactly like Visual Studio.

So you want to learn Java and your first question is about which IDE to learn ? I suggest you look at BlueJ which is an IDE designed for people who want to learn Java. From my, I admit limited, experience with the IDEs you mention, BlueJ is the one which gets least in one's way when trying to learn Java as opposed to learning the IDE. Once you've exhausted BlueJ's capabilities there is an easy progression to NetBeans through a plug-in but you would probably not find it too difficult to step up to Eclipse instead.
Yes, I know you want to choose between Eclipse and NetBeans but BlueJ might be of interest.

This is a common debate, and there are obviously merits on both sides (this might be better served as a community wiki page). I prefer Eclipse, but to answer your questions as well as I can briefly:
Works very nicely in Windows 7.
Both are fine.
Has something similar to the Toolbox pane in Visual Studio.
Sorry, not familiar. Neither are short on panes, though Eclipse has a richer cache of third party plugins that might give you the experience you want.
Built in intellisense, and code completion with the TAB key.
I believe both are Ctrl-Space by default. If you're working in Java in Eclipse, there's an automated pop-up after a half second delay each time you type a separator (.) character.
Long term support. I mean something that will last and stay in active development for >years. I don't want a pet project IDE that will stop developing in a year. I'm just >learning so it'll be very dificult at first to switch IDE's.
Both are very mature products. I'd imagine Eclipse's fortunes are a little more secure simply because NetBeans might experience some turbulence during the Oracle acquisition of Sun.
My only other comment is that it's always seemed to me that Netbeans had far nicer "click-and-go" project templates out of the box, while Eclipse offered richer third party library integrations and a better debugger.

Probably both will do. Personally, I'd rather use Netbeans, because it's easier to get started right-out-of-the box. Eclipse depends more on plugins.

Why not try both and see which one suits your individual tastes more?

Both are find but if you want to build GUI's, Netbeans has the edge as it has a built in GUI builder, including a toolbox of controls to use with it.
Eclipse does not have a GUI builder. The commercial Eclipse distribution, MyEclipse does have a GUI builder - it's actually the one from Netbeans.

Neither Intellij IDEA is the Cadillac of Java IDEs

Netbeans = Great out of box experiance
Eclipse = Highly customizable with plugins and (so I've heard) slightly better intellisence-like capabilities.
If possible, I'd say try both (despite the bandwidth problem). If you get basic Java Development versions, the sizes aren't that big (48 MB for NetBeans and 92 MB for Eclipse)
I personally prefer NetBean's in-built capabilities since I don't like having to install plugins to make my experience the way I want it (and not all Eclipse plugins are free) but most of my fellow java devs prefer Eclipse's simplicity and ease of use.

I think you should try Intellij Idea, it the most powerful-intuitive java IDE I've never seen (http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html). The new Community Edition is free and more than enough for java developpement. As it is highly configurable you can choose 'TAB' for auto completion, but I think you can learn from existing combinations that are well design.
Regards.

Java has some really nice IDEs available and many will do what you require.
I dont know you, but I use VS with Resharper so I m very used to those shortcuts, if you do too then have a look at IntelliJ ( they have a comunity edition)
Otherwise you can get eclipse and get the IntelliJ keymap ( or try to get the default VS keymap)
Netbeans is nice too, but I had some problems with it ( ie didnt build, rancomly crashing, etc)
Also most offer Source Control integration ( in Eclipse you have many flavours of subversion for example)
I guess you ll have to play around and find what suits you
Cheers

Emacs and Java change propagation and errors notification

Emacs and Java change propagation
Hi,
I'm mostly used to code in IDE like Eclipse but I wanted to try emacs. Because I keep hearing about how much better it is than big IDE like Eclipse and Visual Studio.
So I was looking at what emacs provides for Java (with the JDEE extension) but it doesn't seem as complete as Eclipse.
One of the most important thing I look for in a Java editor is change propagation and error notification. For example if I rename a class, I want to be able to have all the declarations of this class renamed automatically. And if I delete a method, I want to be able to see all the place where this creates errors.
I didn't find those things in emacs, and this is a showstopper for me, I can't see how I could work on big projects without those features.
So my question is : those features don't exist or is it just me that haven't looked at the right place?

Emacs can be better that Eclipse, but the question is "for what"? Emacs (and VIM) are generally smaller, faster and optimized for text editing and navigation*. In recent versions Eclipse are quite capable for editing and navigating java code but with different "style".
If you are willing to learn Emacs then learn it. You will get experiences on your own and it is very important for a developer (you are the only one can decide what is work for you). But learning Emacs does not mean to "throw out" Eclipse, they can co-exist quite well if you use ant or maven-based project building and a source control system. You can for example do all editing in Emacs while for debugging and refactoring use Eclipse.
There are some interesting thought in this thread about Emacs and java development. Also there is an interesting read and conclusions about Emacs and Eclipse from someone who tried both environment.
If you are not an expert Eclipse user yet you should look at the powerful editing and navigating features of Eclipse before starting Emacs:
10 Eclipse navigation shortcuts every java programmer should know
Effective Eclipse: shortcut keys
Effective Eclipse: custom templates
Effective Eclipse: fix it quickly
Back to the question: there is an Emacs extension called Xrefactory for Java but it does not support Java 1.5 features so it is useful only if you use Java 1.4 or older.
(*) of course they are much more, I know :)

Emacs is an incredible editor, with good support for developing in C. For developing in Java there is much better support in one of the Java IDE's which has deep knowledge about the programs being edited. You probably want something like Eclipse, JDeveloper or Netbeans.
In my opinion you will not be satisified with developing Java with Emacs, and you should use another tool.

I don't know much about Emacs (so you may regard the following as off-topic), but I work with both Eclipse and VIM.
I use Eclipse for big Java projects, and I can't live without the large-scale features (cross-project renaming/refactoring etc.). I use VIM for small scale stuff (e.g. knocking up code for StackOverflow examples in multiple languages).
Eclipse and VIM have very different capabilities and consequently I use each bearing this in mind. I don't expect VIM to do the heavy lifting, but on the other hand I don't expect Eclipse to start in a keystroke and to be able to write a new (small) project in a few seconds (in whatever language I require - not restricted to Java). Perhaps you should look at the Emacs/Eclipse pair in a similar light ?

Is it possible to use Visual Studio as an IDE for Google Web Toolkit?

As a long time user of Visual Studio, I feel comfortable using this as my primary IDE for editing code (I primarily code in C#/ASP.NET). Lately I've been looking more in depth into the Google Web Toolkit (or GWT) as a potential tool for building rapid web client tools for the web. I would therefore like to know whether it is possible to edit Java syntax, and otherwise set Visual Studio up to built web applications for GWT?

The option i m using is using Eclipse with an IntelliJ Idea key mapping ( i m a resharper fan and I miss it)
Another option is take the plunge and get IntelliJ Idea, its a fantastic IDE and it was really easy to get used to it, it has some nice pluggins for GWT development too
Cheers

What is Visual Studio's support for Java like, I assuming that its GWT support is not as good. ;)
I think you are better off using an IDE which actually supports GWT.
You could have a look at http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/gwt.html The demo is rather old (from 2006) but if you haven't seen IntelliJ it might be interesting.

Visual Studio used to be the best Java IDE in the 90's.
Since then much better alternatives came out.
The 3 most commonly used right now are:
Eclipse
NetBeans
IntelliJ.
Microsoft stopped supporting Java development a long time ago. At that time Java was still at 1.3. With Java 1.5 the language was extended with generics and other constructs that Visual Studio will certainly not support.

If you manage to use Visual Studio for Java (or maybe J# could work?), integrate Maven in it and then use the maven gwt plugin to translate the java to ajax, it shoooould be possible.
But this is just an idea, would probably take a lot of efford, if it works at all.

What is the current state of tooling for Scala?

Over the past year, I've heard an increasing amount of hype regarding the Scala language. I know that there are several existing projects that have plans to integrate Scala support with IDEs; however, it isn't always clear how good the integration really is.
Do they currently support Intellisense as well as Eclipse and Netbeans do for the Java language? Do they support instant verification as well?

I can't personally speak to the stability of the IntelliJ or NetBeans plugins (though I have heard good things), but the Scala IDE for Eclipse just recently made a new release with Scala 2.7.4. Architecturally, this release is quite different from the previous ones in that it uses Equinox Aspects, the officially supported mechanism for extending JDT (and other cross-plugin extensions). Whereas before the Scala plugin had to literally hack into the JDT internals using private APIs and reflection to trick the system into behaving properly, now it is able to simply declare its extension points and let the system do the rest. It's hard to even describe how much more stable this makes things. I'm not saying that it's all sunshine and roses yet, but if you've tried and rejected the plugin in the past (as I had), it's time to give it another look.
As for how it stacks up feature-wise, SDT doesn't have any refactoring support (IntelliJ has some basic stuff like "Rename"), nor does the editor do some things like "Mark Occurrences". However, it has a significantly better Outline than NetBeans, better compiler support than IDEA, and very good semantic highlighting. All three plugins support content assist (or "intellisense", as Microsoft calls it), but none of them are particularly reliable in this area just yet. The Scala IDE for Eclipse is the only one to support incremental compilation (alla Eclipse's Java tooling).
My advice: shop around. Try all three and see which one works the best for you. From what I've been hearing, the Scala IDE for Eclipse has leap-frogged the competition with its latest release, but the others have shown such consistent stability and steady advancement that you can't count them out just yet.

Here's a similar question:
Which is the best IDE for Scala development?
In my very short experience with the Scala IDE for Eclipse and the Scala Plugin for Netbeans, it seemed like the Netbeans plug-in was a little more solid than the Eclipse one.
With the Scala IDE for Eclipse I was having problems with running a Hello World-type Scala object, and sometimes the syntax highlighting would start acting up. Then, I tried out the Netbeans plug-in, and it seemed to be more functional than the Eclipse one.
I haven't used either Scala IDE plug-in much in-depth, so I can't speak out of a lot of experience, but just from my initial impression, the Netbeans plug-in seemed a little bit more stable than the Eclipse one.

Currently, all three main IDEs are at roughly the same level of support.
IntelliJ - the plugin has fits of not working at all, but is otherwise quite good. The underlying platform is sluggish (at least in linux) since v8.
Eclipse - the plugin is receiving a lot of support and is under very active development.
NetBeans - IMHO, the plugin works a little better than the Eclipse one, but not being able to run arbitrary files is a major downer.
All of the above suffer from being unable to parse the AST in all contexts. It is quite easy to confuse them by mixing in traits with implicit defs, for example. No IDE can be trusted when it advises of a syntax error. Fall back to the compiler to be certain.

I'm quite happy using IntelliJ IDEA 8.1 and its Scala plugin and can recommend it. It even has a roadmap that you can influence by voting your favorite missing features :) I don't have experience with the Scala support of the other IDE's, unfortunately.

I'm using the Eclipse Scala plugin. Its pretty good but not at the same level as the Java tooling.

AS for intelliJ, no idea.
But between Eclipse and Netbeans, I must say Netbeans especially if you are not willing trade maven for sbt and you want an IDE that does not get in the way of maven.
Netbeans maven support is just way too good.
The Netbeans scala editor seems to work quite nicely as well.
I care not for the integrated scala development kit in netbeans or the compiler plugin, or any such helpers. From netbeans I expect only tthree things:
(a) Do not get in the way of maven and let maven run my build
(b) Give me a decent editor
(c) Let me drill down from my .scala files into the source code of the libraries referred by my maven dependencies.
And Netebeans is able to deliver all three quite well, I belive, even if at times it feels a bit too slow.
What I can say is that
(1) You do not run into any compilation issues since the task is up to maven.
The maven compiler plugin is a bit too slow. But compiling scala vs java is always like that, painful. Still if you've tried GWT compiling java to javascript is more painful even.
(2) Netbeans figures out the source code to you maven dependencies flawlessly and you can drill in into the most obscure sacala operators, such as the CSS mappers of lift.
As for eclipse, eclipse maven integration has always been nasty.
Netbeans maven integration can turn very sour if you have a big project with too many dependencies and modules. Then the check for external changes done by netbeans is just horribly slow. That is the downside of netbeans.
However, if you are and SBT fan ... well, maybe then answer might be something else.
But for me, since maven has become the thing it is today, I never want to go back again to those "web application project", "library project" etc... wizard like options that you have when you create a new project in the IDE.
I simply want "maven project", and please figure out what my output artefact is by reading the pom.